Dear troops:

Dear troops in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Korea:

While you are fighting and dying for your beloved country, we at home are taking it apart piece by piece. We are not as brave as you, we are not as careful of the dangers.

You care for your weapons as if your life depended on it--it does. You watch out for unseen dangers, those unseen dangers can take your life. You think about your family at home and you're glad they're safe in the greatest democracy in the world.

We at home don't read the documents which hold that democracy together. We think the rules that support that democracy are irrelevant, are in our way. Those documents and those rules are our weapons and we don't care for them as if our lives depend upon them--which they do.

We think about you in Fallujah, in Mosul, on some hillside in Afghanistan and we worry about you, but not enough to learn our long and glorious history, not enough to play by the rules that hold up our democracy.

You see, we're not the same kind of Americans who fought in the American Revolution, who fought that long, angry, frustrating battle to write the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights. We're not the same kind of Americans who for more than two centuries took care of our country as if our lives depended on it.

No, we're not the kind of Americans who fought for our union. We're not the kind of Americans who fought in the Great War, nor in World War II, nor in the Korean War, nor in the Vietnam War, nor in the Gulf War. We are not the kind of Americans who lived with ration stamps and gave up jobs to build battle ships and airplanes and take over jobs we'd never done before to support our troops--to support our country while it was in danger.

We're not  the kind of Americans who read our history and understand that dangers lie words and deeds and clouds of passion. Because that kind of American fights for our country just as you do. That kind of American is careful of our democracy's documents and its rules; that kind of American knows the long sweep of history can bury us.

We are the first Americans who have had to sacrifice nothing while you are sacrificing everything. We are the first Americans who don't know what's in our Constitution. We are the first Americans who are too tired, too busy, too apathetic to do our jobs as citizens of the United States of America.

We broke the rules in the nineteenth century over great issues; the result was the Civil War. We're going to break the rules again over small issues because that is the kind of Americans we are.

We are the first Americans who put ourselves before our country. Sorry about that.

Sincerely,
Your fellow American
We support our troops.