I recently watched “Braveheart” for about the 40th time. It has everything a cowboy could want: Two beautiful women, a cad, a hero, blood, guts, and history. What it does lack is historical validity.

There was a fellow named William Wallace who led a popular revolt against English invaders. There was a King they called “Longshanks” (Edward I, the Batterer of the Scots), and his forces were defeated at Stirling Bridge (lovely town with a great pub) in 1297 by a Scottish force led by Wallace.

But Wallace didn’t ride around slaughtering Scottish nobles after his defeat at Falkirk; he probably never met Robert the Bruce; and he definitely didn’t carry on an affair with the French Princess Isabella who was only 1-year-old in 1297. He was hung drawn and quartered at Tyburn (Marble Arch) in 1305, his head stuck on London Bridge, his body cut in four parts and sent to the four corners of the kingdom.

“Braveheart” is not atypical for any on screen treatment of history, and most people neither know, nor care about the actual details. On the other hand this depiction has become the history itself for those who haven’t the hunger to know the historical reality.

In our busy scratch the surface lives, our reality is often what we’ve seen on television, heard on the radio, or read in a popular periodical. Even worse, we seem to attach ourselves to a particular form of presentation which will give us both the information and the slant we’re expecting, thereby reinforcing the view we have preconceived.

In my mind this entire Iraq war has had a “Braveheart” done on it. From the beginning in January 2002 we first heard President Bush speak of “the Axis of Evil,” through November 2002 when Bush politicized the Iraq question by demanding a vote immediately prior to the mid-term elections.

Two months before, he had spoken of a “grave and growing threat.” Then we got the Colin Powell presentation to the UN, followed by the Security Council Resolution which would provide the legal cover for our invasion. Later it was called “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

When the Iraqi government fell and chaos ensued, we were told that democracy is messy. (Not that the administration had failed to adequately plan for Phase IV) Then we were told things were getting better, the media just wasn’t reporting the good things. Does anybody remember that bogus letter Cal printed on Dec. 31, 2003? He pulled it from the Internet and printed it as though it was a real letter to the editor.

It was so obviously written by the Republican Party, and tells what a great rebuilding job they are doing over there, and the news just isn’t getting it right.

What about all those ties to al Qaeda claimed by both President Bush and Vice President Cheney (and Gerard Jansen on Dec. 3, 2003)? What about the so-called nexus to terrorism, and the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” and Bush’s “mushroom cloud”? What about “we’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them here”? What about the explosion of democracy in the Middle East? Now we’re told if we leave, they will follow us. Does anybody notice a pattern?

The Bush government has been wrong about every single assumption it has made in both the reasoning for, and the prosecution of, this war in Iraq. Yet Misters Hoffman and Jansen continue to believe that Mel Gibson is Braveheart and had an affair with a 1-year-old princess.

They are not alone, as a solid 30 percent of our population is prepared to follow Mr. Bush all the way to perdition. If the other 40 percent who originally went along with this madness have awakened to its hollow reality, they can hardly be blamed.

When I was a boy of 14, my dentist’s son was killed in Vietnam. My dentist was a wonderful patriotic man who never lost his faith in his country. His son was killed on Nov. 16, 1970, one of 21,041 Americans killed after Nixon took power promising us “Peace with Honor.”

Had Nixon withdrawn the troops in January 1968 the end result would have been exactly the same. Vietnam fell because the people we were trying to protect didn’t care enough to protect it themselves. It fell because the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong wanted us gone so badly they were willing to pay any price. It fell because we were not willing to kill half the population in order to “win.”

Mr. Jansen (with his jumbled syntax and run-on sentences) tells us we’ve only lost 3,000 soldiers, so what’s the big deal? Mr. Hoffman makes up specious corollaries, and wastes our time defending them. Neither of them seem to have a dog in this fight.

Their taxes are at a historic low in the middle of a (self declared) “war.” They face no personal danger every day, nor do they seem to have a loved one who does, nor does it seem that either has ever bothered to serve. Like most Americans, the war and suffering it causes is so far removed that it might as well be a movie. That was my point.

We are not going to agree on this. Personally I think anyone who supports this useless waste of power and lives is a complete moron. So here is a suggestion on which we can agree.

Wounded soldiers return all the time from our distant battlefields. The armed services provide them very good medical care for the most part, but there are many details these people have to deal with themselves.

My friend’s son was shot 13 times in Iraq last year, seven of which either penetrated, or missed his protective vest and went through him. Amazingly he survived, but still has to undergo extensive treatment. Based in Kentucky with the 101st, he has to drive himself all the way to Fort Gordon in Georgia to see his surgeon.

The trip has got to be grueling. When he gets there, he’s by himself. Last time the surgeon got called out on an emergency, so his long drive was for nought.

Here is my suggestion. If you want to support the troops, and I believe we all do, call these bases and ask how you can help. Organizations already exist and you can contribute your time and your excess untaxed income.

A bumper sticker declaring your support for the troops is just unsightly detritus if that is the only way you support the troops. The politics of this mistake will play out. The people to whom we owed the sacred trust, the soldiers, will be left holding the physical and psychological bag.

If you support the troops, keep the bumper sticker and find an actual way to help. If you support Bush, I still think you’re an idiot.

Timothy J. Parker
Peachtree City, Ga.