I See… an Al Qaeda Thanksgiving

What do “eville” Al-Qaeda terrorists have to do with Thanksgiving? How are they connected? Before whining about your own life, thinking about the challenges of others can help to put things into perspective.

A mutual friend of ours, a young married woman, would talk several times a week with her husband serving in Iraq. During their calls she would often dump on him a running narrative of what she described as her “trivial challenges.” Being the good husband that he was, he would reassure her that although her problems were not “trivial,” they could be overcome. During one relatively depressing session, she heard her husband’s tactical radio crackle in the background. She overheard another soldier via the radio ask her husband, “do you have all 9 of them there?” He responded with a casual “yes.” When his wife asked him what he was talking about, he replied even more casually, “ Oh, I’m guarding nine Iraqis right now. They’re probably Al-Qaeda. Don’t worry, they’re tied up. “

They had been listening to her complaints in the background. She immediately realized what was important in life, and she was grateful that some of her big problems were much smaller in the shadow of her husband guarding nine terrorists.