A thoughtful tribute to those who sacrifice in this war in Iraq...

To the right is a nice tribute from lewismdmx.

Rush related to this subject of sacrifice yesterday as he talked about our "war weariness"...

I saw a story last night, what was it, AP, talking about war-weary Americans. I just threw my hands up in frustration, as if any of us have some kind of direct role in prosecuting this war. If you are a war-weary American and you are not a military family, and you have not been sent to combat, then grow up! What do you mean, war-weary? What are we becoming here? A nation of linguini-spined pacifist wimps? “I don't want to be made uncomfortable, that's why I'm war-weary, Mr. Limbaugh.” On the one hand, all the libs are out there saying that we don't sacrifice, we're not making any sacrifice. So how in God's name can we be war-weary? The same people say we need to sacrifice and we’re not sacrificing, and in the same breath they then claim that we are war-weary. War-weary Americans? This is the media describing you.

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If you are a war-weary American
and you are not a military family,
and you have not been sent to combat,
then grow up!

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This is a news story in which you are described as war-weary Americans, as if you have some kind of direct role in prosecuting this war, as though you're tired of being shot at, tired of spending time in military hospitals. They are projecting their reality on to you and all of us again, and their reality isn't reality at all. They may be war-weary because they don't like war, and because they're afraid that we might win this. This is what I say when we have become a nation of pacifists, we delude ourselves as if we are suffering so. Who among you, who is not a member of a military family and hasn't been sent to any theater of military operations, who among you can say that you are suffering? I want to hear from you. I want to hear about the virtue of your suffering, when you're not a military family. I don't hear the military families complaining. I don't hear US military people, “We are weary of this war, and we want to come home.” I hear the exact opposite. They're frustrated, they want to be turned loose, they want to kick butt, they want to win. I know many of them now. Gotten to know a lot of them. I get e-mail from them, people who are there now and people who have been.

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we have become a nation of pacifists,
we delude ourselves as if we are suffering so.

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Now all of a sudden average Joe Six-Pack, wife Mary Jo and the 2.8 kids and the white picket fence and the two SUVs in the garage are war-weary and suffering? We got the economy chugging along, we are surrounded by luxury, we don't even realize how good we have it. We are so self-indulgent and we are so affluent -- this is exactly what I mean when I say we have a generation here who has had to invent its own traumas to convince itself that it is living through tough times, like our parents and grandparents did. So now we are war-weary, eh? Well, that's a morale booster. You want to talk about war-weary, talk to people who actually fight them and ask them what war-weary is. You know what they'll tell you? They'll tell you that war-weary is being fed up with their morale constantly assaulted, with having to hear on the news that they're losing and can't win, and that what they're doing is not worth it. That's what war-weary is.

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war-weary is being fed up
with their morale constantly assaulted,
with having to hear on the news
that they're losing and can't win,
and that what they're doing
is not worth it.

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War-weary, I'm sorry, is not you sitting watching the evening news or going to a movie or whatever you do or walking around the mall feeling uncomfortable about it when you have no involvement. That really frosts me, folks. This, of all things I read last night. It's time for this nation to grow up and become adults. But it's going to be hard to do with the liberals now running Congress, Oprah off in South Africa spreading Oprahization to Africa now that she's done it here in America. We got Dr. Phil out there and all these other touchy feel good things.

Lori Byrd weighs in also:

...While I have great sympathy for the loved ones of fallen soldiers, it seems that for many on the Left their “support” of the troops is expressed as sympathy for anyone in the military. Some lament that our soldiers (or kids as they often refer to them) have been sent to fight an unjust war by an idiot President who decided to invade Iraq to line the pockets of his rich oil buddies. To those people, the troops are seen as victims to be pitied. After all, they were just trying to escape the less fortunate half of John Edwards' two Americas, seeing the military as a last ditch resort to get a free education and job training.

I have been married to a Marine Corps veteran for the past 15 years, and I am confident in saying that sympathy is not what those in the U.S. armed forces want. They want the support and the respect of those they risk life and limb to protect. If they get spat upon, or accused of being terrorists or torturers instead, they do their jobs anyway. It makes the job easier though when they know the support and respect is there, and it is impossible to properly respect those in our military without acknowledging the work they are doing and the value of the sacrifices they are making.

We frequently hear even major opponents of the war say they "support the troops." What we rarely ever hear, though, is much about what the troops have done right in Iraq. I would love to hear anyone who disagrees with me on this one list of a dozen U.S. military accomplishments in Iraq that the average American could name. To say that things have not gone as hoped in Iraq is an incredible understatement, but that does not mean there have not been significant accomplishments made in the face of great difficulty.