tbgalileo, Tulsa (1/2/2009 4:34:57 AM)

Great letter. I think I'm in the same boat as Baker. I think going to war in Iraq may have been a good decision, but I disagree with how this war was commanded by Bush and how he planned (or didn't for that matter) the long-term strategy. Bush very well may have made the right decision to invade, but everything after that shows serious judgement errors on his part. I can't imagine how anyone would think that things were or would be better under Saddam. Good riddance.

Be Happy, Tulsa (1/2/2009 5:16:35 AM)

People in other countries love their children, also.

In my immediate family, I have relatives from the US, England, Ireland, Panama, Costa Rica, and China. Instead of hating and fighting other countries, maybe it would be nice to just try to get along once in a while.

Razna, Greenville (1/2/2009 6:18:13 AM)

Oh, yes, Baker is right. I'm so pleased we turned Abu Ghraib into a resort hotel with nude sun-bathing for those deserving Iraqis. And I'm ever so happy that all those other Iraqis got to vote since we arrived and that they get to vote again and again because the officials they elect keep dying so rapidly (I wonder what causes that?). It's also cause for celebration that civilian truck drivers get to go over there and make ever so much money directing big vehicles over bumpy roads, trying to avoid things that go BOOM! And when they don't, their widows and orphans don't really need pensions or insurance or stuff like that, do they! So carry on, carry on, as you were, as you were. Let's keep this love fest going and never ever let those soldiers off duty, no matter whether they signed up for the National Guard for a six-month tour and have already served for seven years or what. I don't care if he's only got one foot now and can't see and is deaf to boot, he ought to keep right on serving till he keels over dead! That's what we ought to do as long as nobody in MY family has to serve. Well, that's the American way, isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it? That seems to be the Bushian way, anyhow.

Be Happy, Tulsa (1/2/2009 7:53:13 AM)

What the Dog said.

my view, Sand Springs (1/2/2009 8:03:14 AM)

Bville Yellow Dog,
The draft is history at the moment, I do look for the President-elect to have reenact it. If he does there will be alot of families effected, not just those that you hate.

As to the letter writer belief about bring the troops home. A few years ago I would have disagree. But after not find any WMDs and its seems that President Bush, former President Clinton and several intelligent agencies were wrong. It's time to bring them home from Iraq, put a end to this misquided adventure.

Hijinx, (1/2/2009 9:33:48 AM)

I cant recall a bigger folly by the U.S than this stupid diversion into Iraq.This is Bush's war period and will be his tragic legacy.

Anybody seen Bin Laden?

Loki, Broken Arrow (1/2/2009 9:47:34 AM)

Come on Jinx.

We were attacked by dissident Saudis based in Afganistan. It is CLEAR the right thing to do was attack Iraq.

"My country right or wrong" as any kind of plausible position died with the Bush administration. All politicians lie. But on this scale, and with these consequences, it's just mystifying that the lock-step allegiance to the GOP continues.

With respect to Bin Laden? GWB's pledge was "Dead or Alive."

Dempsey Coker, Tiawah (1/2/2009 9:51:41 AM)

Starting a "revenge war" in Iraq because "Saddam Hussein tried to kill my Daddy" (George W. Bush's actual words) caused a lot of problems for the Christians in the country there and making it even worse for them. That's why many Christians left Iraq after the immoral war started.

Saddam Hussein had planned an assassination of George H. W. Bush when Mr. Bill Clinton was the President of the USA.

By the way, there is a great comic strip series, Doonesbury," in the OPINION pages of the Tulsa World about the "Christian Diaspora" (Iraqis in exile elsewhere). Terry Law, of Terry Law Ministries in Tulsa, has a "World Compassion" ministry in Iraq.

Hijinx, (1/2/2009 10:04:16 AM)

But of course Loki, I see now the logic of it all.

So, I guess Bush is good with the "Alive" part of his neo-cowboy rhetoric. Bush needs his boogy man alive.

