David, I wish you nothing but success and safety as you serve in Iraq. I pray that the Lord will keep you safe through your travels and will bring you out of this ordeal a better man then you went in. Keep your head high, don't allow people to talk down to you, and know that you have a lot of people back home praying for you and supporting you. God bless you and Godspeed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
-John Stuart Mill