Taurus, let me assure you of the overwhelming groundswell of support for our troops in this difficult and dangerous conflict.

Even people who think the overall mission has been badly mishandled, and that various politicians should be tarred and feathered for it, still support the troops.

I hope that if we can stick it out long enough, the Afghanis -- all of them -- will find the courage to move past the generations of war they've seen and build something bolder and better.

As for me, my heart is there at the ramp, on the bridge, beside the road, even when the rest of me can't be. Not that I believe in war; war is never a cleansing, it is an admission of collective failure; yet there are times we dare not shrink from it, lest we lose things we hold most true.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow ...