Take it from someone who knows

There's an excellent column in today's Orange County Register by Jenny Sokol, the wife of a Marine. Since (free) registration is required I'll excerpt some key graphs:

If Marines are tired, it's to be expected. When they deploy, it's for more than six months, and when they return, it's not for long. Some have already completed three tours in Iraq.

If Marine families seem weary, it's because they miss their husbands and dads, not because they don't believe in the mission.

Military families know that all is not well in Iraq; 2,000 families have made the ultimate sacrifice. We also know that wars don't unfold flawlessly.

They don't begin in March and end in April.

Regardless of how or why this conflict began, we're morally obligated to stay. Leaving Iraq's fledgling democracy to fend off radical extremists is not a viable option. Our withdrawal would be viewed around the world as a great and empowering victory by terrorists. Tiny seeds of freedom have been planted in the Middle East. It will take patience and perseverance for the seeds to take root and grow.

[...]

My Marine - and others like him - feels that while we're winning the war in Iraq, we're being demolished on the home front.

When the American death toll is adjusted on the morning news each day, the reporter should throw out another number - 50 million. Remind us that since Sept. 11, 50 million people living under brutal regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq have been liberated.

[...]

The voices of those ready to jump ship are loud and frenzied. My husband vouches, however, that their voices are not nearly as compelling as the ones he heard April 10, 2003, on Baghdad's streets.

Those voices cheered, celebrating the end of an era, but more importantly, the beginning of another.

I don't suppose there's much else to say about that, except that I guess it's really no wonder that the LA Times is losing subscribers.

Oh, and of course...read the whole thing.