I promised myself that I wasn't going to blog during my time away from the blog, but yesterday I heard something I had to share.

We're in Kansas City right now, which is where my cousin is stationed with the Marines. Last night my girl and I took him and his girlfriend out for Easter supper. During the course of the meal our conversation turned to the war in Iraq. Chris (my cousin) is assigned to some sort of information technology deployment here.

Basically, they fix computers for the military and aren't very likely to be deployed to the war zones in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The other day, however, Chris said that one of his superiors called a meeting and asked for volunteers to be deployed to Iraq.

According to my cousin, every single soldier in the room raised his/her hand to volunteer.

Apparently only the female volunteers were picked (they are apparently in need of females in Iraq to help with the arrest and detainment of female terror suspect), but the fact that everyone there (my cousin included) volunteered is a testament to the fortitude of our Marines. Not to mention the different picture it presents as to the morale of our troops from the one commonly put forth by Democrats and the media.

Chris also told me that everyone he knows who has signed up for duty since 9/11 has done so out of support for our mission in Iraq/Afghanistan. Which makes sense. With the war on right now, signing up for active duty military service means that it is very likely you will be seeing combat, yet as I've posted before active duty recruitment is exceeding goals.

Our troops believe in the mission in Iraq. The 63,000,000 or so Americans who voted for President Bush in 2004 believe in the mission in Iraq. Unfortunately, the Democrats and the media do not, and their negativity seems to speak louder than the optimism displayed by our troops and the majority of American voters.