Salute

A noble post from a 33-year-old U.S. officer in southern Baghdad:

Trust. Trusting someone here can get you killed, yet it is who we as Americans are. We are an open and trusting society. We have our share of faults, just watch the news, our detractors are all too willing, and ready to broadcast our shortcomings. So be it. We are Americans, we rise above it, and no matter what the media portrays on television or on radio we rise above it. No matter how much our allies proclaim our actions to be unjust, and how they will not support this or any other unilateral US action. We rise above it, and when they call us we are there. As Mr. Colin Powell proclaimed all we ask for in exchange is a plot of land to bury our dead. That is who we are. We also have our detractors at home. People who call us murders, and say that we are targeting Innocent women and children. They have absurd websites such as "Forsake the Troops", they use their celebrity status to elevate their own personal agendas and to sway the masses to champion their causes. They call the President of the United States "idiot", they slander the very nation that affords them the freedom of speech to do so. Still, we rise above it, and to the death I swore to defend them. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And so we do.

And so forth. Read it all, please.