Yesterday Susan and I had the privilege, or should I say the honor, of meeting one of our own from YourHub, Bill Prather, at his unit's departure ceremony.

Bill is heading to Iraq. Real soon.

Also there was Karin and Tom, two of our writers in the "YourHub -Thank you Brendan's List -Community".

We had the chance to meet Bill's family. We had the chance to take up a bit of Bill's precious time, and because of him, we had the opportunity to meet some of his comrades in arms, and to talk with them.

Thank you, Bill.

I am not here to give you an opinion of the war in Iraq, though I'm certainly full of them.

I'm not here to preach right or wrong, just or unjust. I'll let you go with your own thoughts on that one.

I'm here to try to describe to you, in my own inadequate way, what its like to witness a moment like this, as the world just outside buzzes with everyday activity.

What it's like, as life goes on with what passes in this day and age for normalcy, and these men and women prepare to put themselves in harm's way because they feel strongly enough and because they are dedicated and because they said they would.

It is very humbling, actually.

I asked one of the men in uniform who has been to Iraq what it was like. He looked me in the eye and said it was pretty rough. With those words I knew he had described more than I could ever understand.

Everyone I met, and I tried to at least say hello to as many as I could, looked me in the eye and shook my hand. These are good men, and good women. These are not robots or simple yes men, as some would describe.

At the moment I don't really care what you think of our servicemen and women in Iraq. Right, wrong, or indifferent, these men and women are serving our country, and just by leaving their families and heading to a far away place to face who knows what, they deserve our support.

These people should be every American's heroes, and although I don't know them personally, I can say they are all my heroes.

Later, Susan and I drove out, past the guardhouse and back onto the busy roads where life goes on for what passes as normal, and just like that we were out of the military and back to Main Street USA. Susan put it best; there is a whole life, a whole subculture of the military, which goes on below the radar.

Thank you, Bill, for inviting us to your departure ceremony yesterday.

I am only going to ask this from you and your comrades; keep your heads down and come home safe.

Please.