THERE'S A SMALL park at 24th and Aspen that, if you weren't paying attention, you might just miss.

There sits Patrick E. Ward Memorial Park - a corner devoted to one of Fairmount's favorite sons. Son of a Philadelphia police officer, Patrick was once named most popular student at Roman Catholic High School.

It was 38 years ago in August that Patrick, a door gunner in the U.S. Army, was killed in Vietnam after his helicopter was shot down. He was the type of person that neighborhoods devote street corners to and parents name their children after - including Marge and Jack Murphy, the parents of one of the authors of this article.

Americans, nearly 40 years later, again find their best and bravest overseas with an open-ended commitment and no real plan for victory. More than three years after George Bush declared "Mission accomplished," men and women continue to die in Iraq without a clear mission, without benchmarks to determine success or failure, and without a clear timeline for either coming home or redeploying to fight al Qaeda in Afghanistan. How many street-corner memorials are we going to be forced to build for this war?

Forty years ago, returning soldiers talked firsthand about how elected officials frightened of their own political shadows had failed them. In exchange for speaking truth to power, they had their loyalty questioned and their patriotism called into doubt.

The political posturing on Iraq of George Bush and Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick proves that history repeats itself.

Reasonable people can disagree on what to do about the situation in Iraq, but most can agree on two things. It is immoral for old men to send young Americans to fight and die in a conflict without a strategy. And it is egregious that a candidate for federal office would run for re-election without a real plan for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, as Mike Fitzpatrick is doing.

Months ago, we both came to a conclusion that prompted us to articulate similar plans for dealing with Iraq: that the only appropriate course of action is to create a timeline to bring our troops home and force the Iraqis to fight for their own democracy.

If there is one thing that our service taught us, it is that everything in the military works on timelines. There are timelines for training, timelines for missions and, in Iraq, there were timelines for elections and establishing a constitution.

It is clear that we must set another timeline - one to bring our troops home and get Iraq up on its own two feet. We must make Iraqis stand up for Iraq - and bring our heroes home.

Only after we refocus our military efforts from the mission in Iraq can we begin doing what we should have been doing all along: tracking down and killing members of al Qaeda. This is why we must redeploy the vast majority of troops from Iraq within 12 months so we can free up resources to fight the global war on terror.

Americans don't need to be reminded by politicians that we must win the war on terror. What they need is for their government to offer a real plan to get our troops out of Iraq, protect our homeland, and refocus our efforts on capturing and killing Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Without offering a plan to address any of these, George Bush and Mike Fitzpatrick taunt patriotic Americans concerned with the path our country is on with phrases like "cut and run" and "stay the course." The truth is, "staying the course" isn't farsighted; it's blind. And leaving our troops in the middle of a civil war isn't resolute; it's reckless. Their lack of leadership on the most critical issue facing our elected representatives disgraces our soldiers and dishonors all of us.

Half of the service members listed on the Vietnam Memorial wall died after America's leaders knew our strategy wouldn't work. It was immoral then and it would be immoral now to engage in the same delusion.

There are hundreds of thousands of American troops serving in Iraq. We should honor them by bringing them home within 12 months and giving them a real plan to win the war on terror, not a strategy where the only endgame is more street-corner memorial parks.

Sen. John Kerry is a Democrat from Massachusetts. Patrick Murphy is the Democratic candidate running against Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick in the 8th District in Bucks County.