Merry Christmas

It is Christmas and I will enjoy it with my son and family.

And while I do, soldiers, Marines, airmen, and sailors are standing on the firing line, making sure my Christmas is merry. It can't really be merry for me, actually. Not while these outstanding Americans (and many who will become Americans) are out risking their lives. I support this war and so their sacrifice weighs on me. Perhaps that is why some rail against the war, calling the freeing of 25 million immoral. Calling the overthrow of a butcher wrong. Perhaps by opposing the war they hope to avoid the guilt of supporting the sending of our nation's best to fight and die. But it can't be that since they also feel no guilt for the lives they would condemn in the future by bugging out and the lives they would not have saved by going to war.

No matter, I cannot speak for them and I cannot understand how they look at this war and see American wrongdoing. I grieve for our dead and wounded while celebrating what our soldiers have accomplished. And I strive to have a merry Christmas. My son, who in his innocent 7 years can only vaguely grasp that our fighting men are out their fighting bad guys, is truly having a merry Christmas. It is that carefree joy that gives me happiness this season. And eternal gratitude for those who miss this Christmas, or future Christmases, or even all Christmases, to give us a Merry Christmas at home.

May our troops have a Merry Christmas and may their families at home have one as well. They have my thanks and my respect. If my thoughts matter at all to them.