The home of the brave and determined

BBC:

About a fifth of the more than 3,200 US troops who have died in Iraq are from towns with fewer than 5,000 inhabitants. But this has not deterred many of these small communities from continuing to support President Bush's policy on Iraq.

Windthorst is a small Texas town that is getting smaller.

"There used to be around 100 dairy farms here when I was growing up," Nubbin Johnston told me, "Now there are only 50."

A large man, dressed in denim dungarees, Nubbin quietly dominates his living room, much as his gleaming, silver milk truck dominates his driveway.

...

Twenty-one-year-old Gary died in Iraq at the end of January, the victim of a bomb blast in Anbar province.

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The food had been donated by local well-wishers but also by the military, as had the DVD of his funeral ceremony - a small town memorial on a very large scale.

The Johnstons sat me down in front of their computer to watch the edited version, keen for me to see exactly what kind of tribute their son had been paid.

It was one that was clearly rich in both emotion and numbers.

Windthorst is a town of less than 500, but the images of that day show an 11-mile funeral cortege, snaking its way through streets lined with US flags.

Such was the demand for seats that the marines had rigged up a video screen in the local municipal gym, where a solemn, packed hall watched a live feed of the service. Even that was not enough to accommodate all the mourners.

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And there was Gary Hoff, a Vietnam veteran who remembers other young men from Windthorst dying in that earlier conflict.

"That boy was like a son to me," he said, with tears rolling down his face.

Words that sound - as I read them - like a cliche, but when uttered by a proud, Texan farmer, believe me... do not.

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In fact, doubt was about the only emotion missing from the room.

Everyone believed that US troops should remain in Iraq to protect America from terrorists, to honour the dead, such as Gary, and to complete the job... even one whose definition was becoming less certain.

But Nubbin Johnston was certain of one thing.

"My brother died in vain in Vietnam," he said, his big frame shaking. "That won't happen to my son."

He took a breath, looked at his neighbours, then spoke for them.

"You want to know why small-town America is losing so many of its people in Iraq?" he asked, his voice quivering.

"It's because small-town America still believes in this country, still believes in fighting for the freedom to worship whichever God you believe in. Our young men and women - like Gary - have been sacrificing their lives for this for 200 years. This is America."

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It is an America that Democrats will lose forever if they betray these brave men. Nothing will anger these people more than to see the sacrifices of their young men used as a prop for those who want to lose this war. Nothing.

When you see Democrats on TV pretending that they are opposing this war for these men, you know they don't really know these people. They have no idea.