On my way to work I started worrying about finding the right post to commemorate Veterans’ Day. Tone is so important here — you want respect without sentimentality, honor without jingoism, pride without obsequiousness. And I can’t really think of the right thing to say.

But Bob Bateman, memorializing one of his former sergeants who died in Iraq, really did. At Small Wars Journal, the man that a privileged few are lucky to know as The Bate-Man re-publishes a beautiful, eloquent, perfect essay on martial skill, selfless service and “Bradley Fox… the best infantryman I ever saw.” All of us should read it today.