Via an email about military blog writing a reflective piece by a soldier on the choice of Time magazine, incidentally a person I'd not heard of:http://rajivsrinivasan.wordpress.com...n-of-the-year/

One paragraph:
I am not upset that Staff Sgt. Giunta wasn’t selected for the award. I don’t shame the periodical for not putting him on the short list. What makes me cringe is the fact that such heroic acts as Giunta’s in defense of our most beloved nation are still not “influential” enough — not valued enough — to move and inspire us as a country: a country for which so many of us cry fierce patriotism, yet feel so little of its burdens.
Thanks to Ken's comments and others I know a lot better than when I first came aboard SWC about the varying distance between the civilian and the soldier.