Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays, and not stuck at some sucky store that stays open on Thanksgiving. Customers always want it, but that’s because too many of them are too dumb to get their shopping done early. I worked retail for several years, and I never enjoyed the industry.

I’m going up to Dallas later today, but wanted to post some thoughts first. Last Sunday, the Houston Chronicle ran a front page picture (above the fold) and then devoted the entire front page of section G to Carolyn Thomas, a woman who was the victim of domestic abuse. Now don’t get me wrong — what she endured was hideous, evil, and wrong. But I am sick and tired of seeing people in those situations lionized as heroes. Particularly right after Veteran’s Day. Why doesn’t the Chronicle devote that much space to someone who took those horrible wounds in defense of their country? Why not spend that much space on what they were fighting for? Their treatment, their fight to recover from their wounds, their loved ones? Instead, today we’re treated to a sappy but brief article on Natalie McCrackin, a dead Marine’s wife, that treats her as someone to be pitied.

It’s crap like this that made me drop the Chronicle in the first place. Who is more worthy of being called a hero, here? The woman who was a victim of her own stupidity in staying with an abuser? Or the woman who chose to stand by her man as he risked his life for his country? Oh, I can hear the outraged “domestic violence activist” lobby screaming now. “Ubu Roi says she asked for it!” Two things I hate: ad hominem and straw man, and that’s both. So let’s be clear, ok? The victim didn’t ask to be horribly scarred. The problem was, she didn’t ask to not be horribly scarred by leaving her useless, abusive boyfriend.

So tell me, who is the hero here? The woman who let herself become a victim, or the woman who chose to stand by her man while he went off to war, perhaps and eventually, to never return?

I know which one I think is the hero. And it certainly isn’t Thomas, nor is it Karry Taylor Frey of Dickinson, whose self-pitying anti-war whine is published in today’s Letters to the Editor under “Knot in Stomach, Broken Heart.” She just can’t stand the thought that her son might have his Thanksgiving visit cut short, or God forbid, he might die for his country. (He’s not even assigned to Iraq or Afganistan, he’s merely “overseas.”)

Roman wives and mothers used to have a saying for their husbands/sons on the eve of war: “Come back with your shield, or on it.” Later on, the use of this phrase declined.

So did Rome.

So on this Thanksgiving day, give thanks for those who are still willing to shoulder the burden. Whether it is to march off to war, or to watch a loved one do so, takes courage that should be honored and celebrated, not sneered at. Looking upon these people with pity is an insult. Lionizing victims as heroes is doubly so.