FOR AS long as war has been waged, people have tried to measure its cost in a tally of those killed or wounded.
What they overlook - maybe by accident, maybe because it's too painful to consider - is the devastating impact that war has on the loved ones of those who suit up, ship out and risk their lives on some unforgiving battlefield, half a world away.
Take, for example, the McCloskey family of Northeast Philadelphia. Back on June 8, 2008, Kevin McCloskey, the 20-year-old baby of the family, was driving an armored vehicle in Afghanistan that was torn apart by an improvised explosive device.
Kevin survived the blast - barely. He lost both legs, took shrapnel to the face and suffered burns and an array of broken bones. When word of his grave injuries reached home, his family was overwhelmed by a tidal wave of emotions, said Michelle McCloskey-Alicea, Kevin's sister.
They were shocked, depressed, angry, scared, yet optimistic, sometimes all in the same day.
Everyone dealt with their emotions differently. Michelle, 33, channeled her feelings into poetry, a longtime hobby that she had drifted away from in recent years.
"When Kevin was injured, I didn't have any other release," she said. "It was the only way I could express my feelings. Within three days of him being hurt, I started writing furiously."
The first poem she wrote, "Strong Heavy Boots," was sparked by the idea that there was one less pair of soldier boots in the world, she noted.
The poem reads in part: "Empty boots are a frightening sight/For they symbolize a problem or soldier's plight/Strong heavy boots sadly sit by the door/Since their use in this world is no more."
McCloskey-Alicea kept at it for months - from rhymed poems to free verse to invented and traditional - to capture her thoughts about her brother's difficult recovery and the larger, unspoken burdens carried by military families.
Eventually, a friend suggested that McCloskey-Alicea's poems might be therapeutic for others who have suffered through trauma. That idea found a publisher, Ironcutter Media, which today will pre-release a compilation of 40 of her poems called "Uprooted: Searching for Serenity."
The book - the first for the married mother of three - is available for $14.95 at www.uprootedpoetry.com, Amazon.com and other sites. She said that she expects it to be in bookstores later this year.
Proceeds from "Uprooted" will be donated to the Wounded Warrior Care Center, in San Antonio, Tex., where McCloskey-Alicea's brother spent much of his recovery.
Kevin, now 22, returned to his parents' Mayfair home for good last month, and is able to walk on prosthetics.
"He seems to be adjusting to life pretty well," McCloskey-Alicea noted. "There are still days when we all wake up angry and sad for him, but we're so proud of how far he's come."
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