Active duty Marine here who spent time over there much earlier than now. At the time I was there, if youconducted a contest involving noise,you would be on the next plane home. Times are different in certain areas now. Please let me say how grateful those Marines andSoldiersare ingetting things like this. I can't tell you how many children letters that I have read from all around the country. I received gift packages of candy, cards, you name it. Early on in the war, some big news agency reported that baby wipes were in very short supply and at the top of our list for needs. A month later there were pallets of them everywhere from the American public. There was one German immigrant I rememberfrom Chicago who mailed us abunch of beef jerky that took him four days to make. He told us in a letter that he was very proud of us and looked forward to becoming a citizen someday. What our enemies don't know about us is that our soul runs very deep in this country. I was not around during Vietnam, but I have never had anyone accuse me of wrong doing sinceI have been back. There arethoseout there who are very vocal about being aginst this war, but it seems that they are taking that out on the government and not on us in any way. I myself believe in the cause at hand, but that has absoulutely no bearing on what anyone outside of myself should think. For all those who helped in any I want to extend a sincere thank you from the troops. Your thoughts and subsequest actions really made a difference in their lives in a way that you probably will never really fully know.

Semper Fidelis.