Fewer than half the 800 to 1,200 Yugoslav soldiers were believed to have survived the raid.

The image of Yugoslav troops being ripped to shreds by American cluster bombs-and of the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians these troops helped commit-is, alas, a fitting ending to the bloody 20th century. As I make my way through the vast war literature of the last 85 years, the amount of destruction, carnage and death is breathtaking.

The true meaning of war was impressed on me during a recent visit to Germany. A tour of the concentration camp at Dachau, near Munich, should have been enough. The open oven doors at the Dachau "krematorium" are a sight no visitor will ever forget.

While leaving a small church in the village of Westerham near the Bavarian Alps, I saw lists of names on either side of the entrance. On the left, the war dead of this farming community from World War I, "the Great War." To the right, the flower of Westerham killed in World War II, the vast majority on the Russian Front. "Russland . . . Russland. . . Russland . . ." the list went on.

It was sobering to realize such a small town had lost so many of its boys.

As this was written, NATO's British commander, Lt. Gen. Michael Jackson, was reading a statement on the radio announcing the signing of an agreement to end the war in Kosovo. For now, the bombs will apparently stop falling, the Kosovar Albanians will be allowed to go home. What will they find when they get there? What new atrocities will be committed in retribution for the crimes of Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbs?

War, it is said, is the amoral situation. Yet, as Milosevic proves again-evil exists. How do we reconcile these realities in the age of nuclear weapons?

I'll admit to ambivalence about the war in Kosovo, and the appropriate role of the United States and NATO in stopping Milosevic. My unease stemmed in large measure from the irrefutable fact that more civilians than combatants have died in the wars of the 20th century.

Kosovo has been no exception. For all our precision-guided weapons, we still managed to hit passenger buses on bridges in broad daylight as well as the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. The embassy bombing, which nearly severed U.S.-China relations and will have lasting effects on the two nuclear powers, proves what a military analyst told EE Times in May: "Our ability to drop precision weapons is outpacing our ability to better collect and disseminate intelligence."

I haven't served in the military, so far be it for me to try to describe the sacrifices made by those who died or were maimed in this century's wars.

I only know war through my father's eyes and through books and a handful of films that tried to show those never in battle what it is like. But this I do know about war: What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.