From yesterday's Wall Street Journal:

Hollywood war stories like "Saving Private Ryan" and "Black Hawk Down" promulgate the notion that contemporary soldiers fight not for cause and country but simply for the survival of themselves and their buddies. But most American soldiers are quite conscious of the titanic clash of moral universes that lies behind today's U.S. venture into the Middle East. They are not only aware of the historical importance of this fight, but proud of their role in it, and broadly motivated by high principles extending far beyond self preservation.

Gregory Kolodciejczky was a New York City fireman. When the Twin Towers went down, 14 men from his stationhouse were killed, and he decided to help make sure the events of that day would never be replayed in his country. At age 32 he chucked everything and started a new career as a paratrooper. He believes that by fighting in Iraq he is honoring the memory of his dead friends, and helping protect Americans from future acts of terror. I know numerous soldiers who put aside well-paying jobs, family life, graduate school and comfortable careers after concluding, in the wake of Sept. 11, that their country needed their military service.

Families of some of the soldiers I've reported on have shared their letters home with me, and many of these reflect the rectitude of those men and women. Lt. John Gibson of the 82nd's 325th Regiment wrote his parents on his birthday this summer that "we are homesick and want to see our families and loved ones, but not at the expense of an incomplete mission. I know that a completely free and democratic Iraq may not be in place by the time that I leave, but it will be significantly under way before I am redeployed. I see things here, on a daily basis, that hurt the human heart. I see poverty, crime, terrorism, murder, and stupidity. However, I see hope in the eyes of many Iraqis, hope for a chance to govern themselves. I think they are on the cusp of a new adventure, a chance for an entire country to start over again."

Pvt. Melville Johnson of the 82nd Airborne reflected on his time in combat this way: "I feel Iraq has real potential for the future--with the help of the U.S. military, humanitarian agencies, and the installation of a just, fair, and compassionate government. I feel tremendously for the American families that lost a loved one. I also feel for the families of the enemy. At night, before I rest, I think of the enemy we killed. I remember the way their bodies lay in unnatural states, positions God never intended them to take. I hope these images will soon fade. But would I willingly, happily, and completely fight this war again? Yes, I would do it all over again with just as much, or more, determination."

The patriot Thomas Paine once said, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, so that my children may have peace." This is a creed many soldiers adhere to quite literally. To a man, the deployed GIs I know tell me they don't want any waffling or hesitation about finishing the job in Iraq. They say it is much less important that the Iraqi war be over soon than that it be successful, and they know that will take time.

Amid the sour soap opera of Jessica Lynch, Americans should remember that there are many U.S. soldiers who displayed real self-sacrificial heroism in the Iraq War. Just among the 82nd Airborne there are men like Medic Alan Babin, who left a covered position and exposed himself on the battlefield to come to the aid of another soldier. He was shot in the abdomen and is now fighting his way back from the loss of numerous organs, several full-body arrests and 20 operations.

When you talk to our wounded soldiers they say, astonishingly, that they don't regret the fight. Almost universally, they say they are anxious to return to their units as soon as possible. Most American warriors subscribe to the words of John Stuart Mill: "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

It's easy for critics on both the left and right to convince themselves that the U.S. is a decadent society, that our young people have gone soft, that we will never have another generation like the men who climbed the cliffs at Normandy. That judgment, I'm here to report, is utterly wrong. We've got soldiers in uniform today whom Americans can trust with any responsibility, any difficulty, any mortal challenge.