Awesome!
Pearson did visit with a couple of guys who seemed blue. They were thousands of miles away from their families, in a war zone, on the day most Americans were opening presents, playing games and eating loads of food. And praying – for our troops.
“Everywhere we went, we thanked them for their service,” Pearson said. “This whole tour was about our troops.”
Traveling outside of Baghdad with the military is an adventure. Pearson, Lee, and Gonzalez hitched a ride on a helicopter to Ramadi, a city that was once overrun by terrorists, insurgents and outsiders from Iran whose welcome wagons included powerful bombs and other
This is were Lee’s son, Marc Alan, made his last stand and gave his life. This is where a camp was named after Marc Alan. This was an emotional stop.
We cannot talk much about it for security reasons. But a mother who suddenly loses a child always wonders about that child’s last moments. Lee stood in the sand on a dark night in the land where her brave son was “redeployed to Heaven,” as she likes to say.
Loss is a part of life, but it is not natural for a mother to lose her son. Parents should go first. In Iraq, violence still scars the countryside. But Pearson, Lee and Gonzalez witnessed the light that our troops have given the world with their sweat, professionalism, tenacity and their lives.
We are winning in Iraq. But, more importantly, we are safer because children hold our soldiers’ hands. They play on new slides. They go to school. Shops are open. These children and their families will not forget the Americans who saved them first from Saddam Hussein, and then from the terrorists who came to steal their lives.