Regrowth

'Yesterday I received a vile email that emptied self righteous wrath on both my soldiers and I. The rambling message started with a blanket accusation “you are heartless conquerors” and ended with the author reveling in the thought that “you will return home broken men”. I have heard these empty arguments bandied around before, but never with such vitriolic zeal. The email wasn’t an intellectual exchange on the pros and cons of this war, it was the virtual equivalent of a slap in the face. By all rights I should have been infuriated, but all I could muster was abject pity for the cowardly author. I have said this before, but it bears repeating so I will say it again. We didn’t come here to conquer, and we didn’t come here to hate. That may be difficult to understand for those simplistic minds that automatically equate military service with blind reptilian fury, but it is true nonetheless. The anonymous writer was wrong when he said we would return home broken, but perhaps he was using his own frail heart as a reference point. But to say we will return unchanged would be just as false.."
365 and a Wakeup