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MAYOR BILL BECK on Saturday welcomed home nearly 200 local National Guard soldiers from a 10-month deployment by observing, "These people have taken a year off from their normal lives to defend our country, and we need to say thank you." Indeed they did; indeed we do.
It's true that these citizen-soldiers, from Fredericksburg's 229th Engineer Battalion, did not fix bayonets and charge Saddam's Republican Guard. They helped secure the Pentagon. But as Sept. 11, 2001, proved, U.S. soil--demonstrably that around the five-sided building in Arlington--is a warfront. Also, the 229th freed up other soldiers to liberate and help rebuild Iraq.
One speech the soldiers didn't hear, it's safe to assume, was written by Dr. Muhammad Al-Rascheed, a Saudi, in the form of a newspaper column. It reads, in part, "What I saw [in Iraq] gave me back some confidence in the possibility of justice in this world. I had almost lost hope. It took George Bush to give me that back. I don't agree with him on many things [but] I'll give the man his due. He will go down in Arab history as the liberator of Baghdad.It took Americans to relieve Baghdad of its dictator."
The called-up troops of the 229th--some are staying on active duty, including in Iraq--did more than just check out foot traffic and vehicles outside America's main military headquarters. By lacing up their boots, shouldering their packs, grabbing their rifles, and marching off to do their duty, they became part of something big. Something that promises to make the world safer. Something that already has delivered part of it from the rule of fiends. How right that they should return at Christmas.