You wake up at dawn and get the morning paper. You decide you’d rather read it somewhere else this time, so you walk to the nearest coffee shop and order a tall vanilla latte, skim please. While reading the paper you come across a somewhat controversial article about the war in Iraq and you express your strong, dissenting opinion to a nearby person who is also reading the article. A debate is opened up, and soon others in the vicinity are joining in and expressing their various opinions on the war, on politics in this country, on this country in general.

This is perhaps a common illustration of what many Americans do every day, nothing out of the ordinary — a typical morning consisting of a caffeinated beverage or two and an exercising of free speech to go along with it. But did you ever, in the midst of your coffee and debate, think about why? Or how? How you are able to do this every day?
This one’s for the soldiers.