AllSeeingI, Everywhere (1/2/2009 10:07:52 AM)

Last time I saw Bin Laden, he was dead. Is dead and as Mr. Poe said, is Nevermore.

Bville Yellow Dog, Bville (1/2/2009 10:18:40 AM)

No the point is my view that there will be no wars if the chickhawk sons are first in line for the draft. Both Bush and Cheney were chickenhawks. The world would be a better place if they had had a big taste of Vietnam.

AllSeeingI, Everywhere (1/2/2009 10:24:10 AM)

SO now BYD is for the draft? I will agree with him on one point. The Viet Nam war was merely a money maker for LBJ and his buddies. Oh, that's right, LBJ was a Democrat. Oops sorry bout that. Any how it, like the war in Iraq has proved to be a folly. However with a little luck, and Obama's sure and steady management of the situation, I'm sure we'll come out of Iraq much better than Nam.

Democrat, Tulsa County (1/2/2009 10:38:57 AM)

AllSeeing:

Sorry to have to straighten you out again, but LBJ was not the President who began our commitment to Vietnam. Truman aided the French effort to retake Indochina after World War II. Eisenhower created SEATO and the Domino Theory which committed the US to support the independence of South Vietnam. Kennedy increased America's commitment by sending 16,000 military "advisors" to South Vietnam. Despite all of the efforts of his 3 predecessors, LBJ inherited a losing proposition and decided to "Americanize" the war rather than "cut and run." Later Nixon "Vietnamized" the war and then "cut and ran" after his re-election. Gerald Ford was President when South Vietnam fell in 1975. I believe that brings our total to 3 Democrats and 3 Republican Presidents.

BTW, it was one of the Republicans-- Nixon-- who ended the draft to spare upper middle and upper class families of the burden of fighting to defend this country.

Fortunately, for you chickenhawks out there, there are men such as my son (2 tours in Iraq) and my nephew (3 tours in Iraq)who will stand up and fight.

AllSeeingI, Everywhere (1/2/2009 11:25:13 AM)

Democrat, no Johnson just escalated the thing. If I need a history lesson, I assure you it will not be from a revisionist such as you. He escalated and extended a war Kennedy intended to end for the sole purpose of making money for himself and his buddies.

Dempsey Coker, you sound alot like a fellow named JOE ALLEN DOTY that used to post on here.

Democrat, Tulsa County (1/2/2009 11:36:05 AM)

Listen genius:

I teach US History on the college level and have lectured at a regional conference on US History on this subject. You are stating an OPINION about the motive(s) of LBJ, but you have no PROOF to back up your allegation.

Dempsey Coker, Tiawah (1/2/2009 11:39:28 AM)

A real "chicken hawk" kills chickens. Bush is more like a chickenhearted hawk, not the same thing as a "chickenhawk," because he was too chicken to serve in Vietnam (that's why he joined the Texas Air National Guard and was afraid of being drafted due to poor grade average at Yale). But, he is now a war-mongering hawk.

If he had been drafted like I was and at the same time (July 66), he might have ended up in Ft. Polk, Louisiana. I was not in very good shape physically so, between the 1st and 2nd weeks of basic training I was transferred to the "Special Training Company" in North Ft. Polk. I was in the STC for 6 weeks and resumed Basic Infantry Training for the next 7 weeks. Two kinds of men were sent to STC, physical duds (my category) and mental duds (those with poor learning skills). Oh, there was an alterate category for those who were both mental and physical duds at the same time, they ended up with a discharge from the Army eventually (all of that category were drafted).

I am a graduate of Tulsa's Webster High School and had attended Carbondale Assembly of God when I was a HS senior. When I was with the 196th Light Infantry Brigade at Chu Lai, S. Vietnam, there were 5 of us who were Webster grads and had been members of the CAG. I didn't know about any other WHS grads with the 196th but, those of us from Southwestern Tulsa probably received more draft notices than those young men in South and Southeastern Tulsa.

