I also ran into this somewhere on Powerline Forums:
A Veteran - whether active duty, retired, national guard, or reserve is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to The “United States of America”, for an amount of “up to and including my life.”
That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.
- Author Unknown
Heh, thought that was pretty good.
According to BlackFive, at least one Aussie has good things to say about us. Read that here. I don't know if that's a valid email or just something someone created. But I've got a lot of respect for the Australian troops I've run into here. I had dinner with some high ranking enlisted at Tarin Kowt one time, and we talked about how they do things, and why they do things differently. The Aussies committed several thousand troops to Afghanistan, and I want to say the Sgt Major said their entire army was 30,000? Let me look it up on Google real quick though...
I had the same discussion with a Canadian Major one time. According to him, they only have about 60,000 (I think?) troops under arms in their entire military. So when they commit thousands of troops, and lots of equipment to Afghanistan, they are making quite a serious commitment. And when John Kerry mocks the Australians for what they've sent and suggests they send 30,000 troops... well, he's really showing his own ignorance more than their lack of seriousness.
Aha, according to what I can find on the Internet, Australian total troop strength in 2002 was just under 51,000 including all branches (Army, Navy, Air Force). Canadian troop strength levels are allegedly about 62,000 active troops, total.
So, either country sending more than 3,000 troops, is really doing quite a LOT. Kudos to our Canuck and Aussie pals for pitching in with so much of what little they have!
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