Please read the "Gettysburg Address" written by President Abraham Lincoln 142 years ago today (reprinted below) and then consider these issues. 

First, George W. Bush deserted the Texas Air National Guard during wartime.  He isn't a veteran because he has no honorable discharge from Federal Active Duty (other than training, and training doesn't count).

Because he isn't a veteran, Bush is impersonating a veteran and dividing our Nation with his Iraq War.  At the same time Bush wastes hundreds of billions on the Iraq war, Bush also cuts domestic programs that assist fellow Americans.  For example, Bush is evicting 150,000 Katrina survivors -- essentially making them homeless so Bush can fight his losing war. 

Second, Bush abuses his role as commander in chief of the military by forcing soldiers and veterans to be captive audiences for his relentless drive to continue the Iraq War.  People should demand an end to this disgraceful practice.  If anything, it shows Bush fears meeting with regular citizens who can ask him questions and demand accountability.

Third, we now know that Bush intentionally lied to start the Iraq War and send more than one million U.S. citizens needlessly into harms way.  Bush also has no plan to win the war or secure Iraq, further endangering their lives.  With enormous budget problems due to the war, we are learning there is now no plan to assist the 120,000 Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans the Department of Veterans Affairs reports need medical care.  Bush has no idea that his war has very real consequences on veterans and their families -- most likely because he isn't even a veteran (but he likes to play one on TV).

Fourth, the vast majority of our citizens strongly oppose Bush's Iraq War, yet Bush believes he can ignore public opinion.  Many of us veterans remember when, shortly after being appointed by the Supreme Court, on December 18, 2000, Bush told reporters it would be eaiser if he was a dictator.  We can't say the public wasn't warned about Bush's intentions.

Here's a message for Bush the deserter and Richard Cheney and his five draft deferments: Questioning your failed Iraq War isn't about partisan politics, it is about being faithful to our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.  When reasonable people questioning your Iraq War, we are also  questioning your ability to protect the people and provide services to the people, as required by your job..

We the people should all be thankful this holiday season there are patriots such as Representative John Murtha, a retired Marine Colonel and decorated Vietnam War veteran, who dares to stand up for our military and for our veterans while opposing Bush's catastrophic Iraq War. 

On this anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, we should do six things: 1) Thank Murtha for his public service, 2) Remember the horror of war and what our service members face today that Bush and Cheney intentionally avoided, 3) Honor all of the dead, 4) Heal the wounded, 5) Repair the international relations crushed by neo-conservative militants, and 6) Begin to end the failed Iraq War. -- Reasonable Veteran

"Gettysburg Address"

by President Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1963, Gettysburg Battlefield, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania --

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.

It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.