<p>A makeshift memorial across the street from the Washington Navy Yard.</p><p>When the explosions went off at the Boston Marathon and the ensuing manhunt resulted in massive fusillades in the suburbs, many Americans felt the shock. When 20 children and their teachers were gunned down in their own classrooms in a quiet little New England town, everyone felt an abject sense of horror. When a madman burst into a Colorado movie theater and unleashed violence, anyone who had seen a movie in the past decade felt at least a shudder of horror. And so it goes on, killing after killing. So I ask myself, why does it seem so different this time?</p><p>I admit, by the very definition of what I do for a living, I am not like most Americans. But it puzzles me, and perhaps hurts a little bit when I think through the possible answers, to my question about America's response to the killings in the Navy Yard.</p><p>What gets to me even a little more is that once again, this one was personal. Among the men and women "locked down" and "sheltering in place" there that day were two very close friends of mine, and at least a dozen more generic friends and casual acquaintances. I did not know any of the dead, but that is almost beside the point. If there was a shooting in a shopping mall in your town, you would feel a connection even if you did not know anybody who was actually there. And this was "my town," regardless of whether you define that by my common military background with the people being shot at and killed, or the fact that the house where my furniture stayed through most of the mid-2000s -- even if I was episodically gone for a year at a time -- was eight blocks away.</p><p><a href="http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/reaction-to-navy-yard-shooting-092413">Keep reading...</a></p>