Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

For those of you who have never seen a loved one depart for a combat zone, read what Sarah has to say.

I remember watching my father board a plane at Dallas Love Field enroute to Vietnam in 1966. I was a teenager, but lost control of my tear ducts once he was out of sight. Later in life I was the one leaving–several times. I now have two sons in the sandbox, and think of them and what they are doing. As an old commander, I understand the necessity. As a father, I am proud, yet still concerned.

This war needs to be finished, and not in the same way as Vietnam was finished. Won, as in how WWII and the Cold War were won, with new democracies replacing old autocracies.