On the short drive from my mother-in-law’s house to her sister’s, for our lovely Thanksgiving dinner, my husband noted a news report on the car radio that there was another car bombing in a busy Hilla marketplace. My husband checks icasualties every day. Sometimes he exclaims in despair, “Did you see these numbers?” Other times he just swears. Yesterday, he said, we were at 2097 American troops killed in Iraq. At that moment, in the family car, he knew we’d passed 2100. As of this writing, it’s 2104. Well Happy Thanksgiving!
Over dinner, family members we don’t see that often ask my husband if he’s still planning to stay in the Marine Corps; if there’s a chance he’ll be rotated back to Iraq; what he thinks of all this… For his part, he says, he’s just glad to be home with his family enjoying Thanksgiving dinner. But families all across America are missing their sons, daughters, husbands, and wives, this day. And some of them will be getting a knock on the door from some people in uniform, giving them the news that they’ll never see them again.

0 0 votes
Article Rating