Bob Menendez: “as we celebrate this holiday season with our families, as we gather with those we love and give thanks for our…”

“as we celebrate this holiday season with our families, as we gather with those we love and give thanks for our tremendous blessings, we remember how incalculable the losses have been to the families of the 3,888 soldiers who have been killed in Iraq. Their losses cannot be tallied, not in the number of Christmas nights spent without the one they loved; not in the number of days since their wives, husbands, parents, and children left home forever. We cannot calculate the strain on the 28,661 wounded soldiers and their families, many of whom will be spending this precious time of the year in a military hospital, coping with their blindness, living with only one leg or arm, sleeping through nightmares of the battlefield instead of the beautiful dreams they used to know this time of year. As we hold them in our hearts--as well as all of the men and women in uniform across the globe who serve to protect the country and to promote its interests, for which we have eternal gratitude--as we hold them in our hearts and express that gratitude, we also watch our money slip away from us in Iraq. That is a casualty we can and must count. I have come to the floor over the last 2 months to talk about the cost of Iraq to us at home. The lives lost in Iraq cannot have a price put to them. Their sacrifice and that of their families have no price. The human suffering of those who have been wounded also has no price.”