A/1-506 IN Commander's Letter to the Company

With the same spirit that the Spartans fought at Thermopylae, the English at Agincourt, and our Currahee fathers at Bastogne, we have laid our hearts and souls on the altar of freedom and delivered hope to a nation that did not know hope. We came to Iraq to help a people overcome enslavement and tyranny and to help those people save themselves from the hands of oppressors. To those who embraced liberty for all, we gave the promise of a bright future. To those who would continue to enslave, who would kill and maim and destroy, we brought the retribution of justice for the evil that they do.

A price must be paid for the liberty that we bring. Liberty has never come without costs. Eventually, the Iraqi people must rise to take and keep their own liberty against those who would enslave them. Until they can and do, we soldiers have been asked to make the down payment of the price to redeem them.

For most of us that price has been a small part of our youth. Most of us will return home a little older, a little wiser, a little less carefree, with spirits a little darker from painful memories of grave moments of loss etched in our memories. For some of us the price has been far greater. Families have read the names of sons and fathers and husbands in one brief newspaper moment, heard their names spoken one short time on radio and television, seen their names carved into hard stone and now miss them with memories that fade in vague tribute to the too brief time of their lives. It is our solemn duty to ensure that fallen soldiers not be forgotten. They are martyrs to liberty and heroes to every Iraqi who will someday stand up to earn his own liberty and every American who cares to see liberty survive.

We must stay in Iraq to give the Iraqi people a fair chance to rise for themselves and for their own liberty. How long is fair? I do not know. The cynics and the self-absorbed will suggest that our goal is hopeless, that the price will be too great, that the Iraqis are different from us and don't want liberty. They will say that Iraq is a lost cause and not worth the blood of more American soldiers. They will say that we will lose here, that our plan is bad, that our situation is chaotic, muddled and hopeless. They are wrong. We have already sown seeds of liberty. By our sacrifice freedom has been born. The struggle with the forces of evil and enslavement may continue for a long time because evil can be strong and dedicated and enduring. But the unleashed power of liberty will continue to become stronger, more dedicated and more enduring. If the fragile young vine of liberty is nurtured, it will bear fruit.

Our hardships in the desert give us the opportunity to read this book and look at these pictures with a clear conscience when we are old men, proud of a major achievement. We have done our work faithfully and to the best of our ability. We have made a sacrifice for our fellow man, for the Iraqi people. We were willing to lay down our lives for our friends. We have loved our neighbor.