Fighting for freedom overseas -- and Canada

Earlier this week I received a very moving letter from a soldier in Afghanistan. That letter, in turn, prompted this one:

----- Original Message -----

Dear Ezra,

My cousin, Cpl. Jordan Anderson was killed in [Afghanistan] last year.  When I read
the e-mail you posted today from another brave soldier, I could only think
of Jordan and how he too believed in protecting our freedoms and in his own
words: "making {Afghanistan} into somewhere I could visit one day".

http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=b7ad0353-41b9-47a4-9fdb-b3e26a4749a4


I am embarrassed that this man is risking his life to protect the freedoms
that our grandfathers fought for, and back here in the comfort of our
suburbs, our politicians are allowing these kangaroo courts to destroy our
will to think for ourselves.  They should be renamed Sheep Rights
Commissions, because if they are allowed to continue, we will slowly be
transformed into a nation of sheep, willing to think and do only what our
intellectually superior bureaucrats and academics believe is right for us.

I will make it my mission to raise as much money for your fund as possible,
so that our men and women in Iraq can concentrate on their mission, and send
their absurdly hard earned paycheck back to their families.

I'm looking forward to watching you "fight like hell", although I strongly
suspect your adversary is a straw man, and will go away long before you
reach the courtroom steps.

Godspeed Mr. Levant.

[name deleted]

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=3402280031

------------------------

It took me a long time to write back. I went on the Facebook group and learned about Jordan; I read some of the news clippings. But mainly I thought: how could my comfortable, safe "battle" here in Canada even be compared to real battles in a war zone? I was touched and sad and grateful all at the same time.

I wrote back, saying that we in Canada should take a moment to think about what Jordan and others like him face, on our behalf, every day. Jordan fought not only for his own freedom, but for the freedom of strangers half a world away.

His story, and his cousin's letter, are both tear-jerking and inspirational. It makes me want to redouble my own meagre efforts to live up to Jordan's enormous example. He paid the ultimate price for freedom; surely I can pay a more gentle price.

Jordan's cousin permitted me to publish his letter, and I do so with feelings of gratitude, inspiration and even love for a man who I only got to know after he made the supreme sacrifice.