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2009
Soap Box Archives Iraq 2009 Going back to Iraq was a trip I looked forward to ever since we scheduled it several months ago. Not just because it was a unique trip that relatively few civilians get to experience and certainly not because it is some exotic destination. No, the reason I enjoy going to Iraq is because for a few days I am honored to walk among the finest young people America has to offer. They are healthy, bright-eyed, dedicated and capable young men and women who wear the uniform, not because they are conscripted to fill a draft quota but because they have volunteered to keep the nation they love free. They spend a year of their young lives in a dust ridden and barren landscape where the temperatures can rise above the 130 degree mark and sudden sand storms can blot out the sun and fill the eyes and nose with grit. They live in isolation on bases that are not figuratively but literally in the middle of nowhere inside tall fences surrounded by three hundred and sixty degrees of hostility where a patrol outside the wire can mean a sudden and deadly attack or an improvised explosive device blowing up in your face. There are no plush ports of liberty in this barren land and the only distractions are television and the occasional show that manages to make it's way to their base. They miss their loved ones no less than any of us would. They don't have some built in mechanism that switches on when they go away to war that makes them immune to loneliness. They miss their kid's birthdays, their wedding anniversaries, their son's football games and their daughter's first prom. They are confronted by the same idiotic talking heads, the same empty-headed Hollywood rattlebrains and the same self-serving politicians belittling their service for their own selfish ambitions. They patrol the most dangerous square miles of planet earth in a land where you can't tell the good guys from the bad, where every man or woman they meet could well be a walking bomb, intent on nothing less than ending their young lives. They fly airplanes and helicopters. They operate computers and sophisticated machines and weapons and stand at rigid attention when they hear The National Anthem. They come from New York and Huntsville, New Orleans and San Jose, Omaha and Seattle and don't complain about the weather, or the war. They accept and follow their orders and serve their deployments with pride and many of them are on second, third or fourth tour of duty. They deserve better than to have the War On Terror they are fighting reduced to some politically correct term like "man caused disaster" or "overseas contingency operation" by some politically appointed hack who has nothing better to do than sit around an office and dream up insulting B.S. The enemies they are fighting are cold-blooded killers who hide behind women and children and don't deserve the name of enemy combatants. They are the best America has to offer and deserve the best America has to offer them. I will never forget that for a few days in April I was privileged to walk among heroes. Pray for our troops What do you think? God Bless America Charlie Daniels
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