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This study is a phenomenological exploration of bereavement among a population of Israeli parents who became demonstratively activist following the death of their offspring either as soldiers in the line of duty or as victims of terrorism. It illuminates how an anger-forgiveness continuum gives a politically charged significance to the bereavement experience regardless of party or ideological orientation. Strong nationalist identification with the armed forces is overlaid with intense personal emotions of guilt and blame assignment. Mourning as a career may follow pathological or normative courses. Political leaders emerge who mobilize similarly situated mourners to protest against military and civilian policy related to the perceived nexus between security matters and the personal loss. The dynamic between factors which assuage personal needs and simultaneously endanger national consensus regarding the performance of leading state institutions-the government and the defense establishment-is underlined in the conditions which both facilitate and impair any transition from anger to reconciliation.The chief identifying feature of warfare and terror is the claiming of human lives. The recent increase in worldwide terror and the persistence of war repeatedly evoke the victims' pain as a topic of general social interest. The dead are silent forever, but their families, who suffer the anguish of loss, occupy a key position in public

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