A military perspective

[nmcnulty]

I am an army(reserve component) veteran of 13 years. I am also a network engineer who does not need the added income of the reserves, and am very well read; on the war on terror, John Kerry, President Bush, Islamic fascism, and a number of other subjects. My brother is also a reserve component soldier of 13 years, and a veteran of the Iraq and Afghan wars. Furthermore, I have made public my intentions that if John Kerry is elected President, I will allow my contract in the reserve component of the Army to run out next year and leave the service.

Some have responded to me that this is a lack of loyalty to the American people, a betrayal to the military I serve. Well, let me answer to that publicly if I may. I am intelligent and well read, not a macho idiot as Ted Rall and Michael Moore have said. I ended a 3 year hiatus and reentered the reserve component after 9/11 to follow George Bush in the war on terror, and am prepared to do so with the President for another term. But, I - and my brother, and most of my unit, and according to a recent Army Times poll, 75% of the US military as a whole - consider John Kerry completely unfit for command. Under John Kerry I envision seeing - or being amongst - the last American troops running for the final chopper in Baghdad someday soon, an ending and a U.S. defeat similar to the one John Kerry helped engineer decades ago in Saigon.

Again, 75% of the US military - 75% of the people fighting in the war on terror, 75% of the people for whom this war is life and death, not just politics, 75% of the people most intimately familiar with the war we are fighting - all support George W. Bush as our President, and by extension, his leadership in the execution of this war. On the other hand, one of the most anti-defense political canidates to ever seek the highest office in our government, and the same old media elites and Eurocrats that hated Ronald Reagan 20 years ago, oppose George W. Bush. If the American people - knowing this - go to the polls and listen to the media and Europe while ignoring the opinions of the soldiers of the United States military, they can figure out for themselves who betrayed who as President Kerry institutes a draft to replace all of us volunteers who will choose not to serve under him.

Nick McNulty
Salem NH 03079