It's all very interesting. Last night, my family and I had the honor to open our home to one of our countries soldiers, a young man that graduated high school with our oldest daughter.

He is just back from Iraq, full of stories and experiences. Very little of what he shared sounded even vaguely familiar, because it bears little resemblance to what the media reports here in the US.

When I mentioned this to him, he told us that his platoon had a reporter and photographer embedded with them for a period of time. After several missions, He and his fellow soldiers were able to read the story written by the reporter. He said it was a topic of sarcasm among the platoon, because the report bore little resemblance to the actual events.

None of this is really surprising, but what's sad is that people will read the embellished reports, thinking this is the truth, then basing their opinions about the war on it. And that's just wrong.

Welcome home, Ben. And thank you........