Dempsey Coker, Tiawah (1/2/2009 11:40:14 AM)

Check my profile. I sound like myself and I admit it. So there!

AllSeeingI, Everywhere (1/2/2009 11:45:32 AM)

Sniff, Sniff, Sniff? Yes quite sure the evil one is about. How was that time in the Nam Dempsey?

thesmokehole, Broken Arrow (1/2/2009 11:46:44 AM)

Welcome back Joe Allen...your presence and comments will make my trips to TW so much more enjoyable...and I really mean that!

Dempsey Coker, Tiawah (1/2/2009 11:48:26 AM)

One of the reasons we were in South Vietnam while Lyndon Johnson was President of the USA was that Mrs. Lady Bird Johnson had money invested in the oil wells and offshore drilling in the South China Sea off the coast of South Vietnam.

I did not know that until the mid-1990s. Shortly after I person told me that and I did some academic style research which proved it was true, Bob Parker of Parker Drilling in Tulsa sent an oil rig to the Mekong Delta of Southern Vietnam to be used for oil exploration there.

See, the USA's involvement in the Vietnam Conflict (it was NOT a war officially since none had been declared by the USA nor had N. Vietnam had declared war on the USA) was not merely political or for humane reasons.

Dempsey Coker, Tiawah (1/2/2009 11:50:35 AM)

One of the other TW posters told me to change my email address to one never used by me before with the Tulsa World and create a new account. I made the old screen name account private.

AllSeeingI, Everywhere (1/2/2009 11:58:58 AM)

Don't have to defend yourself to me Dempsey Joe.

Dempsey Coker, Tiawah (1/2/2009 12:16:59 PM)

Well, at times, as the saying goes, the "war" for me was "hell." During the period of April 1967 through October 1967, when I was with the 196th at Chu Lai and working for the 196th Lt. Inf. Bde. HQ JAG section (officially the Staff Judge Advocate section) as a Clerk-Typist, there were times we had to leave the office and head for a bunker due to sniper fire. The 196th at Chu Lai was not exactly a "rear echelon" outfit. The Army base was outside of the Americal Division Base, to the SW of the air strip there and it was mostly up in the hills. HQ was on top of a hill.

Except for a couple of guys, one SP5 court-reporter and an SP6 who was a Legal Clerk, in November 1967, the rest of the 196th SJA (and most of the admin. company supplying the HQ clerks, too) was transferred to the Americal Division of the SJA on the main base at Chu Lai.

It was fairly quite the rest of 1967 and early January 1968 until the Vietnam Tet Holiday Truce Period started. But, the Viet Cong, "the In South Vietnam terrorist army" made up of South Vietnamese mostly, so to speak, did not honor that cease-fire truce.

I had 2 weeks left in South Vietnam when we had a rocket attack and 4 of the sleeping quarters in my company, the 23d Admin Co, were burned to the ground. My good buddy, Jim Early, who also only had 2 weeks left, lost everything except what he was wearing that night. Because of hearing explosions outside of the company area first, those of us who were up or already in bed asleep, like myself, were able to seek safety in a bunker. Jim told me, "Joe, if I had not been celebrating being a short-timer with friends in another hooch (sleeping quarters), I might have been in bed asleep when the rocket hit the building." My hooch was the distance of a narrow alleyway from his hooch. The nearest bunker was in that open space. That night, I thought it was taking me forever to find my glasses after I got dressed; but, I was the 2nd one in that bunker.

Dempsey Coker, Tiawah (1/2/2009 12:21:39 PM)

There is a guy who posted comments here who tried to make fun of me and wrote that I claimed to have PTSD because I got a paper cut in Vietnam (never got one in 'Nam!). But, I do have (not-officially diagnosed by the VA) war-zone related PTSD and two VA Social Workers know about it, too.

AllSeeingI, Everywhere (1/2/2009 12:23:11 PM)

Sorry Dempsey, St Louis records have no Joe Allen Doty or Dempsey Coker as having served. Next poser!