Responding to the Dec. 3 letter from Lt. Col. Val Johnson, USAF (Ret.).

I have three things I want to say to you.

1. Now that you’re retired, why don’t you use your time to spell out how you as commander-in-chief would have handled things after 9/11? Show us how the president is misguided and give us more of your disheartened insight.

2. Why did you stay in a profession that was so poorly led and mismanaged by so many presidents for 25 years? You and I are probably close enough in age to have been unwillingly included in President Eisenhower’s Mandatory Military Service Program. I served my time and it didn’t take me 25 years to figure out that superiors like you should be employed in other areas of public service.

3. I don’t believe you were ever ordered to drop napalm on a North Vietnamese village. Since the details are no longer classified, I defy you to name the exact date, target, type and number of A/C employed and the munitions used on that poor village you cite.

In rereading your letter, I was surprised at the many cliches you used, “the same trite rationale,” “dire threat,” “dreadful menace,” “dog-eared patriot card,” “another asinine war.” I can only conclude by wondering how you felt about WWII and the Cold War.

Ronald J Clark

(USAF 1957-1961)

Oak Harbor