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A retired Chief Warrant Officer would have signed himself,

F. J. Kirby
CWO3 (Ret)

Or CWO2, or whatever his rank was.

This is a phoney. Probably some lice-ridden, dope-huffing, same-sex attracted commie scum who never served a day in his life. Stars and Stripes doesn't vet the authenticity of the letters they get, and anybody can write them.

Stars and Stripes doesn't vet the authenticity of the letters they get, and anybody can write them.

It maybe said that the left-leaning Stars & Stripes has a slight problem with AFN. I witnessed it back in the 80's...

1. You can sign yourself using correct military titles, but Stars and Stripes will use the AP Style Manual, which is different.

2. I have called on the phone by an editor to verify all of the letters (4 or 5) I have written that have been published.

This is because of an incident that occurred on a ship I was on at the time. Someone wrote a letter to the editor about a recent article on Boy George. The letter writer was raving about Boy George and how great he was (it must have been a slow news day for it even to get published). The letter was signed by a crusty old CWO3 on our ship. I remember reading it at the time and thinking "Wow, CWO X said this?" Well, he hadn't, and the sh*t hit the fan. Stars and Stripes had to publicly apologize, admitted that they did not verify the identity of letter writers and stated they would now verify each letter that they published.