(CNN) -- A few years ago, when I would tell people that my husband was deployed to Afghanistan, they would often respond with, "Well, at least he's not in Iraq," a comment I always found ignorant and irritating. But now, with the Iraq war ending, I am grateful that my husband's deployments were all to Afghanistan, to the war that the world -- at least temporarily -- forgot. Today I am grateful the name "Iraq" is not in my family's scrapbooks, our memories or the stories we will pass on to future generations, though my reasoning has nothing to do with the actual fighting that took place there. I am grateful because, to many Americans, Afghanistan is still the "good" war, the one we had to fight. Iraq was the war that many never understood nor supported.
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Rebekah Sanderlin: To many Americans, Afghanistan is the "good" war, as opposed to Iraq
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Iraq was the war that many never understood nor supported, Sanderlin says
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Like many in military families, I never thought of them as being separate wars, she says
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Sanderlin: I hope Americans know that those who served in Iraq did so honorably and nobly
So, though I'm glad to not have that @placeholder baggage in my family, I worry now for all my friends who do.