Perspective: Political winds shifting on the prairie

Left: Randy Methany. Above: An abandoned building just outside his hometown of McCook, Nebraska.

MCCOOK, NEB. — In early February, the war in Iraq came home to this small railroad town on the Nebraska prairie where farms begin to give way to high plains.

Seven thousand miles away on a Baghdad street, a bomb exploded beside Army Sgt. Randy J. Matheny's armored vehicle, killing the 20-year-old McCook High School graduate and stunning his small hometown.

"It caused us all to reexamine what we were thinking," said Walt Sehnert, who has run a popular bakery on McCook's main street since 1957. "Those of us who were adamant about the war had to stand back and take a deep breath."

Across Nebraska, there has been a lot of reexamination lately.

Read the rest at the LA Times