Here.

In the whirl wind of political debate that is circling around the president regarding his motives for going to war, I find it curiously strange that no one has asked the opinion of those of us who have put our lives on the line to carryout that vary decision. Who better than us to answer the question regarding the existence of weapons of mass destruction as a premise for going to war? Do the self proclaimed political experts write us off, assuming we are like sheep blindly following a miss guided shepherd to the extent of putting our own life in jeopardy? Do they really think we have not thought about the reasons for and justifications behind leaving our families and putting ourselves in harms way?

The vast majority of the military unanimously support the president's decision to take preemptive action against Saddam Hussein. We agree it was necessary in order to eliminate a serious threat to the stabilization of this region of the world, to free a country of people from bondage and torture, to prevent a continuation of an anti-American sentiment, for that matter anti-Western world policy, with the real potential, if not actual, to create such weapons and aid our enemies in their terrorist activities.

Why is it that the people of the US armed forces have not and are not speaking out against the president's decision, if in fact the WMD issue was the only premise behind making such a decision to go to war? Yes, we believed all along that he had such weapons before, that he had such weapons now, or that he possessed the knowledge and the capability to use, share, or develop such weapons in the future to promote his own anti-American plans. I have said all along that Saddam's only real weapon against us was to hide everything so well that we would never find such evidence of their existence, in hopes that by doing so he would create a back lash of political opposition for the president.

To give you my opinion, the fact of the matter is that the WMD issue has never been a major deal for any of us in the military, at least from all that I have spoken with. Yes, it was important, but not a do or die situation, as is portrayed by the president's political rivals. Our success here in Iraq did not and has never swung on the hinge of finding or not finding the weapons of mass destruction. There are far too many other pertinent and relevant variables that make this a much too complicated scenario to lump into my nice little nutshell we call WMD.

In this convoluted, intertwined every changing world environment, we have to rely on what we consider to be reliable and trustworthy intelligence, while understanding our own human limitations to correctly gather and interpret that same intelligence. We believed they existed and believe there is evidence of an existing program, either actual or potential.

Even so, the absence of such does not change our resolve to carry out the president's decision, with a firm conviction in its importance and necessity. One need but go back over the last 10 years, with a clear understanding of the facts since the gulf war, so conclude that war here was inevitable and the only long term positive course of action.

Why aren't they asking your opinion? Because they don't want to hear what you have to say. It's that simple. I mean, what do you know about the Iraq issue, right?

I am recommending that military personnel using mail-in ballots be very careful this fall to do everything properly. We wouldn't want any "irregularities" this time.