In comments yesterday, Jim Wheeler wrote a little letter to Mr. Romney after seeing the quote below about Vietnam service. Here it is.
Gosh, Mittens, I was there and I really, really missed you. And you know what? If you had been there it would have done wonders for your ability to empathize with the little people.
For example, there was the family separation of 474 days out of 540 during which my wife raised our three boys alone, closed on the purchase of a house and made all the major family decisions without me. For example there were the incessant hours of boredom punctuated by moments of fear and immense loneliness. For example there was the frustration of having politicians trying to run the goddam war by sitting around a coffee table drinking bourbon while we were racing up and down the South China Sea lobbing 8 inch shells into attacking Viet Cong. For example there was the immense pleasure of receiving one’s wife’s accumulated 17 daily letters, each numbered consecutively because she knew they would arrive that way, and because there was no fucking email or satellite video then.
But never mind, Mittens. You can take consolation with all those souls you won for the Lord in France. After all, there are all kinds of sacrifice.
Yours in sympathy,
Jim
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
Whatever Works 
You got love guys like Mitt, who want to talk tough concerning the Middle East, and bashing Obama, but yet they didn’t serve, and made sure his five sons never joined the service. With that said, Romney is a fucking joke.
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Don, I’ve even heard some right wing talkers make fun of Biden because he dared to talk about his son being in Iraq. Amazing. Kind of the demonization of war-vet, double amputee Tammy Duckworth by Cong. Walsh. (she’s going to turn him into road kill)
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Have you noticed that it is always the guys who didn’t go who are oh so willing to send others? “After you,” I’d like to say, “After you, Messrs, Romney, Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Rove, Lieberman ….” oh the list goes on. Too old to serve now? OK, send your grandsons and grand daughters. They go first.
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Hey Elyse, cannon fodder is cannon fodder. It’s a fine old tradtion!
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Yeah, the list goes on…and statistically all of your precious Democrats as well, especially since more wars have been started under Democrat regimes than Republican administrations.
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It’s not about parties jonolan – it’s about people who send other people to war. Truman? He served. Kennedy? He served. Johnson? He served. Carter (I don’t think he had a war?). He served). That’s the point.
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Poor Mitt.
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Like any decent American, I despise Wheeler as one of my nation’s domestic enemies. That being said, I find myself in agreement with his general point in that letter.
I’ve always felt that military service should be a prerequisite for political office…and for franchise, for that matter.
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Kock it off jonolan. Calling Jim, a combat veteran and, may I add, a complete gentleman who never calls anyone a name, a domestic enemy? And of whose nation? Certainly not of mine. I’d call him an admirable citizen. Do we have different nations? (oh dear, I fear I know that answer to that one.)
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