Dear 2012 Crimson Tide football team,

Thank you. I was hoping to open up this letter with something more profound, but those two words seem to be the most appropriate.

There are nearly 600 Alabama soldiers here in Afghanistan from the 1st of the 167th Infantry Battalion, the famed "Fourth Alabama," and the vast majority of us are Crimson Tide fans. Some of us are alumni of the University of Alabama.

We have met dozens of others - contractors, soldiers from other units - who greet us with "Roll Tide!" and gather with us at the wee hours of the morning to watch you play.

The games also give us a real connection to our families back home who ride the emotional roller-coaster with us from the other side of the world.

When you are serving 7,600 miles overseas, away from home in a war zone, there is little to look forward to. You have given us that as you marched towards a 23rd Southeastern Conference title and a possible 15th national championship.

We find enjoyment in our service, but true joy can be hard to find. We are pleased with our accomplishments but find little pleasure in these hard and dangerous environments.

In our world there is little room for fun and games, but you provide us fun through your game.

For a few hours in the early Sunday Afghan morning, we forgot where we were and escaped into an SEC Championship Game for the ages as the Crimson Tide was able to escape with a victory. We celebrated the win with all of the other Tide fans around the world.

I don't want it to sound like we place too much importance on a football game. We, more than most, are able to put things in the proper perspective.

But as the cold chill of winter begins to set in throughout most of Afghanistan and we brace ourselves for the bitterness of being away from those we love during Christmas, I admit I was concerned that, on top of it all, we would also not have a national championship game to anticipate.

Thankfully, you have given us that gift. In some ways, giving us that to look forward to may be even more important than the game itself.

So, to the players, coaches, staff, administration and all of those who make up the 2012 Crimson Tide, thank you from Afghanistan for making the past 14 weeks go by a little faster and making some of those days much easier to take. Thank you for making the next several days less cold and dreary and the holidays a bit brighter as we go about our missions knowing there is one more very big game still to come.

We have something to look forward to other than returning home, which is still months away. It's pretty hard to overestimate the value of something so precious.

Sincerely,

Major Michael Tomberlin

Alabama Army National Guard

Kabul, Afghanistan

"Fourth Alabama!"