It would be interesting to hear why is that "unsettling", but my guess is that mothers put it there after death... and for our parents, we will be forever kids.
Slobodan
The unsettling aspect, for me, is that soft toys etc. signify very young and immature minds. If those were indeed placed there after the event by a grieving parent, I can fully understand the reason: we are all our parent's children for ever, even in our sixties. But then it is no longer honest reportage.
If the toys were there by the hand of the soldier, then in my way of looking at it, he or she was far too immature to know exactly the depth of the possibility incurred by what he or she was signing up to accomplish. Just how I interpret these little motifs.
Russ
I don't think you are being fair when you label dissenting minds cowards. There is a hell of a difference between signing up to protect your country (who wouldn't) and signing up to engage in foreign adventures, which is what I am afraid all modern wars seem to be, without clear indication of exactly where the domestic front is being served.
Perhaps a better purpose
would be served by governments considering their positions more carefully, whose countries and religions they decide to favour and, with the latter, take into account the inevitable reactions choices can provoke. I doubt very much that the US would have experienced 9/11 had it paid more attention to such things, and for sure the subways would be safer in the UK had our own puppy dogs thought more deeply too.
Mention was made, in another close thread, of the US being or not being the world's policeman: perhaps it should wait to be asked next time? It is just too easy to view everything from one perspective. The world does not always want the same lifestyle that we share, as we sometimes think; why try and impose it when such action usually leads only to disaster?
Rob C
PS: I see you deleted the 'coward' remark - good for you!