As I do most week days, I was in the middle of a 10 or so hour work day in my man cave at home.  As always, I had my TV on one of the cable news channels.  I normally tune out the sounds in my environment to focus on my work.  I say that but I know that’s probably about 90% accurate.  My mind kinda works like a key word search in that I tune out my surroundings unless I hear something said that piques my interests.  Otherwise, I don’t “hear” it.

This week, I heard chatter about the war in Iraq being officially over. That got my attention and I briefly stopped what I was doing to see what was going on.  My mind went immediately to the families who lost a loved one in Iraq or the men and women in uniform who have been injured in that war.  I breathed a prayer as I thought of them and how the families and survivors must be feeling right now.

History will tell us whether or not we should have gone into Iraq or Afghanistan or if we handled the war in the proper way. I do pray that the lives lost and the wounds suffered by our heroes in uniform weren’t suffered in vain.  Iraq has been given a wonderful opportunity that has come at an incredible price. If the leadership and citizenry of that now-free country do forget, I pray that the blood and ghosts of those heroes haunt them into heartfelt appreciation and stewardship of the wonderful gift that the men and women of our military have given them.

In the words of John Lennon, “Happy Christmas . . . war is over . . . if you want it . . .”.