I’d like to thank every person who is sacrificing time, emotion, loved ones, for my freedom in this country. In my spirit I am touched whenever I am reminded of these brave soldiers and their families, and the calling that they respond to and walk in daily.

Many of us in your community would like to support you and connect more with the soldiers. It is too easy to get involved in our own safe little world and ignore the ones who are away, sacrificing to make this a safe place for us. Please, those of you who have friends and family serving in Iraq, please send in portions of your letters. We want to hear stories of our heroes. We want to hear how the troops are doing and we want to hear it from their own lips, not filtered through the media.

Please submit addresses of soldiers who could use a kind word from their home land, so that we who do not have any family serving in the war can personally thank and encourage a homesick soldier. If you folks can submit these things to the Valley Record, then we readers can share the soldiers’ struggles, mourn their losses, rejoice in their victories, pray for them and write to them.

I am so proud of our military, and I want them to know it. I want them to know that we appreciate them from our hearts.

Sue Crabb

Snoqualmie