The Bush campaign machine's smear of Kerry's service record is beginning to backfire. Soon, when attention is turned to Bush's record, watch the Republicans scream foul. None screamed as lies were told about Kerry, but if the truth is told about Bush then they - being chicken, draft-dodging Republicans - will scream.

William Rood, who served with Kerry, has written for the first time in 35 years to back up what Kerry says happened. And put the lie to the Swift Boat group of Viet vets. Go find it in today's news and read it.

I'm a Viet era vet. I volunteered for Vietnam but was told I was needed where I was - helping brief spy planes over Soviet areas. I joined the service before the Gulf of Tonkin and was proud to serve my country. After the service I came to Western on the GI bill and in April '68 came around to opposing the war. I tried hard to help my anti-war friends understand that it was the government, not the service men and women, that was responsible for the war. We vets understood how the system worked.

I respect a draft dodger or escapee to Canada who avoided the war and is up front about it. They saw how unjust the war was and they had no desire to lose their life or limbs for a useless attempt at empire by a corrupt US government. I know that if I had gone to Vietnam that I would have come home a war resister.

But Cheney, Limbaugh, Wolfowitz, Rove, Gingrich and O'Reilly, to name only a few, all avoided military service during Vietnam by one deception or another. Now they send our kids to war. And make no mistake about it - Rove is behind the Kerry attack ads. The supposed leader of today's smear - O'Neill - was secretly recruited by Nixon in 1971 to smear Kerry then. We only got proof a few weeks ago on a released tape recording. Will we wait 30 years for proof that Rove and the Republican party are in control of today's smear? Probably.

Pat Buchanan is coming out with a book explaining how the Bush government is not conservative. I urge my supposedly Republican and conservative friends to read it. Get yourselves back on track. Having a healthy conservative establishment is a needed foil to liberal ideas. But this present group in national power is a radical group that is leading us down the road to perdition. Wake up and think, my conservative friends.