I am 43 years old, a Portland resident since 2000, and a combat veteran of Desert Storm. I served with the 1st Light Armored Infantry Battalion, 1st Marine Division, from 1989 to 1993. We were among the first to cross the border from Saudi Arabia into Kuwait, and we took the first combat casualties of the ground war. (It was a double fratricide incident near Khafji on the night of January 29, 1991; two of our vehicles were destroyed by friendly missiles. We lost seven men.)

Whatever the stereotype of the "typical Marine" may be, it's probably safe to say I'm not it. (In truth, very few Marines are.) I was raised in an intellectual, liberal, Democratic family, and to this day I consider myself a "liberal" although I vote Republican now. I was among the 52% who voted for President Bush in 2004, and I guess I am among the 29%, or whatever figure the polls are giving, who still support him now. I was poised to write a poison-pixel email in response to your last column, but instead followed my better instincts as a blogger and waited until some of the anger had subsided and I could write a little more calmly.

Your column from last Thursday, concerning the brutal killings of Tucker and Menchaca, at least implicitly acknowledges some value in the "military objective in toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein", which is more than can be said for many of your journalistic colleagues; this, however, is all that can be said in its defense.

First, there is the general premise of your column, summed up in your lurid conclusion that "the weight of the coffins and the gravestones and the dead flowers would crush the cynical and sentimental notion that this war will end well." By this logic, every war that ever brought with it coffins and gravestones and dead flowers, which is to say every war ever fought, must end badly. Do you really believe this? If so, then you must believe that the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Second World War all ended badly. Are you prepared to justify that conclusion? If you are a strict pacifist, that's your business, but please be plain about it...