To the editor:

I have just sat down at my computer after watching “60 Minutes” on Oct. 16 about the war in Afghanistan and its long-term probabilities. A top U.S. ambassador and a four-star general were discussing the American electorate’s dissatisfaction with the continuation of this war into possibly ten more years of our troops on the ground.

They were explaining how the future may become much brighter for the citizens of Afghanistan after we finish building their roads, schools and infrastructure. It seems to me that we need to do those same jobs here at home. I think that the Afghans are used to living as they have; we are not.

I know for a fact that the generals of the army want to complete and win their war and the ambassador was assigned by our president to help the generals. But as I continued to watch and hear their strategy, I became enraged and began screaming at my television, “Get the hell out of there and bring our troops home NOW.”

I can recall my war in Korea in 1953, when after more than 50,000 American soldiers killed and 200,000 wounded, we watched as the Korean citizens decided that enough was enough and called a truce with North Korea. How could we explain to the families of our boys killed for obviously no reason that their country fought an unnecessary war? We did the same thing in Vietnam in the late 1960s and, after even more mortalities, we called that one off and came home again.

Have we learned our lesson?