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MAJOR MARK A. SMITH

UNITED STATES ARMY (RETIRED)



SUBJECT: NEVER AGAIN!



I write this letter not with a heavy heart, but
with outright indignation. The statements in it are
directed to all segments of the American body politic,
media and just uncaring and wavering citizens. You are
held up to ridicule by much of the world and it has
nothing to do with our Government and military not
bowing to the United Nations or some ‘ World Court.’
It is because of our lack of unity and the perception
the average American does not know a thing about the
rest of the world. That is unfortunately true. You
were led by the very same personalities and
organizations down the road to your willing defeat in
Southeast Asia.Not the defeat of our valiant military
and those of our allies but, yours. NEVER AGAIN!


How easy are you to lead down the road to defeat?
Please allow me to refresh your memories. Contrary to
what the media and politicians put out today I and my
brave fellow warriors were participating in the
Vietnam War when it was popular. Did our battlefield
defeats, like the French, lead to a demand for us to
quit and pull out? Oh no, it was you on the homefront
who lost heart initially, listening to the very same
voices you are listening to today. The claim was that
American Soldiers and Marines could not find this
elusive enemy and could not defeat him because this
kind of war could not be won. We beat that five-foot
tall, eighty five-pound sucker into dog dirt and our
very own media called it a ‘defeat.’ Cronkite said it
and you, not us but you, believed it then and too many
of you darned fools believe it today. This time we
will require truth and you will listen to us and not
the mob. NEVER AGAIN!

John Kerry is not your President today because of
us, the real veterans of the Vietnam War. He was not
‘SWIFTBOATED’; he was knocked out by we who actually
know what a low-life nobody of war he was in his few
months in Vietnam. The ‘Swift Boats and POWs For
Truth’ are not some right wing lobby, they are we and
we are they. You want to use our dead, many of whom
may be rightly laid at your and Cronkite’s feet? Not
this time you uneducated in war fools. You want to
make movies and then tell us you are experts on the
real world? Sean Penn is a punk with no experience in
the world, which allows him to sit in judgement on any
real man. He is a pretender. That is his job! He, like
Jane Fonda before him, has no special insight into
politics or war. They are pretenders and it is their
function to play real or imagined people and make
themselves believable on the screen. But once again,
they and you want to extend that to real life? NEVER
AGAIN!

You have the gall to allow Dan Rather to march out
in front of you on the screen and proclaim himself a
‘former Marine’? He got the boot in boot camp and
never made it to being a Marine.How dare you tarnish
the image of a brave and legendary branch of service
by allowing that quitter to claim he was one of them.
You then want to hold up Murtha and Kerry as people to
be listened to about the military and wars? They were
the least of us and you want to shove them in our
faces again and proclaim them ‘heroes’? Not this time
boys and girls because we are not going to put up with
it. NEVER AGAIN!
You want to come to our wall and use it to make
some political point and bring another generation to
battlefield defeat? You are not going to shout us down
this time. You come near that wall and it had better
be with nothing but quiet respect. We do not ask this
by appealing to you as fellow Americans. We know this
does no good with your ilk. We require you to show
respect to our fallen brethren, those still missing,
and those serving today and to us. This is not a
request, it is an order. An order from the only group
with the authority to give it: US! We earned the right
on terrible battlefields, for you to listen to us and
not Fonda, Penn, Kerry or even a fallen honorable
man’s mother. He is us and we are him and if he died,
it was with us and not with you. NEVER AGAIN!

In closing let me say that we by being who we
really were on the battlefield, need not even raise
our voices or fists to the mob. You shall by your very
presence and bearing show you are greater men and
women than any whom mount their podium. By merely
looking them in the eye directly, you will say to
those of ill intent on our sacred ground: YOU SHALL
NOT PASS, NEVER AGAIN!


God Bless you all, at home and on the battlefield and
God Bless America.



MARK 'ZIPPO' SMITH