In May of 1945, I was employed by the Day & Night Manufacturing Company in Azusa, CA. I worked in the paint department where we were making rocket parts for the U.S. Navy. Midday on May 7, the factory whistle blew and we were instructed to assemble at the front of the plant.

Once there, we were informed that our enemies in Europe had accepted surrender terms. The war in Europe was over. V-E Day! I was a 16-year-old, living far from family and friends, so I was not involved in any big celebration. It was celebration enough to know that the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler was no more.


By August of that same year, I was back in my home town of Kansas City. We had been informed that the unconditional surrender of the Japanese was imminent. When the announcement came on the afternoon of August 15, most businesses closed and massive numbers of people poured into the streets in joyous celebration. V-J Day! Swaying back and forth with the crowd, singing patriotic songs and kissing girls, the celebration contnued far into the evening. When it was over, I was smeared in lipstick from ear to ear. My white shirt was red from shoulder to shoulder.


Two and one half months later I celebrated my 17th birthday and enlisted in the Army.


After the Army I went back to school and then began my career in broadcasting. On June 25, 1950, I was on the air at WLDY Radio, in Ladysmith, WI, when I heard the AP teletype machine ring five bells - the signal for a news bulletin. I read the bulletin on the air: "North Korean forces have crossed the 38th parallel, invading South Korean territory."


Our forces were quickly pushed southward, almost into the sea, when the brilliance of General Douglas MacArthur saved the day. With his newly dispatched reinforcements, the North Koreans were quickly pushed north to the Chinese border. Then the Chinese joined the war. MacArthur wanted to carry the war back to them, but Truman blinked, fired MacArthur, and let the Chinese/North Korean forces push back south to the 38th parallel.


The presidential election of 1952 hinged on discontent with the Truman administration's inability to end the war. Dwight Eisenhower was elected and his first official act was to travel to Korea and consult the field commanders of the military over which he had been chosen Commander in Chief.


Eisenhower negotiated a cease fire and the establishment of a DMZ - a demilitarized zone along the 38th parallel, which the opposing armies agreed not to cross. They have, however, glared at each other across that zone for 55 years. The Korean War never really ended. But then, how can you end a war which was never declared? The Korean Conflict, as it was more accurately known, was a "police action". Never mind that 36,916 Americans died.


The Viet Nam War really began in 1954 when the French engaged in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. After years of advising, equipping and supporting the South Vietnamese, the United States finally became fully engaged in the war. America's military won that war on the battlefield. The U.S. government lost to the anti-war movement at home. In May of 1975, our military was ordered to cut and run, insuring that the 58,193 American dead had died in vain. There was no victory celebration at the end of the Viet Nam War.


The Gulf War to drive Iraqis out of Kuwait ended so quickly that most Americans never realized we were in a war, and since much of America was still anti-military, that victory was not widely celebrated.


Then came the Iraq War. A new kind of war in which the real enemy was not the Iraq army, which America defeated in a blink. The enemy turned out to be an almost unending string of murderous Islamic thugs who poured into Iraq for the sport of killing a few thousand Americans and tens of thousands - perhaps hundreds of thousands - of innocent Iraqi civilians.


Today, November 22, the Iraqi Parliament votes on a security pact with the United States which will pave the way for American Forces to leave their nation. A democratic Iraq will assume responsibility for its own defense.

The dangerous regime of Saddam Hussein is gone. 28 million Iraqi people now live in freedom. A fledgling democracy exists in the heart of the Middle East. It is time to recognize that the Iraq War is won.


Today, I am proud to join thousands of like minded Americans in declaring that today, November 22, 2008, is VI-Day: Victory In Iraq Day! Our thanks to America's incredible military which made this joyful day possible.