To the editor:

This letter is directed primarily to my fellow veterans. It is mystifying to me that so many veterans seem to support Donald Trump, a man who has dismissed and defamed the sacrifices of military veterans and the families of veterans. Mr. Trump used his father’s wealth and five deferments — including a bone spur in a foot he could not identify in a recent interview — to avoid service during the Vietnam War. Now many of the men with whom I served in Vietnam are rallying behind Mr. Trump.

To me, maybe Trump’s worst outrageous defamation in 16 months of vile, vicious pronouncements was his smug dismissal of Sen. John McCain’s war hero status wile a POW in North Vietnam. This was a coward’s calumny of a man who endured more than five years of brutal captivity, and who, upon being offered an early release from this torture, refused to desert his comrades.

Is this the kind of “man” you would choose to be the commander in chief of your country? Will you feel a sense of shame after you vote for an individual who dishonored the memory of your comrades-in-arms who paid the ultimate price for their nation?