I was incensed at the idiotic scribblings that Charles Pinning had contributed to the Nov. 8 Journal -- "Great falsehood about military service."

He has dishonored himself and every veteran by smugly referring to those who serve as too "dumb" to go anywhere else. I am a former U.S. Army soldier and a veteran of the Gulf War. The men and women I knew came from every rung of the socio-economic ladder and had educational backgrounds ranging from high-school diplomas and GEDs to full college degrees.

Our soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen are highly trained professionals; they have to be to operate the increasingly complex systems that today's military employs. Even the lowly infantryman has nightvision, GPS, intelligence drones, and complex radio systems to handle along with his battle weapon.

Face it, Charlie: the kids aren't dumb. Some may even be smarter than you! Maybe if you didn't hide in your home and let better men do the fighting for you, you'd know that.

You really have to feel sorry for people like Charlie Pinning. His character is so debased that he and his kind can't conceive of someone serving their country out of pride, duty or honor. Because he can't wrap his obviously limited intellect around these abstract concepts, the only plausible explanation he has for continued enlistment in the armed forces is that soldiers are not as intelligent as he and his enlightened friends.

Perhaps he should consider the words of John Stuart Mill: "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

GLENN P. CARON

Woonsocket