This is a wonderful statement on supporting the troops. It's more than a sticker on your car (or a lapel pin like mine). It's more than talking the talk.

It means never backing down, never giving up, never quitting. It means taking the time to make a difference in someone's life-after all, did a soldier not make a difference in yours?

It means teaching your children that places like Normandy, Iwo Jima, and Bastogne are sacred, almost holy phrases that encompass all that we are and all that we must remain. It means getting off your chair and doing your part-whether that be reading to a double amputee fresh from the dusty hell of Iraq, packing granola bars into a box to be sent to the front, or just not ignoring those who are ignorant any longer. How many times have we all just sighed and rolled our eyes when we hear "I support the troops but not the war?"

I know that by linking to this post, I will get the freaks commenting how I should take my fat aging body down to the recruiting office and join the war, because of course it's the only way I can truly show support. But those idiots only know straw-men. They don't know about the late-night emails winging back and forth across the globe. The VOIP calls at all hours from Officers who have lost men, and how. The Officers don't tell their wives these horrors. They don't tell their mothers. The idiots can't know about the frantic mothers who contact me to see if I can get word about their sons or their sons' platoons from one of my friends. The idiots will never know what it's like to hear about the losses from those who were there, and to not even be able to tell my husband or my closest friends about it.

So, idiots, may I ask what YOU are doing to support the troops?

H/t Michelle

Labels: Military, War on Terror