This morning I share with you this memo from Major General John Kelly, U.S. Commander — Iraq. Feb. 7, 2009.

“To: All Hands. I don’t suppose this will get much coverage in the States as the news is so good. No, the news is unbelievable.

Something didn’t happen in Al Anbar Province, Iraq, today. Once the most violent and most dangerous place on earth, no suicide vest bomber detonated killing dozens of voters. No suicide truck bomber drove into a polling place collapsing the building and killing and injuring over 100. No Marine was in a firefight engaging an Al Qaida terrorist trying to disrupt democracy.

What did happen was Anbar Sunnis came out in their tens of thousands to vote in the first free election of their lives.

With the expectation of all of the above suicide attacks they walked miles to the polling places. (We had curtailed vehicle traffic except for buses carrying the elderly and impaired to the polls.) I slept under the stars with some grunts at Combat Outpost Iba on the far side of Karma, and started driving the 200 miles up the Euphrates River Valley through Karma, Fallujah, Habbiniyah, Ramadi, Hit, Baghdad and back here to Al Asad. I stopped here and there to speak with cops, soldiers, Marines, and most importantly, regular Iraqi men and women along the way.

It was the same everywhere: A tension with every finger on a trigger that broke at perhaps 3 p.m. when we all began to think what was almost unthinkable a year ago.

We might just pull this off without a bombing. No way. By 4 p.m. it seemed like we’d make it to 5 p.m.when the polls closed. At 4:30 the unbelievable happened: The election was extended an hour to 6 p.m. because of the large crowds! What, are they kidding? Tempting fate like that is not nice. Six p.m. and the polls close without a single act of violence or a single accusation of fraud, and by early reports pretty close to 100 percent voted. Priceless.

Every Anbari walking towards the polling place had these determined and, frankly, concerned looks on their faces.

No children with them (here mothers and grandmothers are NEVER without their children or grandchildren) because of the expectation of death.

Husbands voted separately from wives, and mothers separately from fathers for the same reason. In and out quickly to be less of a target for the expected suicide murderer. When they came out after voting they also wore the same expression on their faces, but now one of smiling amazement as they held up and stared at ink stained index fingers.

Norman Rockwell could not have captured this wonderment. Even the ladies voted in large numbers and their husbands didn’t insist on going into the booths to tell them who to vote for.

One of the things I’ve always said was that we came here to “give” them Democracy. Even in the dark days my only consolation was that it was about freedom and democracy.

After what I saw today, and having forgotten our own history and revolution, this was arrogance. People are not given freedom and Democracy — they take it for themselves. The Anbaris deserve this credit.

Today I step down as the dictator, albeit benevolent, of Anbar Province . Today the Anbaris took it from me. I am ecstatic. It was a privilege to be part of it, to have somehow in a small way to have helped make it happen.

Semper Fi. Kelly”

Dan Rapp is pastor of Ohio Baptist Church and a south Ironton resident.