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I recently returned from an incredible trip to Italy that was filled with treasured memories. What I want to share with readers happened in an unlikely place, but is the most treasured of all.

In the Dallas airport on the final travel leg of my journey home, I was changing concourses when over the public address system a voice said: "Attention. The airport manager would like to speak to you. In just a few minutes, a group of our troops returning from Iraq is going to deplane. If you look up, you'll see a glass wall. That is the walkway you'll see them going through. Please join us in welcoming our soldiers back home."

As I looked up, the doors opened and, for the next 25 minutes, these men and women moved through that walkway above us and, for 25 minutes, the applause never diminished. We couldn't hear each other, but the energy of connection was there. They threw back hugs and kisses and we waved and cheered. We could feel them, and they could feel us.

It was the most profound, grateful, heartfelt, absolutely spontaneous reaction I've ever experienced. It gave me an incredible sensation as a cross-section of America sitting in this airport stood in unison to applaud our troops. In the entire concourse, no one was sitting and the applause never stopped or even faltered. I was so amazed, I had to share it with someone close, so I dialed my sister in Virginia and held out the cell phone.

"What is that?" she asked.

"It's all of us clapping for the men and women coming home right now!"

Then, after the last soldier went by, there was absolute silence. Finally the person next to me spoke: "Wouldn't it be wonderful if this were all of them."

Going though our own busy lives, we don't always have the chance to realize how grateful we are to them. To be able to be there when they arrived and to thank them was remarkable. It was beautiful to be able to show them how much we appreciate the sacrifice they're making and the sacrifice the American family is making.

I realize there may be a lot of differences in our ideas about many things, but when we have the chance to say thank you, it is in unison.

Thank you, from all of us to all those who have answered the call to serve.