CHRISTMAS SACRIFICES WEARING A UNIFORM: Austin Bay writes on servicepeoples’ Christmases:

There are many people who will say — with callous accuracy — that for servicemen and servicewomen hard duty is their job. They signed up to go whenever and wherever they are sent.

That’s true. But consider the persistent demands we have made on service members and their families over the last 13 years, the baker’s dozen since the end of the Cold War.

Christmas 1989: Operation Just Cause in Panama. Christmas 1990: Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf for Operation Desert Shield, prelude to Operation Desert Storm. Christmas 1992: Somalia is on the horizon. Christmas 1993: Somalia, again, and new worries about North Korea. Christmas 1994: The pace of air and naval deployments to the Balkans increases. USAF, Marine and Army reservists reinforce regulars in Panama and Guantanamo to work the Cuban migrant camps. Troops deploy to Kuwait, responding to saber-rattling by Saddam. U.S. troops are also assigned to Macedonia.

Christmas 1995: the Bosnia occupation, which was to last a year but still remains an American duty post. In the background, the Navy continues to enforce the U.N. embargo against Iraq and patrol the Persian Gulf. Fall 1998, the Hurricane Mitch relief operation in Central America, with U.S. forces playing a major role in the relief and recovery effort. Spring 1999, the Kosovo War, which by Christmas 1999 becomes occupation duty. Fall 2001, Afghanistan, the duty station in December 2002 for the 82nd Airborne Division. December 2002, uncertainty on the Korean DMZ as the ramp up for action against Saddam continues.

This list, though incomplete, makes the point.

Indeed it does.