New Year's wishes.

Here are some of my wishes for this New Year ahead of us.

I wish my parents a year of better health. The eighties have not been kind to them, and yet they soldier on. They continue to be an inspiration to me, and I marvel at how they show each other love, even in the fading light.

I hope my wife, Jean, and I continue to savor a marriage of joy and companionship.

I hope our three kids, Sam and Katherine and William, can keep running the laps of adolescence and early adulthood without scuffing their knees on too many hurdles.

I'm concerned, immediately now, with the health of Molly Ivins, who has been wrestling with the intractable foe of cancer. Molly, who has been such an indelible part of this magazine--and the progressive movement--for the past twenty years. Molly, who never has ceased to remind us to keep on laughing. Molly, who makes us laugh again with her column this month. Molly, hang in there! (I'll be glad to forward your cards and letters to her.)

For the country, I also have a wish list.

I wish for the citizenry to continue to awaken from the nightmare of the Bush Age.

I wish for basic American decency to reassert itself against the hate-filled tirades of the far right and to rededicate itself to helping the poor.

I wish, against the odds, for a government that finally does something about global warming, and for all of us to do what we can about it in the little time there is left.

I wish for withdrawal from Iraq to begin immediately and to be completed no later than July 4.

I wish for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for multiple high crimes and misdemeanors. They've earned it.

And, like Barbara Ehrenreich this month, I wish for the Democrats to stop dreaming small and aiming low.

Regretfully, I must bid adieu to Amber Hewins, who has served admirably as our publisher for the past two years here. A whiz at the magazine business, Amber is moving on to become circulation director at The Atlantic. I'm grateful to her for all her innovations and improvements. She showed me a trick or two, and she's helped this magazine enormously.

In this issue, we offer you two glimpses of our troops in the Iraq War, and what it is doing to them.

Our cover story, written by Traci Hukill, examines the rampant sexual harassment and assault that female soldiers face on the job.

In our other piece, Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg profiles two soldiers who are suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Abbie Pickett is one of them. She lives around here, and I've met her. She's an amazing person. She told me that when she returned from Iraq, she thought about committing suicide twice an hour. Now, after getting some therapy, she's doing better--and trying to help others deal with PTSD.

We're also fortunate to have an extraordinary book review this month by JoAnn Wypijewski, whose writing we've long admired but have only too infrequently captured between our covers. We've got her this month, though, at luxuriant length.

She manages to link a book about John Henry with one by the new Senator from Virginia, James Webb. Now that's writing!