The Americans who have given their lives in battle in Iraq aren't random victims. They were doing their duty in one of the great turning points of our generation.
The unprecedented security, freedom, wealth and opportunity Americans now enjoy didn't just burst forth out of a cabbage patch. These achievements were created, and then defended many times by bloody force of arms.
There are times when the best, perhaps the only, response to hard blows is to embrace each lump as a badge honoring the determined striving that produced it. In 1918, Teddy Roosevelt's son Quentin (who had left Harvard during his sophomore year to serve in World War I) was shot out of the sky in one of aerial warfare's early dogfights. German propagandists took photos of his maimed body amidst the plane wreckage and, hoping to dampen American morale, sent one to Mrs. Roosevelt.
Rather than letting herself be cowed, however, she insisted the picture be displayed over a mantel, as an emblem of her family's sturdiness and their pride in sacrifice for a high cause.
What Edith Roosevelt did was both a very hard and a very soft thing. She pushed aside her own grief and expressed admiration and undying love for her son by celebrating his bravery and refusing to abandon his fight.
As they aggressively attack ancient evil and gently nurture frail shoots of a new good, our military forces face many risks in Iraq. They have enemies who aim to kill them, and to panic the American public standing behind them. Our battle against Middle Eastern extremism can thus be seen a struggle of wills.
But demoralization can work both ways, and today it is Iraq's insurgents who face physical and psychological defeat.
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Why we fight, 101.
Bring tissue.
Please share with others.
Pray for our troops and our country.
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God Bless those who serve our country
* * * Past, present and future! * * *
