On family and friends

It's always easier to be the one that leaves than the ones that stay behind.

You've all be wonderfully supportive in your emails and cards and letters, extolling the virtues of my service and sacrifice. I thank you for that. I sincerely appreciate your thoughts and prayers and want you to know they mean a great deal to me, and to all those serving here.

Any one who's deployed like this will tell you that it's easier to go than to stay behind. Of course it is difficult to leave family and friends, but there is a sense of adventure and camaraderie and being part of something bigger than ones self that drives us forward. The families and close friends that stay behind face a particularly difficult challenge that is seldom noticed or acknowledged. They live each day in uncertainty and with no way to do anything about that uncertainty. I know how safe my base is. I also have the benefit of the best training in the world and the certain knowledge that I can, to a great degree, protect myself and my men. But no matter how many times I tell my wife or my Mom or sister or brother, they will worry about me.

Our families hear, regularly, comments and compliments about how brave we are and how they must be proud of us. What's often forgotten in the workaday world of everyday life is how difficult it is for our families. There's a certain silent suffering that goes on, I think. No one wants to say "yes, but what about me! I'm lonely and scared, too."

So, allow me a moment to acknowledge my wife, Rachel for her sacrifice and understanding during this long ten months. And my Mom, my sister Brenda and my brother Jack, and Martha Hower. Martha's husband Mike is one of my dearest friends, a fellow Marine Officer and has just returned from 12 months in Fallujah, his second trip there.

If you know the family of a service member serving here or in Afghanistan, thank them for their sacrifice. They're the real heroes in my opinion.