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The military community is made up of active duty personnel, veterans, retired military and their families. While it is a constitutional truth that every American has the right of free speech, there is no segment of our population that is more deserving of that right than the men, women and family members who sacrificed themselves through separation, immense hardship, pain, blood and loss of lives on our behalf. These are some of their words about the War on Terror and the conduct of those at home.

Lieutenant General E.G. "Buck" Shuler, Jr. commanded the Strategic Air Command's Eighth Air Force for three years and two months. He participated in Operation Just Cause in Panama, plus Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf. His 32-year military career included 23 years in SAC. The general is now retired and lives in Lake Martin, Alabama.

Taking a quote from the old comic strip Pogo, General Shuler says, "We have seen the enemy and it is us!" He continues his remarks about the anti-war activists and congressional naysayers by observing, "These people might as well be card-carrying jihadist. The net results of their actions are just as effective as if they were personally serving on Bin Laden's staff or on the street actively conducting terrorist operations. Do I question their patriotism and motives -- absolutely! They cannot have it both ways. If we don't turn this situation around now, we lose again, Lord help us!"

Another voice on the war is that of retired Air Force Major General Vernon Chong. The surgeon, who commanded Wilfred Hall Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas has written a strong article titled "The War is Real". Dozens of veterans have quoted excerpts from that commentary in their messages to me. Says General Chong, "To get out of difficulty, one usually must go through it. Our country is now facing the most serious threat to its existence, as we know it, that we have faced in your lifetime and mine."

He later points out that the threat against America did not start on September 11, 2001, but 22 years earlier. There were the Iran hostages in 1979, the Lebanon embassy bombing in 1983, the deadly attack on the Lebanon Marine barracks in 1983, the Lockerbie, Scotland Pan-Am flight in 1988, the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, the Khobar Towers attack in 1996, the attack on the Kenya embassy in 1998, the attack on the USS Cole in 2001 and the attacks we all call 9/11 which destroyed the World Trade Center towers and smashed into the Pentagon. Chong further notes there have been 7,581 attacks worldwide between 1981 and 2001...all made by Muslim terrorists.

With all of that information at our fingertips, Americans still forget just about everything except last Sunday's pro football scores and what happened on the latest installment of Desperate Housewives.

We have elected officials continuing to opine on national television such as Representative John Murtha, on last Sunday's NBC Meet The Press. He continued his call for troop withdrawal saying, according to Reuters News Service, "U.S. Forces would leave Iraq before next year's congressional elections". Reuters also said Murtha "expected more people to come around to his views and that U.S. troops should be withdrawn in 2006."

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