[...] My father, like the men and women in the Gulf today, volunteered. Keep that in mind, because to hear the protesters you'd think that once again Fascist Amerika has rounded up the poor and the dark, manacled them in troop ships and sent them off to be flung against cannon fire in futile waves. No: These people volunteered for this job.

It would be stretching the point to say every soldier wants to be there. We don't have 200,000 killbots straining at the leash, eager to bayonet a hapless foe.

A reservist who kissed her husband and child goodbye and left knowing her employer will cut her pay, she might rather be home. A sailor who's seven months into a six-month deployment, who'd rather be back in San Diego having a cold beer with shipmates or throwing a Frisbee on the beach, he might prefer some shore leave. Some new recruit sweating in his chemical protection gear, sitting out the stinging sandstorms, wondering whether Saddam Hussein strikes first, waiting for the order to go, go, go -- all things considered, he might prefer to be sitting in the rec room with a Bud, the TV and the Final Four.

Yet there they are. On our behalf. Underpaid, overworked, ready to fight. [...]

Saddam's grave will lack a headstone; he'll die unmourned, his ashes scattered. Not so those who deposed him. The green ground of home hasn't been turned to hold the men and women who will fight this next battle, but it will be soon enough. Once again, we owe them everything. Once again, they will give us what we rarely deserve, because now and then a day passes when we do not think of them, or give them thanks.