If You Really Want To Support the Troops

Dear Editor of the Washington Post:

As a Navy veteran, I fully agree with the Joints Chief of Staff in objecting to your political cartoon. It was in extremely bad taste to use the plight of our wounded troops as part of a poor choice of a "punchline" for a cartoon. I fully agree with the point that the services are undermanned but using innocent amputees as part of a joke is highly offensive.

My father was wounded at Pearl Harbor and had to spend several months in a hospital due to head wounds. Then he had to wear a steel plate in his head the rest of his life. For his troubles, he was sent back to Pacific to fight the Japanese as soon as he recovered enough because they needed every Sailor available to fight at Coral Sea, Midway, and the island campaigns that he participated in. There was a manpower shortage of trained troops back then too during the early phases of that war since the military was relatively small before the war started and it takes months to make a service member a viable part of the team. However, I seriously doubted that anyone would have had the nerve to use his condition for political purposes, never mind as a joke back in WWII.

You liberals are suppose to be so sensitive to others in need (gee, doesn't a young servicemember who is underpaid and lost body parts in the defense of your freedom qaulify?) and you saw that you "support the troops" but you have a rotten way of showing it. No wonder your readership has been going down.

If you want to advocate, fine, but please do it in a constructive way. If you do not issue an apology soon, I will be forced in good conscience to cancel my subscription to your newspaper.

Sincerely,

John DittmerLCDR USNR (Ret.)