OPINION:
A few years ago I made a friend through your paper. After I started writing letters to The Washington Times, a woman in California contacted me and told how much she enjoyed what I wrote. We’ve been friends ever since. As a 100-percent disabled combat Marine Vietnam veteran and former law-enforcement officer, I’ve always written from experience and knowledge, which prompted my friend’s first contact.
My friend was president of the American Legion Ladies Auxiliary at the time she first wrote to me, and she took great interest in veterans and the plight of their suffering. One of her biggest pet peeves was the military servicemen put in prison, supposedly for wrongdoing in combat overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Given my professional background, I never paid much heed to the enemy’s testimony against servicemen who killed someone in a combat situation. I learned that there are many of my countrymen in jail for doing our country’s bidding when testimony from the enemy was used to convict them. This is tantamount to a criminal in the United States being shot by a cop while on a murderous rampage — such as this week’s slaughter in New York — only to survive and eventually blame the cop for shooting him.
I am compelled to let our president and our other elected representatives know that they are responsible for sending our young men and women into combat. As Veteran’s Day approaches I believe our president should use his executive powers to commute or pardon any questionable incarceration of those who defended our country. It’s a travesty of justice to think that those that would lay their lives on the line for our country will end up in jail for defending it.
GREGORY J. TOPLIFF
Warrenville, S.C.
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