Thank You US Military!!!

The Family Research Council's Daily newsletter's Thanksgiving email nails it. As it says toward the bottom, please remember in your day with family and friends to say a prayer of thanks and protection for our troops who fight to keep us free.

There isn't a link, so I'm reposting it in full:

Facing the greatest test of American resilience, President Abraham Lincoln's first Thanksgiving came at a pivotal point in his life--and in the history of his torn country. In 1863, with the nation embroiled in war and dark shadows cast on the prospect of peace, President Lincoln revived a tradition of thankfulness at a time when there seem little to be grateful for.

As he walked among the shallow graves at Gettysburg, mourning the thousands who fell, President Lincoln asked his countrymen to lay down their arms and pray. After delivering his famous battlefield address, Lincoln reminded the people that although they were divided by many things, they were still united by the American ideal. There, in Gettysburg, Lincoln issued a Thanksgiving proclamation, setting aside one November day for people of the North and South to join together, and with one voice offer their praise and gratitude to God. The country, though shattered by war and broken in spirit, would observe its first Thanksgiving since the great Revolution.

"In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity... order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict...

"Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship... notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

"No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God... It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people... I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also... fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose."

Today, our prayer is not unlike President Lincoln's--that, at a time of war abroad and a bitter conflict of interests at home, the Lord would heal the wounds of this nation and increase its years of peace.

This Thanksgiving, as American families celebrate life's bounty, may we remember the men and women on the fields of battle who are eating meals under enemy fire. As we sit on sofas swapping stories, they sit in humvees, patrolling streets. While we gather around televisions watching football, they huddle under cover watching snipers. In the face of these great challenges, may we, like Lincoln, put gratitude first.