Re This Week's Column:Thank You...

for your service to our country. Moms also serve. This, from a reader:

You can count me with the Hagel, Reed, Murtha and Webb crowd. I put a kid on a bus for basic in 86 and been watching ever since while much went unnoticed. Every uniform I see is my skin. And I'm totally tired of the 'TROOPS' as a political football from the WH to media.
This 'fiasco' has been run on emotion and political capital with much cost to the Military (actually, I've gotten to the point where I separate the Pentagon/DoD from the military). My skin and I have been arguing politics, but not about the justification of the war. We trade real information, except what his security classification prevents. Enlisted to college to commissioned. The view changes with rank, and as many say 'it's above their pay grade'. And I have gotten 'there's enough in politics to keep me busy'.
The thing that really gets me going is that those who stand with McCain and Lieberman have shown less real support as you allude to of the Military than those who want a different solution.
A long time ago I got a rather long poem from the front that ended.....
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget
To fight for our rights back at home while we're
gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled,
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we matter to you as you mattered to us."

UPDATE from Paul, No Not that One:
Joe, generous of you to post that comment.
A small point, it's kindness to give the poster credit by name.
In this case linda.