Nine years on

"On an early December morning many years ago, I watched my father leave for war. He joined millions of Americans to fight a war that would decide the fate of humanity. They fought cruel and formidable enemies bent on world domination. They fought not just for themselves and their families. They fought for love of an idea: that America stood for something greater than the sum of our individual interests.

From where did the courage come to make the maximum effort in that decisive moment in history? It marched with the sons of a nation that believed deeply in itself, in its history, in the justice of its cause, in its destiny. Americans went into battle armed against despair with the common conviction that the country that had sent them there was worth their sacrifice. Their families, their schools, their faith, their history, their heroes, had taught them that the freedom with which they were blessed was worth fighting and suffering for. Those who came home returned with an even deeper civic love. They believed that if America was worth dying for, then surely she was worth living for."

-Sen. John McCain, Worth the Fighting For