Over the past two decades my career inside the archery industry has taken me many places and it has introduced me to thousands of people that otherwise I would have never met.

Of all the places and things which have occuried nothing stands above my trip to Iraq for the Iraqi International Archery Competition. With the exception of Kicking Bear everything else simply pales in comparison. While Kicking Bear has had the definite reward of working with kids who honestly need and want love or guidance the Iraq trip is something that just continues to live on.

I recieved an email from a Navy Veteran the other day which is no surprise. The subject of the email however was of great interest to me. So much so I decided to share it. I asked and received permission from all parties involved to post the information below.

“Sir:
I saw a mention on your website of a Sgt Charles Grist. Interesting because a friend sent me an email recently which quoted a letter written by Sgt. Grist to the President. He was responding to some ex-naval guy who had torn up his shoulder boards in protest over the Iraq war. If you would like to see this email, let me know and I will forward it.”

Anyone who knows me realizes I couldn’t get a copy of the letter fast enough. It indeed was the Sgt Grist I had written about. He is one of the people I think about extremely often, probably everyday. I talked of him in my writings but only told a small portion of what I had observed and learned directly from him or because of him.

As a quick reminder he is the one who commanded the mission I went on to the Water Palace. He got me a pass from reluctant guards who let me set on Sadaam’s throne, then he took a picture of me. I remember him telling them something to the effect of “ah we got a let him do this, he came all the way over here...

On a more sober note I vividly remember him sticking his head in the Humvee and saying “they told us to scrap the mission .... the guy we were going to see .... his whole family was murdered last night.” I can still see the look of sadness on his face, I can still here the sadness in his voice. Then there was a time of silence where no one said anything, broken up by Sgt. Actis looking down at me from the gunner’s turret and saying “ Welcome to the Baghdad Soap Opera”.

Sgt Grist, Me and the gang getting ready to mount up.

Before I ever saw the letter I had the utmost respect and appreciation for Sgt Charles Grist. The letter attached below only strengthens those feelings.

You recently received in the mail the shoulder boards and the Naval Aviator's wings belonging to Joseph W. DuRocher of Orlando. Mr. Durocher mailed those to you as a symbol of his opposition to you and your policies in the war on terror.

In his letter to you, Mr. DuRocher said that you had "dishonored our service and the Constitution and principles of our oath." Mr. Durocher, a self-defined "disciplined pacifist," forgot that he was the one who had sworn to defend the Constitution, that he was the one who had sworn the oath and that he was the one who would bring either honor or dishonor to his own service.

When I swore my own oath as a young second lieutenant in the Army in 1969, I took on the responsibility to defend my country and its way of life no matter who was sitting in the White House. When my mother pinned on the gold bars of my rank, I began to walk a long road that led through Vietnam. I am proud to say that my service continues today, even a year and a half after I returned from Iraq as one of the Army's oldest reservists.

When we went to war in Iraq, I had my own doubts about whether the time was right. I would probably have preferred to devote our resources to the pursuit of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden until the last cave on Earth has been searched. However, I am a soldier, and I obey my orders. I must have faith in the decisions of my leaders, and I had faith in yours.

Mistakes may have been made in evaluating the pre-war intelligence, but, when I was in Iraq in 2004, there were already rumors that Saddam Hussein had shipped his weapons of mass destruction to Syria. Whether this was true or whether he renewed his weapons program later, this brutal dictator was intent on developing such weapons, and eventually we would have to deal with him.

There are few absolutes in war; there are even fewer certainties. One certainty about the war on terror is that Islamic fundamentalists are intent on destroying our way of life. They have said as much, and their own definition of success will be a world whose liberties and freedoms have been crushed by religious fanaticism and where the quality of life is determined by ayatollahs and mullahs.

As a citizen, I may not agree with everything that has transpired during the war in Iraq or with every one of your policies or decisions. I do know that you care deeply about this country, because I have seen it in your face. I know that you carry the burden of loss for each and every one of our fellow citizens who died in this war, whether in America on Sept. 11 or on the battlefields throughout the world.

My only request of you as our leader is that you make sure that my fellow warriors do not die in vain. There must never be another black wall in Washington with the names of Americans who gave their lives for a politically abandoned cause. You said we would go after the terrorists and their supporters wherever they were and that we would bring them to justice. Your warriors considered that a mandate, and they carry it with them into every battle.

I will not mail my lieutenant's bars to you; I will not give up my sergeant's chevrons. I will not abdicate my duty to join my fellow service members in the defense of my country, either here or abroad. I was a soldier before you were president, and I will be a soldier when someone else is sitting in your office, even if I have been forced to retire.