Smiley Faces

Yesterday I dropped off my lovely husband at the airport, only for my phone to ring minutes later.

You know that call -- the one you don't want to answer and just hope everything works out.

"Tabby," I said to my friend who I was hoping to meet for lunch. "I have to go -- David's on the other line and I just dropped him off."

"He forgot something," she said.

I hoped against hope she was wrong. Maybe he just wanted to tell me he loved me , I thought, and reluctantly clicked over.

"I'm so ridiculous," was all he said, and I knew my plans at Starbucks writing my next book and then an early Christmas shopping session were not going to happen.

"What did you forget?"

"My passport."

Yes, he was going out of the country, but Toronto isn't quite exotic enough to instantly jog your memory when you're packing. (Go ahead. Insert Ugly American joke here and I won't tell you the million variations of "why isn't Toronto a suburb of New York" remarks I made.)

See, I had plenty of time to think of Toronto slurs, because I had to drive back home, give David his passport, then drive back to get the kids from school. The whole process took me four solid hours of driving, and there was nothing more I would've wanted than to fast forward through the whole process.

But it wasn't over. Then, I had to drive back to Nashville with the kids tonight to pick him up.

The kids were complaining the whole way, I was lamenting how much time I'd spent in the car for David during the 24 hour period -- 6, not that I'm counting -- and wondering how long we can actually make it being a one car family. (I sold David's car when he left for Iraq, and the national financial crisis has made us reluctant to purchase another.)

Then, about mile marker 65, it hit me. Right as my daughter was explaining to me in great detail why today was the worst day she's ever had, I tried to force myself to enjoy the moment. By sheer act of will, I tried to love she had anxiety because she the little boy in front of her will not stop stealing her eraser. These are the easy problems I'll remember and smile, I thought.

And so, I took a deep breath, gripped the steering wheel, made a "no more complaining rule," and gushed out more compassion than kids should be able to receive in one lifetime. It dawned on me they may have been responding emotionally to the fact that David had gone on this business trip so soon after coming home from his year long deployment in Iraq. Or, they could've just been whiny.

You never really know.

Anyway, we picked David up, skipped church, and got chocolate milkshakes. And when they went to bed a few hours later, they had smiles on their faces.

But not as big as the smile I wore, when I realized they'd finally gone to sleep, and tomorrow is another day.

Welcome Home, David

Hello, guys. Thank you for all of your e-mails and concern, and -- yes! -- David's back. For the past few weeks, we've been relaxing, getting readjusted to post-deployment life, and we ever took a Disney cruise. I even forgot to post David's recent NRO article, below for your enjoyment.

In the late evening hours of Monday, November 3, 2008, my wife and I were surprised to hear my almost ten-year old daughter quietly crying in her room — well after her bed-time. I walked in to see what was wrong, expecting to hear that she’d had a bad dream or perhaps a bad day at school. Her real concern surprised me: “Daddy, I heard that Barack Obama wants to bring all the troops home from Iraq, and that we might lose the war.”

We don’t try to raise “politically aware” children (we’re not those kind of parents), but my daughter does love to eavesdrop on adult conversations, and the election had been a dominant topic at home, at our church, and at her school. Compounding her natural interest in the news was a very personal connection to Iraq — her Daddy had just come home from a year in Diyala Province.

“And when I heard that, it made me so sad because it would mean that we went through all that for nothing.”

The words, “went through all that” were heavy with meaning. I distinctly remember the tears when my wife and I told the kids that I was leaving for Iraq and the shock on their little faces when they found out that “leaving” meant a year. My wife tells me that my son had a hard time dealing with the first few months of my departure and then struggled the last few months I was gone. They responded in horror when they learned that “one of Daddy’s friends had died.” For them, it was a year of play dates, sports leagues, and homework, but it was also a year of worry, fear, and longing.

And now she worried that it was all for naught.

I responded to her fear with the truth. After being brave in my absence, she deserved nothing less.

“Don’t worry. I’m not concerned about the election. Because I’m pretty sure we’ve already won the war.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because soldiers fight and win wars, not politicians, and while I can’t be sure yet, I think our soldiers have won.”

Certainly that is not to say that political decisions are irrelevant or that the election last week did not matter, but once the decision is made to fight, and resources are dedicated that that fight, then wars are won and lost by those who fight them. Facts on the ground can render political decisions irrelevant.

Does anyone doubt that President Bush was just as resolved to prevail in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, when the war seemed hopeless, as he was in 2007 and 2008, when the tide turned decisively? We can’t think that the key decision was the decision to send a few extra brigades into the fight, as if that decision won the war. After all, if manpower, firepower, and commitment were everything, then the Soviets would have had little trouble with the Afghan guerillas as they hit them with everything but the kitchen sink. Resources and politics matter, just not as much as strategy, tactics, and sheer courage.

Simply put, once the battle is joined, politicians exaggerate the impact of their decisions, and civilians magnify the importance of their advocacy because — well — it’s all they have.

But when I look back on this last year, and I think of the battle space that my unit — Sabre Squadron, 2d Squadron, 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment occupied — I don’t think of politicians at all. I think of Lieutenant Colonel Paul Calvert’s decision to not just strike hard al-Qaeda’s safe havens in the tiny, dusty villages of Diyala and to follow the enemy wherever they ran, but also of his decision to stay in those villages (no matter how small) until they could stand again on their own. I think of the Troopers of Fox and Grim Troops sleeping night after night in the backs of their vehicles, watching roads, playing with kids, chasing insurgents, and training Iraqi soldiers. I think of my friends — my fellow staff officers — working hours that would make an investment banker blanch not only to provide the guys on the line with the food and information they needed but also to create, finance, and oversee countless projects to improve the lives of ordinary Iraqis.

And I think of all these guys working with courage and perseverance though tragedies and losses that sometimes made it seem as if we were spinning our wheels and as if change would never come. But when Sabre Squadron left last month to move to northern Iraq, it left behind a province containing thousands of square kilometers of newly free land. The battle for Diyala was not won in Washington. It was won in Diyala.

On the night of November 3, my daughter may have been distressed, but I slept much easier than I ever thought I might. The political debates would rage on, but the facts had changed . . . because of our soldiers.

by David A. French