This is in response to letters from Paul Lowell and Robert E. Macdonald (Aug. 30).

To address Mr. Lowell, the Sun Journal is right about the Swift Boat ads – they are all lies. Not to mention, the Washington Post discredited those individuals, too. Those men were not on John Kerry’s boat. How do they know how he behaved?

To address Mr. Macdonald, Sen. Kerry is a real hero in my eyes. He came back from Vietnam and stated the truth. It is that truth that helped end a war that should never have been.

My brother was in the intelligence branch of the Army. He knew about the atrocities committed by some of our soldiers. He could not take what was happening over there, and yet he would not expose it to the public. He only told me. He tried to take his life over it.

He ended up in a veterans’ hospital where he became one of the living dead who came back from Vietnam. He died at 49 years old, a genius IQ wasted for a war that should never have been.

Is that the legacy people want for America’s children? The same thing is happening today. The abuse at the Iraq prison is the tip of the iceberg of what is happening to the Iraqi people.

We need to face our mistakes, or we are destined to repeat them at astronomical cost in human lives and dignity.

Kathleen Morin, Rangeley