A Veteran’s Letter to the President

You need to see this and, no, the Veteran in question is not me.

Joseph DuRocher is a husband, father, retired Public Defender and law professor in Florida -- and a former commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy. Earlier this week, he returned his Lieutenant’s shoulder bars and Navy wings to President Bush, along with a simple, but amazing letter. An excerpt:

Until your administration, I believed it was inconceivable that the United States would ever initiate an aggressive and preemptive war against a country that posed no threat to us. Until your administration, I thought it was impossible for our nation to take hundreds of persons into custody without provable charges of any kind, and to “disappear” them into holes like Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram. Until your administration, in my wildest legal fantasy I could not imagine a U.S. Attorney General seeking to justify torture or a President first stating his intent to veto an anti-torture law, and then adding a “signing statement” that he intends to ignore such law as he sees fit. I do not want these things done in my name.

While there are way too many of my fellow Veterans who blindly follow right-wing ideology in the mistaken belief that Republicans are loyal to us, DuRocher’s letter speaks for many of us who despise what this president is doing with the military and to our country.

Please go here and read the rest.