Veterans Day 2007
Ed. Note: The following is from Lieutenant Colonel Charles Grinnell, an Army Reservist who has served three years in Iraq and is currently the head of the Central Criminal Court of Iraq. We send it out with deepest appreciation for all of our veterans and their families.
Ed. Note: The following is from Lieutenant Colonel Charles Grinnell, an Army Reservist who has served three years in Iraq and is currently the head of the Central Criminal Court of Iraq. We send it out with deepest appreciation for all of our veterans and their families.
In the recent past, each generation has been asked to step forward in times of great need. This is the time for my generation to stand when others kneel, to step up when others step back, to move forward as others retreat. For we hear the calling of our forefathers who knew that freedom, liberty and justice were neither simply words nor a commonly available commodity. They are debts for which a price, every once in a while, must be paid.
On this day of remembrance, do not think about the merits of this extended war, the loss of life and limb, the sacrifices of families or the tears of a nation profoundly effected by a foreign attack upon its shores.
Do not wonder if the money is well spent, or the hot desolate land of a foreign country is worth the blood of our nation’s best, or what we will get in exchange for the billions of dollars that this war has cost.
Do not pretend to fully comprehend what it is like to be an Iraqi and quietly thank the troops for the life-giving safety and security they bring to your neighborhood for fear that such a show of thanks would cost you your life. Or how that simple act reaches into our very souls.
Everyday we hear and see the evidence of an enemy that wakes to a dawn with a desire to kill not only every American but also our freedom and way of life. We hear them speak the lies and untruths told by their leaders and wonder how easily they are willing to die to kill us. With three tours of duty and from these experiences with both the Iraqi people and our enemy I know this:
It is better to fight a war on any shore but our own… as was starkly revealed by 9-11. Make no mistake about it, if we were not here, they would be there.
We fight this battle not for ourselves but for our children and a way of life, for if we lose this battle we fear a loss of the freedoms some so easily dismiss as commonplace. It is no good to have money if you don’t have liberty, and in those areas once controlled by the enemy they had no justice or freedom. Every month more Iraqis die than Americans die in a year, so they are neither sitting back nor failing to pay an ultimate price in the war for freedom.
Most people spend a lifetime looking to say they made a difference, American troops return home knowing they made a difference.
In the end, all we really need is a simple, silent “thank you” and to shed just one tear, on this one day, for our families who have worried, endured the pain of helplessness and lost a piece of their soul in payment too for the concepts we hold so dear.
As for us… we know our generation did not falter when our time came to pay. When we return home we need your support, to just hold us for a moment, so we close our eyes and breathe in all our freedoms like it was our last meal, healing each of our souls that have been touched and at times scarred by the rigors of payment.