My response to a recent "article" appearing on the Chattanoogan.com web site about a "local firm" collecting petitions in support of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore.

I am a deacon of a Christian church in Chattanooga. My congregation is directly descendant from the first missionaries to settle in what later became the Tennessee valley and from the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock. I am also a soldier who guards my country and our way of life. I first put on a uniform at age ten and swore, "...to do my Duty, to God and my Country...," while taking the Boy Scout Oath. I have worn a uniform ever since. I am a "True Patriot" and also a "Minuteman" who is serving, and has served for 15 years, in a combat unit of the Tennessee Army National Guard. I served in combat in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm. I am also a veteran of Operations Noble Eagle and Enduring/Iraqi Freedom. I have further served my state and nation as a law enforcement officer for nine of my 33 years,

I am completely appalled at the stances you espouse. You and your views are a disgrace to every True Patriot who has ever worn the uniform of the United States Military, especially those who have died to defend our Constitution. You remind me of the current President of the United States who is a disgrace to those of us who are members of the oldest military service of this country, the National Guard. The Minutemen of Concord Green did not join the militia and then not show up for muster in order to avoid combat during war time as George W. Bush did during Vietnam. The framers and signers of the Constitution, among them at least three members of my denomination: John Adams (ironically his name appears in your web site banner), Thomas Jefferson and Button Gwinnett; added the Separation Clause for a reason. I swore an oath to defend the Constitution from both foreign and DOMESTIC threats of which you are one! Thus I stand compelled to speak out against your specious rhetoric. The words you speak, while cloaked in our great flag, sound far more like those of Stalin and Mao and Goebels then they do Thomas Paine who cautioned us about, "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot," that you so obviously are. You should both be ashamed and be forced into performing a real service to the country, although not allowed to wear the honored uniforms of its military!

I will also add that I feel certain that my grandfather, a retired Chief Justice of the Great State of Tennessee, would roll over in his grave at the thought of a supposedly learned member of the judiciary doing something so blatantly unconstitutional.

L. Brock Bennington
Harrison, TN
tnfa50@comcast.net