Join me in celebrating COL McDonald

I hope you’ll join me in celebrating Lieutenant Colonel Robert McDonald Jr.’s promotion to full Colonel. 

This soldier has been deployed to war zones and hostile environments EIGHT TIMES since we graduated from college. That's a lot of damn service. Too much, in my opinion. 

Pride is not big enough a word to describe my feelings about his accomplishment in reaching the rank of Colonel. Grateful is not big enough a word to describe my feelings about all that he and many like him have done and continue to do to protect our freedom. Thankful doesn't begin to describe my feelings about him surviving all those deployments. 

You wouldn't know it by watching the news, but we are still mired in the longest war in U.S. history. Service members are in Afghanistan ducking bullets as you read this. We have 15,000 troops over there that it's time to bring home.