A Response to My Tribute

This is what someone thinks is an appropriate response to a Memorial Day tribute:

I bet the poor guy would rather be here with his kid than receive a posthumous medal from the a-hole [edited by me] who sent him over there to die.

Support the troops by respecting them as human beings that want to live their lives with their families and bringing them home to do it -- not by assuaging our collective guilt by giving their family medals and writing up trite memorials. A lot of good that medal will do his kid as he grows up without a father.

He logged in as Anonymous. My husband, Doug responded:

Did Anonymous even read the citation? I am sure Sgt Smith would rather have lived but he clearly acted in a way that says he put his fellow soldiers and his country above it. All we can do is honor that and remember it, not demean and devalue it by infering it was for nothing. I don't know how Sgt Smith felt about the war but I am sure he loved this country and its freedom and knew what he was doing. He is credited with having saved 100 of his fellow soldiers some of them wounded. Is that nothing? If you go to [here].

You can read what his wife said at the ceremony (here is a portion):

"My family and I continue to be overwhelmed by the American people's appreciation of his service, and I'm sure Paul would be proud to know that I have begun the process of becoming an American citizen.

Sixty years ago, American soldiers liberated the German people from tyranny in World War II. Today another generation of American soldiers has given the Iraqis, the Afghani people a birth of freedom. This is an ideal that Paul truly believed in.

I know that Paul is looking down on the ceremony, along with Staff Sergeant Hollingshead and Private First Class Myer and all the other fallen soldiers from Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. May God bless them and their family.

Every soldier has a story. Because of this award, Paul's story of uncommon valor will forever be remembered. As soldiers, I encourage you to tell your stories, because the American people and the world will better understand the sacrifice of Paul and others like him. One soldier's story at a time."

You see Anonymous, its not about the medal. Its about ideas that are bigger that each of us and the people who lay down their lives in service to that.

I am amazed at how the some people have no sense of history. Why don't they just take Sadam and his Islamo-fascist kind at their word. Hitler told the world exactly what he was going to do and no one believed him (except Churchhill) until it cost millions of lives to stop him. These guys fighting us in Iraq have made it abundantly clear that their goal is world domination. By taking the war to them, many millions of lives are being saved. And for that, I will honor Sgt Smith and his Band of Brothers.