Angels of the 101st

Instapundit links to a heartfelt essay printed in the Seattle PI from a trooper in the Washington ARNG, Aric Catron, who is serving his second tour in Iraq. Catron describes working a checkpoint one day when a little Iraqi girl suddenly runs into his arms, much to the soldier's surprise:

I looked toward her father and he immediately began talking rapidly in Arabic and gesturing at me. Our translator quickly explained that he, the father, had been locked in a prison for most of the child's life. He had been sentenced to death for being a Shiite dissident traitor. The man went on to say that soldiers wearing the same patch on the shoulder as I was (the 101st Airborne Division) had freed him shortly after we began the liberation of Iraq. His daughter from then on believed that the famous Screaming Eagle patch of the 101st meant that we were angels sent to protect her family.

Read the whole thing, it's short but nicely written.