Smart student at the University of Minnesota

An A+ for Mr. Overholser:

This is not Vietnam Why are Democrats ramping up the rhetoric against the war? Is it because the Iraqi national election is just weeks away and they know successful elections spell doom for their “the war is unwinnable” sputum?

Get ready for heads to roll, Democrats. You got away with being on the wrong side of history 30 years ago but you won’t get away with it this time. You backpedaled into power in 1976; you’ll be lucky to have 40 votes in the Senate after 2006.

This was never another Vietnam in at least four respects:

One, we’re not fighting anywhere near as good an enemy. The North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong had ideas, al-Qaida has suicidal depression.

Two, the terrain is nowhere near as tough to negotiate. It’s only heat and sand our troops have to contend with, and there’s plenty of water for all, plenty of bombs and bullets too.

Three, our troops are all volunteers. They wouldn’t be there if they didn’t believe in what Bush has them doing. You pacifists remember him, right? The guy you consider worse than Saddam Hussein, the guy who got 70 percent of the armed forces vote last year?

Four, this president isn’t going to let you seditious America-haters steal victory away from our troops the way your hippie parents did.

The next time someone makes a Vietnam analogy I hope they get it right in the only sense it can be right in: Our troops won both wars!

Anything that goes wrong later you blame on wimpy politicians in Washington, D.C., not worth a plug nickel let alone the treasure of a single soldier’s life.

Mark Overholser

University [Minnesota] alumnus