Some will tell you that, if you don’t support the war in Iraq, you can’t support our troops and you are not a good American. Hogwash!

I was in Korea, on the front lines, during 1952 while they were still shooting real bullets. I didn’t support the war even though I was obedient to my superiors, doing my duty. Why did I not support the war? During the relatively short time we were in that war, facing the dangerous forces of North Korea and China, we lost over 38,000 people, the South Koreans probably lost about 1,000,000 people and only God knows how many North Koreans and Chinese were lost and we were forbidden to win!

Ridiculous!

In the 12 or more years that we were in Vietnam we lost about 58,000 people and we were forbidden to win again! Again, we don’t know how many enemy soldiers and civilians were lost but there was no victory unless you see the enemy as winning.

Then we were engaged in the Gulf war. We lost people there and are still losing more as the result of disease. We also lost a large amount of money and equipment. Again we were forbidden to win! All this loss was for what?

Ridiculous!

Now we are engaged in a war that has no clearly identified enemy. How do you tell a regular Iraqi from and enemy Iraqi? How do you identify an Al Qaeda member from one who is not? Most of our dead were dead before anybody saw the instrument of death! How can you fight that? Many of our troops are under supplied and under equipped while fighting for the wealthiest country in the world!

Many of our troops in Iraq were National Guard members when ordered to leave their homes, their families and their jobs and go to fight a war that they were neither prepared nor equipped to fight. What does the term, “National Guard” mean to you? To me, it says that these men and women are in their units to guard the nation — our nation — not Iraq! Most of them joined the guard as a convenient part time job and to be ready when our nation needed guarding, At this time, it doesn’t need guarding but it may in the future. When and if we need guarding, those who are appointed to do that job will be thousands of miles away, fighting somebody else’s war and then where will we be? Unguarded? You bet.

Am I against the war in Iraq? Yes, I am against the war but I am not against the troops!

I am against those who ordered our troops to a desolate land where we are not wanted and where we had no legal business being. I am against the idea that we were going to be there a very short time to set up a democratic government and then turn the country back to the people. Does it look like that is going to happen?

These people, may God bless them, have had a despotic government for at least 5,000 years and they will not become democratic in a year or two. It may take as much as two generations, about 40 years to a generation, to accomplish such a task.

May God help them! May God help us!

William O. Adams

Plano