Dear Mr. President,

With all due respect, we need to talk. You are a great communicator and so am I, some say. That is great for picking up women, selling cars, or getting elected. However, it is by no means leadership. A good leader inspires people to believe in him, but a great leader inspires people to believe in themselves. That is the whole premise of the free enterprise system. I’m a cowboy, Mr. President. You can herd sheep and you can drive cattle, but you must lead men and women. I am sure you mean well and probably think all those platitudes and attitudes about everybody sharing the pie is great that you learned when you were a community organizer. However, that is not what I want to talk about today.

I have sons in harm’s way. This is life and death for my family. The US military, especially during a time of war, must not and cannot be a social experiment. This is the real world not a college classroom and people’s lives are at stake. You are the Commander-In-Chief, Mr. President but have known nothing of the military your whole life, and given your politics, you probably have had great disdain for it for much of your life.

As a young US Army Special Forces (Green Beret) officer in Vietnam in 1968 and 1969, one guiding principle kept me alive, and I still use that principle to this day: “Give a sergeant a job, then do not tell him how to do it, or try to do it for him.”

The same holds true for generals if you are the commander-in-chief. Your commander in Afghanistan has asked strongly for more troops. General Petraeus, the now very-popular architect of “The Surge,” totally supports him. As a political opposite, I hate to point out the obvious, but George Bush’s ratings really climbed back up after “The Surge.” Please, send him what he needs now, even more.

You now have troops being killed and wounded because of ludicrous Rules of Engagement, similar to some that cost needless lives in Vietnam. Troops are told not to fire at Taliban or al-Qaida unless fired on first. That is one of the fastest ways to lose a war. There is no such thing as a politically-correct war. In fact, if all countries were forced to pay for wars in advance that would bring peace.

Your Rules of Engagement should be simple and clear: Kill the enemy, unless and until they surrender. War is hell and innocent and good people die, so let’s win and get this over with as quickly as possible. I will make sure that you troops have better and more guns, more bullets, bigger bombs, lots of support, and will tell my generals and admirals that the commander and senior NCOs with boots on the ground run the battles that they are engaged in, like we spent millions to train them to do. They will not be micro-managed or commanded over a radio or SAT phone by a chairborne ranger in an air-conditioned office somewhere who is not being shot at.

Follow all rules of the Geneva Accords, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and always make moral decisions, trying hard to never harm any civilians. You are to hunt down, locate by all means possible, and shoot, or blow up as many of the enemy as possible until they are defeated. Be merciful to prisoners, but interrogate them immediately to extract information that will save American lives. They will be treated humanely as such until the war ends, so they cannot return to fight. Being prisoners of course, they will not enjoy the fruits of our justice system, as they will use that against us a propaganda tool.

We will keep a press pool apprised of your progress, so they do not naively assist the enemy with needed intelligence to use against us in battle, so you will not have to protect embedded reporters.

In Vietnam, American pilots and aviators flew over places like Hanoi and Haiphong, while President Johnson, not generals or admirals, picked out bombing targets. They flew over SAM missile factories, but were not allowed to bomb them, because civilians worked there. Then SAM missiles shot down American fighter jets, captured some of the pilots who lived, and tortured them all. I mean real torture. Stupid, huh? I promise I will not allow Washington to act that stupidly while your courageous young lives are on the line.

I give you my word, I will leave none of you behind, take good care of you if you are wounded, or your family if God-forbid, you make the ultimate sacrifice. And when you come home, for the rest of your life, we will embrace you and your brothers and sisters, insure you always have great medical care, schooling, or whatever this nation can give to let you know how much we will always respect and admire you and your valorous endeavors in the cause of freedom.

Mr. President, every day you make personal appearances and speeches, but none of your words will ever go down in history without great actions to support them. Until then, they are just rhetoric. In fact, we could easily cut down gaseous emissions significantly if some judge simply issued a gag order on Beltway politicians.

We are both talkers, but I am a warrior and know what I told you will make you win and become a hero to all. All Presidents go down in history but some go much farther down than others. Just ask your cheerleader, Jimmy Carter. You and our nation are in our fervent prayers. I pray God gives you wisdom and discernment.

Sincerely,

Don Bendell, a Patriot