[Illbay]

Oh, and this wasn't really found in a newspaper by you, was it? In fact, you got it in an email, didn't you?

This means it is NOT news, but an email (possibly even a hoax; no newspaper puts "pass this on to everyone you know" at the end of an editorial letter).

[Kaslin]

I, unlike you did a search and found out it was originally written by Airforce Veteran Barry Loudermilk

http://www.vietnow.com/artbar1.htm

I found the reference to it in

http://snopes.com/

I did a search first in Urban Legends, but came out empty.

I do know how to direct link, but for some reason it does not work, so just copy the URL and paste it in a new window

[Bamaconservative]

In fact, it was written by that great American hero, Ted Nugent.