There is no turning away from the facts. Men and women have believed strongly enough that they were needed that they would chance death serving their nation. From a simple need of work to a life long sense of duty, they may be drawn to battle for any number of reasons or beliefs.
But after the shots are fired and the shooters burried or retired,
They share a common character that has to be admired.
They stood up and fought because they thought
They stood for something bigger than themselves, the selves they put at risk.
They faced the fire that makes men crazy in a hell they had not made.
Unfair to ask them whose mistake it was when thats the price they paid.
Bitterly disappointed as I am with my country's stupid adventure in Iraq, I am grateful our country has the one military resource that ever carries the battle: men and women who are willing to die for the protection of their fellow countrymen, for the advantages they believe our way of life holds. If we spend that resource cheaply in a war based on a lie, we lose the resource first, a majority turns against the stupid enterprise and then the war itself ends badly, another Viet Nam. If we spend it appropriately on a war against a manifestly evil regime that was not going to leave us in peace [WWII Axis] we lose lives but not honor. Though I distrust the word honor for all the misuse it gets, there is such a thing and it is an abiding substance if intangible. John McCain has more of it than Dubya, whatever it is. The nation may be led into dishonor, but rarely by the man who will die for what he believes.
How much better it is to LIVE for what you believe!*
[Thats the way I heard it from Deirdre, and thats the way I like it]
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