4000 members of the Georgia National Guard have been called up for duty in Iraq. Police officers, firefighters, teachers, students, bankers, software engineers, salesmen, self employed businessmen.

Albany 180, Americus 90, Brunswick 260, Calhoun 140, Canton 90, Dalton 90, Douglas 60, Douglasville 66, Dublin 175, Eastman 50, Fitzgerald 50, Forsyth 255, Fort Stewart 55, Gainesville 150, Glennville 55, Griffin 170, Hawkinsville 50, Hinesville 200, Jesup 100, Kennesaw 50, Lawrenceville 150, Macon 280, Montezuma 60, Rome 75, Savannah 290, Springfield 120, Statesboro 95, Thomaston 45, Tifton 55, Valdosta 90, Waycross 50, Winder 170.

I've been in 24 or those 32 towns and walked around. Everyone in town is going to know someone who is deployed. One of my senior girls has a dad in Qattar. She has been crying a lot. When I talked to her, she says she is doing okay but her mom isn't taking it well. There must be crying children or parents, friends and cousins for each of the 4000. Some of the soldiers are going to die in Iraq. Many will kill Iraqis. (We have killed about 100 Iraqis for every U.S. soldier who has been killed, so far). Some will return home with unspeakable injuries. Some will be mentally scarred. All will be changed. They will be pround Americans at times. They will wonder why in the world they are there doing what they do at other times.

The president seems emboldened now that he is assured of power for another four years. There is sabre rattling going on about Iran and North Korea. Lay down your arms or we'll come and kill you next.

Sgt. Michael Conley, 56, is going over. Silver star in Viet Nam. He thinks the ghosts in his head from that war may help him save some lives. I heard the Republican party denigrate John Kerry's silver star from Viet Nam. Somehow he just got the Navy to give him one. He was really a scheming coward you know. Running for president, even back then.

Did you see the series, Band of Brothers on HBO? It follows Easy Company of the 101st Airborne through their service in World War 2. Lt. Richard Winters jumped behind enemy lines on D-Day. He lost his weapon in the jump. When the company was gathered he turned out to be the senior officer, since all other officers had been killed.

Some nearby German cannons were pounding Utah Beach and Lt. Winters was ordered by Division HQ to go find those guns and put them out of action. He had about 8 soldiers with rifles, a machine gun and some grenades. With surprise and superior tatics, he captured those 4 guns, guarded by about 75 Germans, and destroyed them. He also captured maps that showed the locations of every big gun in the Normandy area. He left about 50 bewildered Germans in trenches shooting at him as he retreated, taking two casualties, one dead, one wounded. His tatics for attacking an entrenched enemy of superior forces are still taught at West Point today as "the" strategy for that situation. Lt. Winters was awarded the silver star.

Lt. Kerry broke with the usual policy and ordered his swiftboat to race directly into fire, beaching the boat and charging ashore leading his men. He ran ahead of his men, chased down the enemy and killed them. His actions were so successful that they became the new policy for swiftboats to respond to attacks from the shore. Lt. Kerry was awarded the silver star.

Does anyone argue that Viet Nam was a good way for America's youth to be spent in the 70's? Was it necessary? Did it serve some purpose? Does someone think Iraq is a good fight for us today? Are we really helping Iraqis?

People are always quoting Robert Frost's line "Good fences make good neighbors," out of context. They insinuate that "de fence" (sorry, terrible pun) is what makes good neighbors. Frost's poem actually says the opposite. He ridicules his neighbor who thinks that good fences make good neighbors. Robert Frost didn't agree.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Robert Frost's neighbor would have voted for Dubya Bush.

It is unbridled charity and love for one another that would make good neighbors.