Tired of ads? Subscribers enjoy a distraction-free reading experience.
Click here to subscribe today or Login.

In a recent letter to the editor, the writer offered a few “facts” about the wars the United States has been in.

He asserted that Germany never attacked the U.S. during WW 1 and 2 and that Democratic presidents sent troops to fight Germans. Then he mentioned North Korea never attacked the U.S., but president Truman sent troops to fight North Koreans. Then he claimed JFK sent advisers to Vietnam, followed by President Johnson sending troops there.

The writer must have flunked History 101.

Here are the real facts:

• The Germans carried out unrestricted warfare in the Atlantic during WW 1 in which countless lives, including many Americans, were lost to German submarines. Ever hear of the sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania? Over 1,100 civilians perished including some 120 Americans. The U.S. Senate approved a declaration of war against Germany by a vote of 82-to 6 and the House voted 373 to 50 for war.

• Days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, followed by a U.S. declaration of war against Japan, Hitler declared war on the United States. That’s why we sent troops to fight the Germans.

• Regarding Korea, after the invasion of South Korea by the communist North Koreans, the United Nations voted to intervene and 16 UN countries sent troops to fight in Korea.

• Eisenhower, not JFK, was the first president to send advisers to Vietnam, following the Vietnamese defeat of the French. In 1965 the House of Representatives voted unanimously, and the Senate 88-2, to approve the Gulf of Tonkin resolution which allowed LBJ to send troops to fight the communists in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, who was president when the U.S. invaded Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction? How did that work out?

And who was president when the Kurds were betrayed??

Bill Charles

Larksville