With young men like these...

I went to National Guard Drill two weekends ago and realized that after eight years in the organization, I am finally looking noticeably older than the seventeen-year-old privates who have just finished Basic Training. I asked one fresh-faced youngster if he had ever shaved in his life. Visibly dismayed that an officer would doubt his skills with a razor, he asked, "Is it growing back already, sir?" I laughed and responded, "No, your face is fine. I meant, 'Are you old enough to shave?'" When I was one of them, a new recruit age 17 in the year 1998, I used to muse that if there were a war, I would serve willingly. Since that time, we have had a war and I have served a year in Iraq, as have countless others.
What impressed me at last Drill was the comments I heard from the kids who were too young to go with us in 2005. Some of them, knowing that American soldiers are facing enemy fire in two theatres, still make comments that are identical to mine: If their nation calls them to war, they will go willingly. This current war against Islamofascism has thus far mainly sought to prevent the next terrorist attack on the United States. At that, we have been successful in preventing the attack and disarming three formerly hostile regimes at a cost of 3,000 men. (The third regime is Khaddafi's Libya, which disarmed peaceably.)
Are we winning? With the Iraqis looking less likely to democratize in fact as well as form, we may not achieve the peaceable ally for which we had hoped. Yet, if we in the future face a war for our own survival, rest assured we will have a willing populace to enlist and fight. As long as we have young men like the ones in my National Guard Unit, the people of this country need not fear any enemy. Hua!