Also remember those who work covertly. Many of them are also overseas and away from their families. Their families often don’t have the same support networks uniformed soldiers do. They hold down the fort at home.
American Expeditionary Force to Siberia, 1918-1920
BET YOU PROBALY DIDN'T KNOW OF THEM.
>> it’s easy to forget that we are still a country at war<<
Maybe because Congress never declared/approved this decades long war?
Prayers for the soldiers though
Fighting an enemy, that for sport, would bomb a Christmas festival or Christmas Mass...
++++
About 22,000 are in danger in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, working to eradicate terrorism, the Taliban, and the Islamic State.
Some things never change.
24 December 1776
Gen. Washington required this be read to all the men on the 24th.
On Christmas, they crossed the Delaware.
“Victory or Death”, the password.
“March on, my brave fellows, after me!” G W
“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated” Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but “to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER” and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God...
...There are cases which cannot be overdone by language, and this is one. There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf, and we ought to guard equally against both...
http://www.ushistory.org/paine/crisis/c-01.htm
The Hessian forces lost 22 killed in action, 83 wounded, and 896 captured–including the wounded. The Americans suffered only two deaths from bare feet causing frostbite and five wounded from battle, including a near-fatal wound to future president James Monroe. Other losses incurred by the Patriots due to exhaustion, exposure, and illness in the following days may have raised their losses above those of the Hessians.