Hello All, first let me say that I have sat on the sidelines and read your post and felt a particular kinship to you all. I am a member of the National Guard, I have been on one deployment to Iraq, and headed to my 2nd in the VERY near future. Today at church we had a "Thank the Soldier's day" and it was a packed house, as I sat there between my 14 yr old son, and my husband dressed in his Marine Blues, and I in my Class A's my heart was over flowing with pride that we live ina nation that we can have a day like this and openly proclaim our love for the lord. After church several member's from my unit decided to go and eat lunch at a near-by resturant, we all loaded up and headed out. Upon arriving at the restruant we were met with the STARE, and the occisional hand shake, and Thank You's from American's that were proud of the job that we as the military are doing in other countries. As our lunch arrived to the table, we bowed our heads n prayer and my 14 yr old son was asked to give grace, and I tell you all this I WAS SO PROUD OF THAT BOY, he stood up like a MAN and Thanked god for bringing both his parents back home safely, and asked to protect his mom as I leave for another deploment, I had tears running down my face, and as I looked up so did EVERYONE at our table. What happened next was the sweetest thing I have witnessed in along time, a older Vet came to the table and THANKED my son for praying in public, he said that showed he was truly a christian, and that he hoped that other kids in the restruant would follow our son's ways. At that moment NOTHING in this world mattered other than I know in my heart that we were doing a pretty good job raising our son. Sorry if I carried on, I wanted to share witrh ppl that I knew would understand!