is a political communications consultant and commentator in New York

In this hothouse season of health-care hollering, I would suggest that every American take a break from the accusations and acrimony of the moment to read about Marine Corps Sgt. Bill Cahir, who was killed in action in Afghanistan this month. Bill's immense sense of service stands out as a one-man antidote to the cynicism and selfishness that pervades our politics.

You almost have to read Bill's story to believe it. The son of two civic-minded parents from outside State College, Bill went to Washington right out of college. When the partisanship and shallowness became too much to bear, he took a job as a reporter covering his home region of Pennsylvania from D.C. But after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he did not feel right sitting on the sidelines. His country had been attacked, as one friend told me, and he felt the overriding need to do something about it.

So after a long internal struggle over how to heed this calling, and fairly soon after meeting the woman he would marry, Bill Cahir, at age 34, joined the Marine Corps Reserves.

"We all thought he was crazy," said another friend. So did the Corps commanders. They made him take a psychological test to prove he was of sound mind. His suspicious drill instructors at Parris Island punished him with special fervor, trying to break him. But they misjudged Bill.

"People kept asking him, 'You know what you're doing, right?' " one of the friends I interviewed said. "But he knew exactly what he was doing. He knew he was going to Iraq. He not only knew it, he embraced it."

And the Marines who served with Bill on his two tours in Iraq, including a highly dangerous stretch in Fallujah and the Anbar province as part of the "surge" strategy, embraced him in return.

"All I know [is] that he loved his Marines and we loved him," said Jason Brezler, Bill's team commander in Fallujah in 2006 and 2007. "I know that he would have risked life and limb for any of us on the team, because I watched him do it on countless occasions. And I know that the relationship was reciprocated by us in return."

"Bill and I spent hours talking to sheikhs, children, and the locals, and his sense of service to these people was infectious," said Maj. Dan Whisnant, a former company commander in the 24th Marines. "He personally was going to create a better life for these folks. I remember him playing with one of the sheikhs' young sons, and you could sense that the two had connected. Bill's sense of service, attitude, and example to the younger Marines was something to behold."

When Bill returned from his second tour in 2007, he still burned to serve. He decided to go back to his hometown region and compete for the Democratic nomination in the Fifth Congressional District. "This is important," he said to friends.

So, too, was going to Afghanistan in March with his unit, the Fourth Civil Affairs Group. After losing the primary, Bill went to work as a consultant. When he got called up again by the Marines, he could have avoided going to a hot spot. Instead, he sought it out. "This is what I signed up to do," he explained in an e-mail he sent out to his disbelieving friends.

I read about Bill the day after he was killed by enemy fire in the Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold and the site of some of the heaviest fighting in Afghanistan, less than a week before the country's national election. It hit me in a deeply personal, visceral way. Bill was one of the most decent, genuine people I had ever known in Washington. I was crushed to hear that his wife was pregnant with twin girls, and that they would never get to know their honor-defining father.

But more than that, it made me truly realize just how much we in politics take for granted the men and women who fight our wars for us. Not all of us, and certainly not all the time. But unless you have lost someone close to you, our recent military actions - especially the "forgotten war" in Afghanistan that took Bill's life - rarely and barely touch us. They are at best debate subjects, and at worst political footballs.

It also made me think about how the word "patriotism" has been demeaned and cheapened by blind partisans on both sides questioning their opponents' "American-ness." Perhaps if our leaders read about Bill and learned more about what love of country really means from his example, they would think twice before casually hurling these hurtful accusations again.

I heard from many of Bill's loved ones in preparing this tribute, and none of them could fully explain where his overwhelming commitment to service came from. Bill, who will be buried tomorrow in Arlington National Cemetery, was not one to toot his own horn. "He would probably be embarrassed by all this attention and being called a hero," one friend told me.

But while they may not have understood its source, they more than appreciated his impact, the lives he saved and the lives he touched. Perhaps the most fitting elegy came from Bill's brother Bart. "I won't offer any anecdotes," he said, "but rather a quote that I think summarized his life from Ben Franklin: 'If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are gone, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing.' My view is that my brother did both."