Ryan and Christy's Place

For the second consecutive year, the men and women that guarantee freedom in my little corner of the United States, and the United States over, have been gone on July Fourth.

It's funny, because July Fourth is the only major holiday they'll miss twice. (God willing.) A day celebrating our independence, they are in another country, working for its own. That truth could not be more evident as seen in the faces or the words of the citizens of Iraq -- not the nameless hordes of insurgents.

It's well said, maybe, by an Iraqi villager, Ahmed Faraj Muhammed (interviewed in Ryan's last column), whose sons were killed at the hands of Saddam: "The U.S. Army saved us and the village. The spirit of my five sons lives in these soldiers." And later: "If the U.S. government supports the new government, they will rule a new liberated Iraq. The terrorists want the U.S. Army to go back to the states so they can move in and take over Iraq again."

I love my country, imperfections and all. You cannot hear about or see people living in Iraq, or Africa, or Afghanistan, and not drop to your knees and thank God for this country, imperfections and all.

Today, remember the soldiers who fight not only for our freedom, but for the freedom of others. Some of whom have been gone two Independence Days because, of course, the cost of freedom is sacrifice. Who hunker in the desert watching flares being shot into the sky or the distant glow of fires burning instead of fireworks, and who hope, maybe, that we're thinking of them.

We are.

-- Christy