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Dear Editors:

What a horrible article. Ms. Silver has raped the memory of the men who have given their lives for this country so she could spew her feminist vitriol in freedom. Ms. Silver must have never met an actual combat veteran; a man who spends months in the mud with no amentities; a man who spends weeks in a lifeboat after losing his ship; or a man who must jump from a burning plane. Ms. Silver must have never watched her best friend hold in his own intestines, or have three quarters of his skin burned away, or be tortured to death in some nameless POW camp. Ms. Silver must have never felt the fear of having to charge enemy fire.

Perhaps the author should make use of her oral history expertise and and speak with some real combat veterans in her area. Her notion that military men are all little boys with erections running around with their phallic guns might be dispelled. To characterize combat veterans in such a way is disgusting and abhorrent. It is one thing to disagree with a war and the leaders who perpetrate it. It is another matter entirely to characterize the men who pay for that war with their own blood as homo-erotic loons.

Shame on you for printing such garbage. Your newspaper denigrates the men who fought and died for this country.

Without respect,

My Real Name
LT, USNR

Ms. Silver:

Never have I read something so worthy . . . of being completely and utterly ignored. It must be an extraordinary little world you live in up in that ivory tower. I guess you didn't notice that the world is a dangerous place. I guess you missed that part where our country was viciously attacked resulting in thousands of deaths. Maybe you read about it? You know, the airplanes, the hijackers, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon? Ostensibly you were paying attention while all of that was going on, right?

Are you suggesting that we silly men shouldn't have a "hard on" for these murdering bastards now? Are you suggesting that we silly men should put our differences aside and trust that psychotic, megalomaniac, tyrranical, murderous dictators will not seek our utter destruction?

As you sit there in your tower, enjoying all of the freedoms that were paid for with the blood of us silly men, perhaps you could just give a tip of the hat and your sincerest thanks since you clearly have no idea what else to do.

Thank you,

jayef
Greenville, SC