To the Editor:
I'm a Vietnam combat veteran. That experience leads me to believe that the best way to "support our troops" is to keep them out of this war.
When the President talks about going to war with Saddam Hussein, that would be easy for me to support. That's not an accurate picture of what will happen, however. If this war comes to pass, Saddam will ride it out in a very well-protected bunker, eventually to escape or to go back to one of his 60 palaces. Maybe he'll be toppled, maybe not. On the other side, President Bush will "go to war" from a very safe distance.
Meanwhile, a few hundred thousand people who have no control over their government's policies regarding "weapons of mass destruction," will go to war bravely. Most of them are very nice people -- most just want to lead a peaceful life. Soldiers and civilians -- men, women, children and babies, Iraqis and a few Americans -- will die or be horribly injured. Mothers will lose their husbands and children. Little girls will have their legs blown off. Many innocent Iraqi people, who are very much like people you and I know and love, will be blown apart. The beautiful sweetheart of some good man will lose a large part of her lovely face. The wedding will be cancelled. The house will burn down. Carpenters, doctors and farmers will never return home.
Things like this actually happened in the last Gulf War. If we go to war, it is a certainty that they will happen again. This is what happens in a war.
I apologize for describing these things graphically. I'm doing this because I want the supporters of this war to have an accurate image of what "going to war with Saddam" actually means and what it will accomplish.
This is what I believe we all want to accomplish: we want our friends, family and country to be safe from crazy dictators and fanatical terrorists. We don't want to hurt innocents. We want to get the bad guys. We certainly don't want to give innocent people cause for revenge. We want our troops to do good and brave things in the world. We want them to know that we love and support them and want them to come home safely.
I want these things. I just don't believe that supporting this war will achieve these goals. It will harm our cause. As we all know, support for the Vietnam War did not make Americans safer, and that war was waged at great pain and loss for all.
