[Colonel]

I saw this posted on the OTD site. Interesting points made by this parent.




An Open Letter to Cindy Sheehan From the Proud Father of a U.S. Marine
> By Brantley Smith Posted On August 17, 2005
>
> Ms. Sheehan,
>
> By your actions over the past two weeks it is clear that you missed an
> important aspect of Civics 101: With rights come responsibilities. You
> certainly have the right to voice your opinion against the war in Iraq
> and the President's policies. You even have the right to camp outside
> the President's home in Crawford and demand he meet with you. Your
> status as a mother who has lost a child in the war also gives your
> words and actions a credibility and a larger audience than otherwise
> would be the case. Now that your supporters have given you a broad
> forum from which to be heard, making you a national figure, its time
> you considered your responsibilities to all of us. I have a daughter
> set to deploy to Fallujah in two weeks and I have a serious concern
> with how your irresponsible and short sighted actions might impact on
> her. She is, after all, a volunteer, like your son, and she is going
> in harm's way because she believes it is her responsibility to protect your rights and freedoms.
>
> Well meaning people like you always seem to forget the law of
> unintended consequences and in your vanity and arrogant
> self-righteousness never bother to think through what it is you are
> trying to do versus what you may actually accomplish. I am here to
> inform you, Ma'am, that you will not change the policy of our
> government by sitting outside Crawford making a spectacle of yourself
> in the name of your rights to free speech; what you will do is provide
> more propaganda for our enemies and cost the lives of even more brave
> and selfless American warriors. How long do you think it will be
> before you become a star on Al Jazeera? For all I know, it may have
> already happened. One thing is certain, though, and that is that your
> actions and words will further embolden a ruthless and evil enemy and
> more American blood will be shed and some of it will be on your hands.
> I pray that my daughter will not be one of them. If she is, then I
> will hold you and those like you partly responsible. Yes, my
> daughter's fate will depend mostly on her own courageous decision to
> serve, but only the most naive among us can deny the impact our own
> words and actions here in America have in a world grown smaller by the revolution in communications technology.
>
> I am sure you believe that you are serving some great cause by putting
> our servicemen and women in more danger and that you can, by your
> irresponsible exercise of free speech, help end a policy you disagree
> with. Your emotion may be compelling but the reality is that you will
> not set in motion any process that will change or undo what has been
> done. The war will go on because to end it now would dishonor the
> sacrifice of all of our fellow countrymen who have died in the cause of fighting terrorism.
> Rational Americans will not allow that. Too much is at stake.
> Unfortunately, shallow and irrational ones, such as yourself, will
> continue to put the lives of our sons and daughters in danger by
> aiding and abetting an enemy who sees propagandizing in the mass media
> as its main weapon in a war it could otherwise not win standing on its
> own wretched and evil justification of radical Islam, or by force of arms.
> You, Ma'am, have joined forces with an evil you neither understand nor
> apparently have tried to comprehend. You direct your anger toward our
> country while the enemy plots to kill and maim the innocent. You make
> a mockery of responsible free speech while thousands of young men and
> women fight desperately to preserve your safety. Instead of honoring
> your son's sacrifice you are inspired to comfort an evil enemy.
>
> You clearly do not understand the challenge we face as a nation and
> have not tried to put it in historical perspective. It is a sad fact
> that it is those of your thinking that have led us to where we are
> today. Decades of appeasement to these haters of everything we hold
> dear has cost thousands of American lives from Beirut to New York and
> in dozens of other forgotten places. Remember Lockerbie? The Achille
> Lauro? The USS Cole? We as a people were dragged into this war, much
> like December 7th, 1941, and we must fight and win it wherever the
> enemy hides and against whomever would support him. Make no mistake
> about Iraq. It is both a legitimate and crucial campaign in this much
> larger, global war of radical Islam's making. These people hate us for
> who we are, not what we have done. We did not bring this on ourselves,
> as many would have us believe, by our policies and actions abroad. We
> brought this on ourselves in 1775 when the Founding Fathers embarked
> on a course of freedom, tolerance, and liberal democratic and social
> ideals. These haters of all we hold dear strive to destroy forever a
> government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" that Abraham Lincoln hoped would never "Perish from the earth".
> They would replace it with an oppressive world theocracy unlike
> anything modern history has ever seen for its ruthless disregard for
> personal freedom and liberty. If more appeasement is your answer for
> an alternative policy, spare us. We have suffered enough from cowardice and inaction.
>
> An historical analogy screams to be let out here. It is one of two
> men, both named Chamberlain. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a school
> teacher turned soldier in the American Civil War, found himself in the
> crosshairs of history on a warm July day in 1863 on a small hill in Pennsylvania.
> Commanding the 20th Maine Regiment on the extreme Union left at
> Gettysburg he was in a most perilous position. Should he fail to hold
> against a strong Confederate attack, the Union could be lost. You see,
> he was serving in an increasingly unpopular war at home against a
> resurgent enemy, and for a President fighting for his political life.
> Colonel Chamberlain, stoic but determined, refused to yield. His small
> regiment held against an onslaught of Confederate attacks, an action
> many historians believe turned the tide of the war. He was later
> awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. The other half of this
> analogy focuses on Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of Great
> Britain in the years preceding World War II. His story is widely
> known. Through his policy of appeasement and a lack of moral courage,
> he handed Adolf Hitler much of Europe. Which side of history have you chosen, Ma'am?
>
> Your son died in the service of freedom and my daughter will go in
> harm's way to protect and preserve it. Honor their sacrifice, Ma'am,
> by exercising it responsibly.
>
> I will pray with you and I will grieve with you but I will not stand
> by silent while you needlessly and arrogantly endanger the life of my
> daughter and her comrades in arms. Please bless us with your silence
> and go home.
>
> Brantley Smith Proud father of a United States Marine, Tullahoma, TN