Dan Rather

This week, the Iraq War will pass the four-year mark. It was on March 19, 2003, that the bombing campaign commenced. In the days that followed, the ground invasion got under way. By April 4, United States-led forces had seized Baghdad Airport. Within a week, Iraq's capital was firmly in American hands.

It was a heady few weeks that demonstrated the might of our nation's armed forces. And then the trouble started: the looting of government ministries, of hospitals where wounded civilians lay, of museums housing thousands of years of culture - the whole, unsettling "freedom's untidy" (in former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's words) mess that foreshadowed the insurgency.

Since then, seemingly every gain has had a commensurate and countervailing setback. Every promised corner turned toward stability - the killing of Saddam Hussein's sons, the capture of Saddam, elections, the handover of sovereignty, Saddam's execution - has revealed more violence on the other side. Now, even in the midst of the strategy by President Bush that some have billed as a last chance to pacify Iraq, war planners consider a 'Plan B'.

The American experience in Iraq is not over, and indeed it shows no signs of ending anytime soon. But already critics on the left, right and centre are asking if it represents one of the biggest foreign-policy blunders in our history. Even the president, who is author of this war, has been forced to concede that he is not pleased with the way the war is going. Opinion polls reveal a public profoundly weary and wary regarding Iraq.

Still fighting

And still we fight on. Or, to be more accurate, still a small number of us fight on - our all-volunteer armed forces, supplanted with reservists who never expected to defend more than our own shores and who are now, some of them, on their third tour of duty. Those of us who remain at home have enjoyed tax cuts and have been told by President Bush that our sacrifice takes the form of giving up 'peace of mind' when we watch the news.

Four years into this war seems like a good time to revisit what the real sacrifices have been, for the brave few who have served and who continue to serve.

More than 3,000 have been killed, a sum that would undoubtedly be much higher if not for great advances in battlefield medicine. And more than 23,000 have been wounded. Many have returned home missing limbs, or sightless, or having sustained chronic brain injuries. We are hearing about a looming mental-health epidemic among Iraq veterans. We have heard about the way some of our returning warriors have been treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Some reservists have lost stateside jobs, which is a crime. Some have lost marriages and families, which is sad beyond measure.

We went to war four years ago because Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Or he had ties to al-Qaida. Or we wanted to plant the seed of democracy in the Middle East. The reason for this war has shifted like the desert sands.

Still they fight. They fight a war that has now gone on longer than the Civil War, longer than the American involvement in World Wars I and II. We are told that there are no good choices left and in that, at least, we believe we hear the truth. And so, four years later, we keep calling on the brave few who have given so much already.