This is not the time for me to get political, or to stand on the soapbox and pontificate. The issues of our day need to be debated and hopefully solved by those who are in a position to act upon them, not those of us who sit on the periphery looking in.

With that being said, it was impossible for me not to have a visceral reaction to the news a week ago Monday that a fine young man from our area, a husband and father and leader of men, died in the service of our country.

I was heartsick, deeply saddened, upon learning that Marine Capt. Kyle Van De Giesen of North Attleboro had died in a helicopter crash while on station in Afghanistan. For the second time in less than a year, following the death in Iraq of Army Spc. Corey Shea of Mansfield, our area was again left to deal with the pain and deep sense of loss created when the horror of war halfway across the globe is brought home.

I was reminded how, for almost a century, the generations of my family have coped with war or the threat of war.

My mother's father fought in the Ardennes during World War I, and brought home the scars of mustard gas in his lungs that would remind him of that combat every day until he died in a VA hospital in Gainesville, Fla., more than 30 years ago. My father emerged relatively unscathed from a stint in the U.S. Navy during World War II, but he served in both theatres of operation and saw enough suffering to know that he did not want his only son to experience the same.

My mother's brother served in Korea, and returned from combat a bitter and angry man, haunted by those demons until his death some 40 years later.

My "Sword of Damocles," and that of my contemporaries, was Vietnam. I dutifully signed up for the draft in 1972 and prayed every night that I wouldn't face what others of my generation were facing - and somehow, through the combination of an accident of a January birth and a nation's weariness of war, I was spared the experience.

I'm not sure that made me a better man, but it did keep me a live one.

In our nation's most recent conflicts, from the first Gulf War almost 20 years ago to the present, there has been one big difference from the wars that preceded them.

Our soldiers of today volunteer to go in harm's way, and for good reason. On a crisp, clear Tuesday morning in September eight years ago, a foreign war came to our shores, to our largest city, to symbols of American wealth and global power, and nearly 3,000 people died for no good reason.

Today, American men and women bear the brunt of defending our way of life against extremists and terrorists in almost equal fashion - and they are there because they choose to be there, not because a number has been drawn out of a bin and a birthday has become a draft notice.

I'm already sensing the impatience of a segment of the reading public that's wondering why I'm not writing about Tom Brady. They ask: "What does this have to do about sports?"

Well, nothing. And everything.

On Saturday afternoon in Mansfield, there will be a high school football game - one of thousands played from one end of this country to the other on this particular weekend, something so uniquely American, it may as well be immortalized in a Norman Rockwell painting. The teams that will be playing, North Attleboro's Red Rocketeers and Mansfield's Green Hornets, have been fierce rivals ever since the day that North Attleboro left the Bristol County League in 1968 to become a member of the Hockomock League. The rivalry between the two schools often exceeds the intensity of the games with traditional Thanksgiving Day opponents. And in this particular game, two high school teammates from North Attleboro and collegiate teammates at Holy Cross, Mansfield's Mike Redding and North Attleboro's Don Johnson, will square off for the first time as opposing head coaches.

But that's only the backstory.

This game has been pushed back to 4:30 p.m. Saturday from its original Friday-at-7 scheduling so North Attleboro can say an uninterrupted farewell to Kyle Van De Giesen. His funeral is set for 9 a.m. Friday morning at St. Mary's Church in North Attleboro, followed later in the day by burial at the Massachusetts National Cemetery, in the former Otis Air Force Base in Bourne.

No doubt, there will be a lot of emotion the next day at Mansfield's Alumni Field - not just felt by the North Attleboro coaches, athletes and fans in attendance, but also by those from Mansfield who will relive their own recent loss vicariously. On this day, the athletes will stand together as brothers before resuming their rivalry. The proceeds of the 50-50 raffle will go into a fund to benefit the Van De Giesen family, and I encourage everyone to dig deep into their pockets and contribute, as I will.

I saw Kyle Van De Giesen play many football games during his career, but not as many as I probably could have. Regrettably, I never saw Corey Shea play hockey because we have people on this staff who cover it far better than I. Yet I'll be looking out at the field Saturday afternoon, at the young men in football uniforms and their friends along the sidelines and in the stands, and I will wonder who among them will be next, and why anyone would have to be next - again, questions I can ask, but not answer.

I wish we lived in a world where we didn't have to say farewell to brave young men and women under these circumstances. I will probably not see that happen in my lifetime. All I can do is thank them from the bottom of my heart for their bravery and their service - and hope that the ideals they represent on our behalf are worthy ones.

MARK FARINELLA may be reached at 508-236-0315 or via e-mail at mfarinel@thesunchronicle.com. Read Farinella's blog, "Blogging Fearlessly," at thesunchronicle.com/farinella.