About one in every eight graduates walked out of commencement Sunday at Saint Joseph’s University before the keynote address by Sen. Rick Santorum, who recently infuriated gay groups and others with derogatory remarks about homosexual behavior.

During the speech, some graduates and audience members protested silently by turning their backs to the stage, while others rushed up the aisle to shout at the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. One student tossed his cap and gown toward the speaker.

Jeers, foghorns and calls of "God Bless America" also could be heard.

After Hedges' microphone was unplugged for a second time, Pribbenow told him to wrap up his speech.

War, we have come to believe, is a spectator sport. The military and the press -- remember in wartime the press is always part of the problem -- have turned war into a vast video arcade came. Its very essence -- death -- is hidden from public view.

There was no more candor in the Persian Gulf War or the War in Afghanistan or the War in Iraq than there was in Vietnam. But in the age of live feeds and satellite television, the state and the military have perfected the appearance of candor.

Because we no longer understand war, we no longer understand that it can all go horribly wrong. We no longer understand that war begins by calling for the annihilation of others but ends if we do not know when to make or maintain peace with self-annihilation. We flirt, given the potency of modern weapons, with our own destruction.