I was going to write about the death penalty and its place in this year's U.S. Senate race, but I'm holding that for an afternoon because something struck me, like a cold slap across the face: the heart-breaking story of Sean Cruz and his late son.

Sean Cruz, chief-of-staff to outgoing State Senator Avel Gordly, is running for Gordly's seat in the Oregon Senate. His opponent is State Rep. Jackie Dingfelder, who is decidedly the favorite in the race.

But today the politics came crashing down as I learned the sad tale of Sean's son, Aaron, who passed away in 2005.

Aaron, beset by illness, died on his way to Iraq, not yet deployed into the field. Sean speaks of the death in the short, introverted prose of a man thoroughly scarred. He writes:

Aaron died in Utah on his way to Iraq, a preventable death, a death that could have been prevented by providing him in Utah the medical treatment he was receiving here in our home under the Oregon Health Plan (he was covered, but I was uninsured).

In May 2005, I saw Aaron’s flag-draped coffin, heard his former commanding officer and other members of his unit, clad in full dress uniforms, speak of his courage and devotion and of how they loved him.

Aaron was a victim of medical neglect while under Army orders. Without his meds, without medical care, alone and homeless in Utah, he suffered a seizure, lapsed into a coma and died.

The details are specific but cryptic, as if reluctantly shared while yet pervading everything he does. Indeed, the pain was only magnified when Sean's other son, Tyler, deploys shortly thereafter to Iraq. All Sean can feel is the open-ended isolation of a wartime parent: "But today I do not know where he is. Or how he is. Or what will happen next... I wait for him to come home at all times. "

Ostensibly the point of Sean's blog post on this topic is to color his Senate race: he wishes to "puncture the bubble" and turn a theoretically-federal issue loose on the floors of the Senate. But his writing goes beyond that. This is the sort of personal prose we rarely get from average individuals, let alone candidates for public office. Sean's ongoing suffering and the realities of his situation may or may not find a welcome home on the campaign trail, but they are him, through and through. His earnestness is disarming.

Sean isn't polished per se; in my times meeting him, he came across as gritty, earnest, and passionate. But, reading of the struggle to cope with his massive losses, I understand him.

I'm undecided in his race, but his blog post is wholly brave, the kind of writing that makes you stare off into space for chunks of minutes after first reading it. It's chilling and truly forces home the totality of the war's collateral damage and the ongoing healthcare woes we face as a society. Go read it for yourself, if you missed it.