Sorry . I'm an American and cannot support any unpatriotic endeavor.

When this is over, take my weapon. I won't need it for a while. Take this body armor. I would look silly wearing it at the beach. Witness as I grow a goatee. And watch me indulge, at least for a while, in fast food, massive amounts of sleep, alcohol, channel-surfing and many other things that I have lived without for long enough now that I remember liking them more than I actually do.

I have two wonderfully resilient children to whom I've dedicated my life, and who will one day soon forget that their Dad was gone for so long. They won't notice if I'm gone another day or two.

So just drop me off when this is over.

I truly appreciate all the support, but I don't need parades or awards or speeches from the governor. I don't even need a ride. Just leave me on any interstate that has a friendly shoulder with nice loose gravel to kick at, or in a subway car full of morning New York commuters, or in a hotel room looking out at the arch in downtown St. Louis. Leave me in Atlanta, or Portland, Ore., Gig Harbor, Wash., or in a lighthouse on the coast of Maine. I'll gladly be dropped off anywhere in North Dakota, Maryland, Alabama, or Florida. How about a rest area in Flagstaff, Ariz., or a four-way stop in Twin Falls, Idaho? I'll be fine on my own, whether you leave me in a quiet forest, at a state fair, or in the middle of a mosh pit.

I have a lot of friends and family, but rather than going from a combat environment straight back to my block in suburban America, I'd prefer a small period of complete privacy, surrounded only by the elements.

Leave me on a ridge in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina or a canyon in the Colorado Rockies. I'll find a nice walking stick that is well-balanced and has the perfect spot, worn of bark, for my right hand. I'll hike the rest of the trip.

In the wide open spaces of America you'll find me, walking across the Golden Gate Bridge lost in thought, skipping rocks at the Pacific Coast, having breakfast in a small cafe in Vermont, or lying on a South Carolina beach in the glare of the setting sun on the tide-washed shore.

You may see me huddled against a 1,000-foot rock precipice near Dead Horse Point outside of Moab, Utah, a lone figure silhouetted by my campfire, feeding sticks into the flames, captivated with observations of the universe.

Or I'll be the man fishing near you on Lake Hermitage, La.

"Catch anything?" you'll ask.

"You bet. Some big trout on the west end of the lake, and some nice Redfish if you go for the bottom around that inlet right there." I'll say this as I point over my shoulder. Then I'll wave, throttle the engine and move away for a better spot. The spray will fan out behind me, catching the sun as my prop churns the warm dark water.

As you stand looking down into the Grand Canyon, a sun visor on your head, a Gatorade bottle in one hand and a tourist pamphlet in the other, which also has three fingers wrapped around the railing because the depth perception is giving you vertigo, someone will ask "Amazing, isn't it?" then smile and walk away. That will be me.

I'm the guy sitting on the H of the Hollywood sign, smoking a cigarette. I'm a face you can only see half of through the Medieval art display in your local museum. I'm an illegible name scribbled in the guest book of the St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. I am the happy drunk man talking to his slot machine in Vegas. I am the dad playing Frisbee with two children at a neighborhood park in Minneapolis. And I am the guy sitting next to you in English Lit class at the University of Montana, or the owner of a hand sticking out of a car that waves you to go first at a stop sign on your way home from work.

I am still focused on this mission and proud to be serving in Iraq with such incredible people. But in quiet moments of introspection I am becoming fixated on my life beyond this war, beyond this uniform. The thought of being with my children is a kinetic force, and the pure unadulterated momentum of inspiration grows each time the sun spans from East to West in syncopation with these oft monotonous minutes. The beauty of my America compels me with a newly discovered pentameter, like a favorite poem I haven't read in years. And the perceived difficulty of picking up the pieces of my life there is a welcome challenge.

I'm a man on the cusp of the rest of his life, standing between war and family life, citizen and soldier, officer and parent, participant and observer. I'm about to step across a line, and I simply want to be deliberate about the process, that's all.

Don't mind me as I walk past you on the Appalachian Trail at dusk some summer evening soon, when the light is fading behind the hills in the distance. Everyone will be hiking back to their cars, and I'll be hiking in. We both will smile casually and keep going in opposite directions. Tomorrow I may be in Texas. The next day I may see you in California.

So when this thing is over, just drop me off on American soil and bid me farewell. Maybe I'll honk the horn as I pass by you on a highway in Utah where the Rocky Mountains frame the path to futurity and the landscape is welcoming like an old couch. I'll be just another American on the road, wearing aerodynamic sunglasses and listening to the radio. Soon I'll park in front of my children's school and check them out early.

Oh yes, this is where it all begins.

Our soldiers want to see a stable free Iraq (and you should too). They want to restore hope in a nation beaten down by decades of tyranny. They want to help Iraq create and/ or rebuild their infrastructure. They want to supress the violence and unrest caused by insurgents, militants, terrorist and criminals. They also want to help the Iraqi government create and/ or rebuild the Iraqi army and police force, so they can eventually provide security on their own.

Supporting the mission is a huge part of the equation. You are not supporting the troops 100% unless you support this mission.

Our soldiers want to see a stable free Iraq (and you should too). They want to restore hope in a nation beaten down by decades of tyranny. They want to help Iraq create and/ or rebuild their infrastructure. They want to supress the violence and unrest caused by insurgents, militants, terrorist and criminals. They also want to help the Iraqi government create and/ or rebuild the Iraqi army and police force, so they can eventually provide security on their own.

