John Spratt: “all of us who go out into the field to see our troops, and particularly overseas, bring back many conclusions and…”

“all of us who go out into the field to see our troops, and particularly overseas, bring back many conclusions and various impressions; but to a person, we all come back impressed, inspired, and thankful for the men and women who serve in the Armed Forces of the United States. In hard, dirty, and dangerous circumstances and often thankless deployments like Iraq and Afghanistan, they not only serve but they have had to adapt and improvise and tackle tasks they were never trained to handle. They have risen to the occasion, they have risen to the challenge, and at significant cost, in terms of those who have been wounded or injured or killed in action. These troops are the finest that any country has ever fielded, and they deserve not only our admiration but our support, and not just for them and their roles, which are vitally important, but for their families back home, for they sacrifice dearly. There are three levels in which our support should come: first, to those on active duty, and their families, and particularly those who are deployed for long tours of duty in harsh environments and under hazardous conditions; second, to the Guard and Reserve who leave their civilian occupations and are now serving in numbers and percentages we have never seen since the all-volunteer force was created some 30 years ago. Almost half of those in Iraq come from the reserve components.…”