Wednesday, December 24, 2003
No other individual or group commanded as much attention and respect from the American people in 2003 than the U.S. armed forces. No other individual or group exerted as much impact on the ongoing war against terror over the past 12 months than the American G.I. Recognizing as much, the editors of Time magazine aptly chose the American soldier as its collective Person of the Year for 2003.
"For the uncommon skills and service, for the choices each one of them has made and the ones still ahead, for the challenge of defending not only our freedoms but those barely stirring half a world away, the American soldier is Time's Person of the Year," the newsweekly wrote in its current edition, which features a portrait of three members of the 1st Armored Division in Iraq on its cover.
That division, among the 150,000 troops serving on the front lines in Iraq, served as front-page fodder for this newspaper and newspapers throughout the world since President Bush's announcement of war on March 19. The high visibility and keen interest the war generated were borne out by editors of the Associated Press, who overwhelmingly ranked the war in Iraq as the top news story of the year. Leading the charge in that war throughout the early days of combat, through the fall of Baghdad and to the capture of Saddam Hussein has been one reliable constant: the American soldier.
Regardless of one's personal feelings on the rightness or wrongness of the policy that drew our troops into harm's way, the contributions of our armed forces this year have generated collective national respect. Even Howard Dean, a vociferous anti-war Democratic presidential nominee, has sung the praises of our troops' fortitude, successes and grit.
Devotion to mission
That respect has been well earned. With a unified, rapid and determined devotion to mission, troops overtook the vast majority of Iraq within weeks, and Bush declared major combat operations ended six weeks after the war had begun. Despite insurgent attacks throughout the remainder of the year that cost America more than 200 lives, our troops pressed on to reach a watershed on Dec. 13, when Saddam Hussein was captured like a rat near his home in Tikrit.
"To have pulled Saddam Hussein from his hole in the ground brings the possibility of pulling an entire country out of the dark," Time's editors wrote.
Time's salute this week to the 1.4 million American men and women who serve and sacrifice in our armed forces is a forceful reminder of the importance of a strong national defense to maintaining our status as the lead player on the world stage.