To the Editor:

As a Vietnam Veteran I’m distressed by the growing anti-war movement in the United States. It’s worth remembering that the military didn’t lose the war in Vietnam. It was lost in the United States by a misguided public that was misled by people like Jane Fonda, John Kerry, Walter Cronkite and others. It was difficult to forgive them, even though I believed that their actions were the result of a woeful ignorance of geopolitics.

What still bothers me is that they have never recognized that their actions led to the imprisonment and slaughter of 1 to 3 million South Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians – among them some of my close Vietnamese friends and their families.

Now they are at it again, lending aid and comfort to radical Muslim terrorists. If they had been around during World War II, we would all be speaking German or Japanese.

To truly support our courageous Armed Forces and to help shape a better America, the peace movement needs to reevaluate its actions. Although I previously attributed their misguided actions to ignorance, I’m now coming to the conclusion that the “cut-and-run crowd” may actually be racists because they believe that South Vietnamese and Iraqi lives aren’t worth American lives. Thus my distress when I see that a growing number of Americans are apparently unwilling to sacrifice for other people and a better world.

Gerald J. Perren

Enterprise