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Recommended reading before tonight's gathering:

HEROES WITH BULLDOZERS
By RALPH PETERS

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/59279.htm

Unfortunately the New York Post requires a registration, but this one is worth it. What I have snipped out are examples of the heroic actions that are NOT making it into old media.

January 20, 2006 -- AMERICA's soldiers are al ways good for a surprise: The enthusiasm the Army's combat engineers show for our mission in Iraq would dumbfound even our military's most fervent supporters.
Privileged to speak with officers and NCOs from the Army's Maneuver Support Center in Missouri last week, I came away proud to have worn the same uniform as those men and women. Every one of them had served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Now they were briefly back home, working hard to incorporate combat lessons-learned into doctrine and training the young soldiers they'll lead during their next Mideast tours.

All that nonsense about a "broken Army"? What I heard was the conviction that we're not only doing the right thing in Iraq, but doing it far better than the media tell the American people.

Along with those combat engineers, the audience consisted of infantry, military police and chemical corps leaders — veterans all. Not one was discouraged by the political tempests blowing in Washington (where the hot air is a prime cause of global warming). The best word for what our soldiers displayed is zeal.

---snip---

* Even during an occupation, the Army has to train for its full range of missions. At a division commander's request, our engineers built a tank-gunnery range with 64 miles of protective berms to keep the main-gun rounds from going astray. One example among many — all in a day's work for the bulldozer boys.

* That day's work includes some of the most dangerous missions in Iraq — defusing IEDs. The equipment and techniques have gotten better, but it remains a nerve-wracking challenge. Combat engineers volunteer to do it.

* As in the Army's better-known units, our combat engineers see impressive re-enlistment rates. Soldiers sign up knowing they'll be sent back to Iraq. Tough as it is, they love what they do. As one command sergeant major put it, "This is what they signed up for, this is what it's all about."

Of course, no list of this sort can begin to capture the courage of these soldiers. They have families they love and the prospect of long lives in the greatest country on earth. Yet, they continue to risk death or mutilation because they will not quit on America — or Iraq — in the middle of a war.

At a time when we're bombarded with so much doom-and-gloom nonsense from those who'd like to abandon the world to terrorists, it's a shame we don't hear more about the men and women who stay in uniform, who do our nation's toughest work and receive so little credit from the know-it-alls safe at home.

Harvard and Yale? Keep 'em. The finest Americans are those who have gone through the School of the Soldier. A "broken military"? Nope. Anyway, if it was broken, the combat engineers would fix it. Under fire.