Senator John Glenn On President Bush

I received this email over the weekend and find it fitting to post. I have lost some confidence in our President, but I do believe he was and remains the best man for the job where the war on terror is concerned.

There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq in January. In the fair city of Detroit, there were 35 murders in the month of January. That's just one American city, about as deadly as the entire war-torn country of Iraq.

When some claim that President Bush shouldn't have started this war, state the following:

1. FDR led us into World War II. Germany didn’t attack us; Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost; an average of 112,500 per year.
   
2. Truman finished that war and started one in Korea. North Korea didn’t attack us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost; an average of 18,334 per year.
   
3. John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam didn’t attack us.
   
4. Johnson turned Vietnam into a quagmire. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost; an average of 5,800 per year.
   
5. Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent. Bosnia didn’t attack us. He was offered Osama Bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.
   
6. In the years since terrorists attacked us , President Bush has liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran, and North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.
   
7. The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking, but it took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound. That was a 51-day operation.
   
8. We've been looking for evidence for chemical weapons in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.
   
9. It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Ted Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chappaquiddick.
   
10. It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in Florida!

Our Commander-In- Chief is doing a GREAT JOB! The Military morale is high! The biased media hopes we are too ignorant to realize the facts. Wait there's more!

JOHN GLENN (ON THE SENATE FLOOR) Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:13.

Some people still don't understand why military personnel do what they do for a living. This exchange between Senators John Glenn and Senator Howard Metzenbaum is worth reading. Not only is it a pretty impressive impromptu speech, but it's also a good example of one man's explanation of why men and women in the armed services do what they do for a living. This IS a typical, though sad, example of what some who have never served think of the military.

Senator Metzenbaum (speaking to Senator Glenn):

“How can you run for Senate when you've never held a real job?"

Senator Glenn (D-Ohio):

"I served 23 years in the United State s Marine Corps. I served through two wars. I flew 149 missions. My plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire on 12 different occasions. I was in the space program. It wasn't my checkbook, Howard; it was my life on the line. It was not a nine-to-five job, where I took time off to take the daily cash receipts to the bank."

"I ask you to go with me ... as I went the other day...to a veteran's hospital and look those men with their mangled bodies in the eye, and tell THEM they didn't hold a job!"

"You go with me to the Space Program at NASA and go, as I have gone, to the widows and Orphans of Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee...and you look those kids in the eye and tell them that their DADS didn't hold a job."

"You go with me on Memorial Day and you stand in Arlington National Cemetery, where I have more friends buried than I'd like to remember, and you watch those waving flags."

"You stand there, and you think about this nation, and you tell ME that those people didn't have a job? What about you?"

For those who don't remember During WW.II, Howard Metzenbaum was an attorney representing the Communist Party in the USA.

Now he's a Senator!

TruthorFiction.com had an entry on their site telling the truth about this exchange. The bulk of it follows:

This exchange did take place but not on the floor of the Senate, but the content of Glenn's words is accurate. The exchange occurred during a campaign debate in 1974, when Metzenbaum was running for re-election and Glenn challenged his seat. Glenn and Metzenbaum had also run against each other for the same seat four years earlier; a race that Metzenbaum had won. A few days prior to this debate, however, Metzenbaum made a widely publicized statement that Glenn had never met a payroll (he didn't actually say that he'd never held a real job). In other words, Glenn had been a military man not a businessman, like Metzenbaum.

Metzenbaum did not repeat that charge during the debate, but Glenn came prepared to respond to it, and did it so powerfully that he also went on to win the election. If Howard Metzenbaum represented the Communist party as an attorney during World War II, we have not found substantiation to that affect.