For your right to criticize...

This is making the email rounds but I like it so here it gets a home for all my military buds.

One of my sons serves in the military. He is
still stateside, here in California . He called me
yesterday to let me know how warm and welcoming people were
to him and his troops everywhere he goes, telling me how
people shake their hands and thank them for being willing to
serve and fight for not only our own
freedoms,but so that others may have them also.

But he also told me about an incident in the grocery store
he stopped at yesterday on his way home from the base. He
said that ahead of several people in front of him stood a
woman dressed in a burkha.

He said when she got to the cashier she loudly remarked
about the U.S. flag lapel pin the cashier wore on her smock.
The cashier reached up and touched the pin, and said proudly,
'Yes, I always wear it and probably always will..'

The woman in the burkha then asked the cashier when she was
going to stop bombing her countrymen, explaining that she
was Iraqi.

A gentleman standing behind my son stepped forward.

Putting his arm around my son's shoulders and nodding towards
my son, he said in a calm and gentle voice to the Iraqi woman:
'Lady, hundreds of thousands of men and women like this
young man have fought and died so that YOU could stand here,
in MY country and accuse a check-out cashier of bombing
YOUR countrymen. It is my belief that had you been this
outspoken in YOUR own country, we wouldn't need to be
there today. But, hey, if you have now learned how to speak
out so loudly and clearly, I'll gladly buy you a ticket and
pay your way back to Iraq so you can straighten out the
mess in YOUR country that you are obviously here in MY
country to avoid.

Everyone within hearing distance cheered!