And God bless the men and women serving overseas that they may come home safe to their families....

Clownfish says this as part of his prayers every night. This morning I was flipping past CNN news on the way to whatever mommy-approved kid programming dreck I could find on cable when Clownfish said:

CF: "Are those guys serving overseas?"

CNN was showing some soldiers in Afghanistan, laying down some machine gun fire.

Me: "Yes. That's who you pray for every night."

Tonight, we were putting him to bed when he said:

CF: "Papa, I saw some guys serving overseas on television."

I briefly filled in the context.

CF: "That's where you were when I was two? You missed my second birthday party."

Bullshark: "Yes. When I left you were just a little guy... you couldn't even hold a spoon correctly. When I came back, you were a big two year old."

CF: "I think serving overseas is more important than going to parties."

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This happened on 11/1/09. I post-dated it for Veteran's Day because it seemed appropriate.

Edited to add: In light of the recent tragedy at Ft. Hood, maybe we'll have to change our prayer to protect service people everywhere, even when they're supposedly safe here in CONUS.