Supporting the mission is a huge part of the equation. You are not supporting the troops 100% unless you support this mission. If you don't believe in the mission, you are only half way supporting the troops.

TONY JONES: Can I ask, when did you first come to the conclusion that the invasion of Iraq was the worst ineptitude in governance, decision-making and leadership in 50 years?

COLONEL LARRY WILKERSON: Well, it took a great deal of study, both as an academic, looking back over the time period in which I was involved and also reviewing my notes and looking at things during that time period itself, that is the time period when I was involved. Let me just correct one thing - I'm not saying that the decision to go to war or the war itself in and of itself was an inept decision. What I'm saying is the aftermath, the lack of planning, the lack of post-invasion thought, even, was an ineptitude of the first order and possibly even the greatest ineptitude of the history of America.

TONY JONES: You're a Vietnam veteran. Do you seriously think it is worse than Vietnam?

COLONEL LARRY WILKERSON: I'm coming seriously to believe that the leadership that I saw and have studied since as an academic with regard to Vietnam, is being parallelled, if not exceeded, by the leadership, both uniformed and civilian, in this conflict and I pray to God that we don't have four or five more years of this before someone comes to the conclusion in the leadership that enough is enough and we do something to change the situation dramatically.

COLONEL LARRY WILKERSON: I think, unquestionably. I'm hearing from lieutenants, captains, majors, generals, many in uniform, many of whom were my students in years passed when I taught at the nation's war colleges. I'm hearing from the civilians who were foreign service officers, civil service and so forth in our embassy in Baghdad and I can tell you that the morale in the uniformed military is being impacted and I can also tell you that our ground forces are stretched to the point where you hear talk about withdrawal from Iraq. Within 24 months, we're going to have to withdraw from Iraq, whether the situation there, politically, economically and so forth, is adequate or not because we've stretched our ground forces to the point of breaking. We have officers who are leaving the Army and the Marine Corps now because they don't want to do a third and possibly a fourth tour in Afghanistan or Iraq. We have people who are beginning to question their leaders, just as they did in Vietnam. We have families that are beginning to fall apart because of second and third tours in Iraq. This is a situation with which I am well familiar. The signs are there and the signs are available for anyone to see, which is what makes me consider Secretary Rumsfeld an inadequate Secretary of Defence at best because he doesn't seem to see those signs, or if he does, he's not doing anything about it.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12433.htm

2.06.06

BRANCACCIO: Wilkerson is a former colonel in the U.S. Army, a decorated Vietnam vet, and a life-long Republican. Wilkerson first met Powell in 1989, shortly after Powell left the Reagan White House. Powell was looking for an assistant; Wilkerson signed on. He's followed Powell ever since — through the first Gulf War, Powell's brief fling as a potential candidate for president, and eventually, to the State Department.

BRANCACCIO: But think about it. Involving just for starters the entire National Security Council on, for instance, evaluating the intelligence. That's going to slow things down. They're going to be dissenting opinions. You're never going to get the war done.

WILKERSON: You mean kind of like what our founding fathers intended when they put the Constitution together? Checks and balances, dissent would be listened to, and so forth and so on? I'm worried, and I would rather have the discussion and debate in the process we've designed than I would a dictat from a dumb strongman.

BRANCACCIO: You're worried that we may not have come to that, but that we're heading down this path of…

WILKERSON: Oh, I think it's come to that.

..........................................................................................................................................

BRANCACCIO: It's Wilkerson's view the Vice President threw his weight around the C.I.A., twisting arms to favor certain intelligence outcomes. According to press accounts, Cheney, often accompanied by his aide Scooter Libby, paid at least ten visits to C.I.A. headquarters to meet with staffers working on the Iraq file.

WILKERSON: If the Vice President was exercising his right as one of the leaders of this country to go to one of its intelligence agencies, and to check on how they're doing. I find it difficult to believe that took ten times. It's equally absurd for the Vice President to assert that his trips out to the agency were not bringing undue influence on the agency. That preposterous. Anytime a leader of his stature visits a single agency that many times, he is by simply the virtue of his position bringing undue influence on that agency.

BRANCACCIO: So you can imagine a scenario where the Vice President's over there kind of leaning on the C.I.A.?

WILKERSON: I could imagine that scenario easily.

BRANCACCIO: NOW on PBS.

Meet the insider who helped Prep Colin Powell for that UN speech making the case for war.

POWELL UN SPEECH: These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.

BRANCACCIO: Larry Wilkerson has now come to a very different conclusion.

WILKERSON: I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council. How do you think that makes me feel?

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcriptNOW205_full.html

do not aid and abet the enemy in any way

People who say they really support the troops ….

_are volunteering to serve in the military.

_are expressing their deepest gratitude to a soldier they come across in person.

_are offering discounts to soldiers and their families.

_are sending care packages to the soldiers who are fighting for a free and stable Iraq.

_are visiting wounded soldiers.

_are visiting soldiers in the field

_are writing and singing songs that praise and honor the soldier.

_are praying for the safety of the soldier and the success of the mission.

_are placing US flags at the graves of fallen soldiers.

_are volunteering to help FRG’s

_are not burning an effigy of a soldier or the US flag

_are not spitting on soldiers

_are not defacing military monuments and memorials

_are not calling our soldiers murderers.

_do not aid and abet the enemy in any way