To the editor:

Our country has suffered a great loss with the passing of Gen. Alexander Haig.

It is unfortunate but symptomatic of our times that Haig with be remembered more for a phrase uttered in the wake of the assassination attempt upon Ronald Reagan. The statement, “I am in control here at the White House,” was taken deliberately and wildly out of context by the mainstream media to besmirch this great hero. Gen. Haig, a military man to his bones, had sworn an oath to uphold, protect and defend our Constitution; it was the essence of him and he could not remove himself from it.

A brief summary of his military career reads like a biography of modern warfare. He was assistant to Gen. MacArthur in Japan. He participated in Korea’s most celebrated battles: Chosin Reservoir, evacuation of Hungnam and the spectacularly planned Inchon landing, which sent the communists reeling back towards China. In Vietnam during the battle of Ap Gu, he demonstrated a personal bravery few if any of his critics could match. In some of the bloodiest hand-to-hand combat this war knew, Haig and his vastly outnumbered compatriots drove the enemy back. Though he would go on to more storied bureaucratic positions, he preferred to be remembered for this day in March of 1967.

He has stepped now away from our popular culture with its bizarre fluff of personalities into God’s good heaven. He was a man. He was a soldier. He was and remains an American hero.