Stardate 20050301.1154

(Captain's log): Terry writes:

I hope you are well and enjoying your "retirement" from blogging. I find myself reading Wretchard, Donald Sensing, and the Powerline guys and wondering how you see the amazing events unfolding across the middle east. I must say you hit it pretty square on the head in some of your old posts. In fact I have been having a long running debate with a close friend of mine about the war in Iraq and the last election.

Dave, like me, is a 1988 graduate of the Air Force Academy. We went to pilot training together and both were assigned to fly the C-141 at McGuire AFB. We roomed together until Dave got married. He left the Air Force in 1997 to fly for Delta, but still flies the KC-10 in the reserves. I left the Air Force in 1999 and I now work for the Federal Air Marshals as a supervisor in the Mission Operations Control Center. We often discuss current events, especially those that have a military element. After the fall of Saddam, and the long fruitless search for WMD, Dave turned completely against the war (even as he continued to fly missions in support of it). His overriding feeling was that Bush lied about WMD, and that Rumsfeld had bungled the aftermath of the war. He was deeply angry with Rumsfeld, holding the view that we didn't have eniugh troops in place.

We exchanged about a half dozen long emails debating the entire episode. I must admit I quoted extensively from many of your posts leading up to the war. I also liberally "borrowed" from Bill Whittle (giving full credit, of course--no honor code violations from this cadet!). I looked back at those emails from the last year today, and I see many of them coming true almost before my eyes in today's headlines. I think you had a remarkably clear view of the grand strategy behind the actions taken by the White House.

Recent events have been very gratifying. Of course, any feelings of triumph are bittersweet. Even though the casualty rate has been astoundingly low by historical standards, there are still 1400 families out there in this nation grieving for loved ones whom they won't ever be able to hug again.

It is a tragic fact of life that sometimes we must sacrifice the best among us to preserve and protect that which we love most.

My greatest satisfaction now is knowing that their sacrifice was not wasted. I strongly argued in favor of this war, knowing full well that if we fought it that many, many good young men and women would die, whether we won it or lost it. That was always a very heavy weight. I felt and still feel that it was the right course for this nation to follow, and recent events clearly show that now to all but the most willfully blind.

But we cannot and should not forget the price that was disproportionately paid by a very few. Victory is never cheap. Liberty is the most precious thing we have, and it has been paid for in blood yet again.

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