In Los Alamitos, California, a man woke up yesterday and heard the news of the 30 American troops killed in the crashed Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan. He went to the corner of a thoroughfare in that town, and stood, holding an American flag. He stood there, with no other sign or message. He was there for 10 hours. As the day wore on, in addition to the passing cars that honked their horns, about twenty other people joined him with their own flags and with cardboard signs. The man was Joseph Brito, a member of the California National Guard. (Story from the Coronado Patch.) I think that his reaction sums up how a lot of people felt—speechless, but desiring to pay respect somehow. He found a good way.
Michael Yon’s latest dispatch speaks to the spirit of the U.S. forces still getting up each day and taking it to the enemy in Afghanistan: “Onward.”
The last paragraph of my post from a few days ago on the bin Laden mission expressed my own feelings then and now.
… May God above all bless and protect the Navy SEALs and all who fight in the U.S. armed forces. Their work may be violent, but it is not violence in the cause of death—as is that of bin Laden’s al-Qaeda and related fanatics—but in the cause of freedom and of life. And for that, this generation of our all-volunteer military, fighting on so many different fronts, has earned the respect and gratitude of the nation forever.
