"The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes."

So, no doubt you've read that the so-called "Al Qaeda Prince" Abu Musab al Zarqawi is dead. Apparently Allah's wrath came in the form of a couple of 500lbs bombs, so that, as Calpurnia says, "the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes" (Julius Caesar, 2.2.1006).

Good.

Please join me in congratulating all the men & women serving in the Iraqi theater of the War on Terror. And I do mean to thank all of them. I'm not trying to be facetious when I make the observation that every single one of them deserves a piece of this sweet victory...

...including the guys who perform maintenance on those planes.

...the men and women who handle the ordinance.

...the folks who perform the thankless task of feeding, housing, and supplying those pilots and soldiers.

But don't take my word for it, read what General George S. Patton said (in his own, ever-colorful way!) :

Patton stopped and the crowd waited. He continued more quietly, "All of the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters, either. Every single man in this Army plays a vital role. Don't ever let up. Don't ever think that your job is unimportant. Every man has a job to do and he must do it. Every man is a vital link in the great chain. What if every truck driver suddenly decided that he didn't like the whine of those shells overhead, turned yellow, and jumped headlong into a ditch? The cowardly bastard could say, "Hell, they won't miss me, just one man in thousands". But, what if every man thought that way? Where in the hell would we be now? What would our country, our loved ones, our homes, even the world, be like? No, Goddamnit, Americans don't think like that. Every man does his job. Every man serves the whole. Every department, every unit, is important in the vast scheme of this war. The ordnance men are needed to supply the guns and machinery of war to keep us rolling. The Quartermaster is needed to bring up food and clothes because where we are going there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every last man on K.P. has a job to do, even the one who heats our water to keep us from getting the 'G.I. Shits'."

UPDATE (6/8/06; 11:10am): Hmm. That said, who wouldn't want to be the F-16 driver who got to waste this scumbag--even if it meant you had to be in the USAF! LOL.