If you never read another word I write, please read what these brave men and women have to say. It isn't easy to do. By the time I wrote my last on-site dispatch from Winter Soldier on Friday I came extremely close to breaking down in the press room. But we owe it to what they did for this country, and what they are doing for it now, to hear them.They will be vilified and attacked. But they are not afraid. We should follow their example.

I need to say something else here. When I wrote my 1200-worder that's up today, I agonized over it. I have some very dear friends who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some who will be going in the future. I didn't, and don't, want to write a single word that would hurt them or their buddies. (In 2006, I sent a drunk and despairing email to one of them expressing that sentiment, and he replied to the effect that if I thought he had time to give a shit about what the press wrote, I truly didn't understand the war.) That's all.