March 19, 2003.

The following morning, March 20, readers of this newspaper were greeted by a front page with a huge headline with a simple message: It’s War.

That was five years ago. The Iraq War has now dragged on longer than World War II. That’s a little hard to fathom. Certainly no one then considered that a possibility.

Not when they toppled that statute of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad just a few weeks later. Not when President George W. Bush jetted on to the deck of an aircraft carrier and delivered a rousing speech in front of a huge banner declaring “Mission Accomplished.”

Five years later, the mission is still not fully accomplished. Hussein has been removed. Creating a stable Iraq is another question.

Progress has been slow. Agonizingly slow. The price has been steep. Nearly 4,000 Americans have lost their lives in Iraq. A recent troop surge is showing promise in creating the stability that so far has eluded the mission. The war on terror continues. Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, remains on the loose. The conflict in Afghanistan remains muddied.

Five years. Five long, difficult years. And with a promise that our involvement there likely will continue much longer.