Soldiers fight to protect your right to dissent

I am originally from your area, and while visiting with family we read with great interest the letter by Sgt. Waggoner and then the response by Ms. Kepple. I could not help but feel the urge to respond.

Ms. Kepple, you are very lucky that Sgt. Waggoner and others are fighting to defend your First Amendment rights. I can almost say for certain that if the enemy had their way and could control our society, you would not have any rights, let alone a First Amendment right.

Sgt. Waggoner is defending and protecting your right to speak out against the war, but you must understand his point that by exercising that right, you are putting him and all of our military at greater risk by encouraging the enemy, thereby prolonging the war and spending more money on it.

Yes, almost 4,000 brave Americans have died, and every one of them is a huge sacrifice and a great loss.

But when it comes to wars to defend our freedom- and yes, you have the right to believe this is not a war and we are not defending our freedom, but I respectfully and strongly disagree with you- this is a small number compared to, say, the 2,400 casualties we had on Omaha Beach in just one day during DDay in World War II.

All fought for the same reason: to stop evil before it got to our shores and to bring freedom to people who had lost it. And no one can argue that the Iraqis were free or better off under Saddam. But this time it did get to our shores: We lost almost 3,000 in one day on 9/11 and they weren't soldiers. Don't think for one minute if we were not fighting now, but instead had just rolled over, that there would not have been many more attacks with thousands more innocent dead.

And so far, thanks to Sgt. Waggoner and his comrades, we have not had another attack on our shores.

Our freedom is not free and there is no guarantee that we will keep it unless we are willing to fight and die for it. The words of Thomas Paine, "Give me liberty or give me death!" are even more true today.

I can give you another quote, by Edmund Burke, British statesman and philosopher: "All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win is for enough good men to do nothing." And yes, we are at war with evil.

Trust me, if we do not win this war, we will have no need of new schools or scholarships, healthcare or free lunches, and if the enemy has their way, we won't even need housing.

Heck, we'll be lucky if they give us a pine box when they bury us. Chris Schwarm Oakhurst, Calif.