Today it has been exactly one year since the Fort Hood massacre.
On that day, one of our own - VC commenter Philip Warman - lost his beloved wife Juanita. I wasn't able to write about it for several days, but what I said when I finally did is equally true on this sad anniversary:
America's armed forces are a rough and colorful patchwork composed of urban sophisticates and down home country boys and girls, cynics and romantics. Perhaps nowhere in America do men and women, blacks, whites, hispanics, Jews, gentiles, native born Americans and those with the ink still wet on their citizenship papers so successfully live, work, and bond together. This is, I think, the result of a resounding call to be part of something greater than ourselves. Though it took her away from those she loved so deeply, Juanita Warman heard and responded to that distant trumpet. She stepped up. When her country called, she was right there where America needed her to be.