"Support Our Troops"

I often think about what could have been.

From January of 1952 until November of 1955, I served my country in the United States Air Force. I expect that I could have been called "a troop" as in the expression "support our troops".

The North Koreans had invaded South Korea, and we came to their aid as I expect we should. We did after all have a mutual defense treaty with the South Koreans, and were somehow obligated to come to their defense.

Of course we managed to avoid an all out war with the Chinese, but it was certainly a close call, and had Harry Truman not stopped General Macarthur, we would have been at war big time and I could have been killed in this war just like the over 50,000 of our people who were in fact killed without invading or bombing China. In the simplest of ways, President Truman did in fact "support our troops" by reducing the chance of all out war with China, and perhaps Russia, and in doing so; he perhaps saved my life and well-being.

How can you not be supporting our troops if you would like to find a way for "these Troops" to avoid being killed or maimed"?

The Bush administration has co-opted the use of so many words and expressions that it is appalling. If you would like to see the war in Iraq concluded, or you would create a scenario in which our forces can come home sooner rather then later, you are "not supporting our troops".

The administration has similarly co-opted the language by coming up with "The Patriot Act". Oppose it and you are not "patriotic". Did we need to abolish many of our over 200 year old freedoms to fight terror, terrorism, and terrorists? I think not!

They have also co-opted the words "terror", terrorism and "terrorist" in order to re-define whatever they choose. If you oppose their course of action, you are supporting terrorists, terror, or terrorism. They do indeed love those words.

On a slightly different subject, it was interesting watching Senator Kerry being interviewed by the off the wall Don Imus this morning. Imus asked Kerry if the president lied to the Americans during the run-up to the war, and all Kerry was willing to say was that "the president mislead us, and he wouldn't say that the president had indeed lied.

In the Carl Reiner movie "Where's Papa", the George Segal character is unable to say " I made a deathbed promise to my father that I would never put my mother in a hhh- hhh- hho- hho" as he was unable to say HOME

Americans, and particularly our Democratic leaders need to practice the following "The administration has lied to us" "The administration has lied to us".

Practice it often as they did indeed lie and they lied often.

Norman Horowitz

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