To the editor:

I was at an Alban Institute event a few years back when the subject turned to the military. The usual Vietnam-era antiwar mantras were trotted out like old war horses, and I exploded. Why? Because they were repeating the same ignorant and uninformed nonsense that I had heard from the people who spit on my uniform during that era. They were the same slogans parroted by the members of my Christian Social Ethics class in seminary over a decade later.

And now we see the same kind of garbage being peddled out there, only this time it is a former moderator of our General Assembly. It all boils down to this: "America--oppressor! Rest of world--victims!" What makes the ACSWP think that it is the United States that is causing all the "suffering?" Do they really believe that there would be no killing and no beheadings if we pulled out? Do they think that things were the same, or better, than when Saddam Hussein held the reins of power? Do they really believe that if we just talked nice to Islamic terrorist organizations that they would stop coming after us?

And must they do this stuff on Memorial Day weekend, of all possible times? Must they engage in what can only be characterized as anti-American activities at a time set aside to honor those who gave their last full measure of devotion in order that they might have the freedom to do these things?

How do I offer pastoral care to military families who have come to believe that their church hates them? Oh, that's right – I won't have to. They won't be here anymore. They will go to a church that doesn't attack their loved ones for all that suffering that they have been blamed for.

They just don't get it.

John R. Kerr, D. Min., Pastor
First Presbyterian Church
Jacksonville, North Carolina