I no longer believe that the Bush administration has the best interests of our military and our veterans in mind. Before I go further, we may have some veterans out in the audience and maybe even some folks on active duty or in the guard and reserves. Those on active duty are not as free to express themselves politically as the rest of us, so we don't want to get them in trouble for being here, but let's give them a big hand anyway.

Now let's see if we have any veterans out in the audience? Please stand. I'd be honored to talk with any of you afterwards. And some of you have family and friends now in the Middle East. We as veterans support you, as well as them. My son is on his way back there for a second time as well.

Veterans, active duty troops, Reserves and National Guard and their families: there are millions of them out there, and many are now beginning to understand that there is a better alternative for 2004 than George Bush----Gov Howard Dean!

Most people don't realize the importance of this bloc of voters or that the military absentee ballots from overseas, along with veterans and their families. Votes in 2000, may have swung the results in many states, including Florida. In August of last year, I emailed Mr. Bush and several Democrat candidates about the problems I was seeing in the support of our veterans and our military, perhaps naively hoping someone might actually respond - only the Dean campaign did.

So I said to myself, if the Dean campaign is the only one interested, so be it. That's how Veterans for Dean the Blog got started.

You have seen the bumper stickers, "Support our Troops", and I know most all of you do, regardless of this administration's policies and actions. But I say to you this: Patriotism doesn't just belong to Mr. Bush and the Republicans.

Please also understand that "troops" includes our veterans, many of whom are being forgotten in a variety of ways by this administration.

Why should military veterans, or anyone associated with the military, or any of you, consider any option other than Mr. Bush for the coming 2004 election?

Here are just a few things that caused me, as a Veteran to change my mind about Mr. Bush, but I think they affect most of you, or your family or your friends as well, so I would ask your careful consideration of them.

In less than a year, George Bush has radically changed our national strategy, and because everything Mr. Bush does is cloaked in the 9/11 terrorist attack, no one who supports him seems to object. That new national strategy, known as the Bush Doctrine, provides for regime change in other countries.

Now some of you will rightly point out that Iraq isn't the first time in our history that we have gone after another country preemptively or another country's leader in past administrations. Fidel Castro comes to mind - and you should critically look at those actions as well. Mr. Bush is even using the excuse, and his poor understanding of history, to now claim that Bill Clinton started the idea of regime change.

But here's what's different under George Bush: Regime change and pre-emptive invasions of other countries (unilaterally, if necessary) are now a matter of written as well as verbally stated policy of this administration and therefore the policy of the United States of America. Think about that.

The Bush Doctrine contains no statement that preemptive war and regime change will be policies of last resort, used only when all other options have been tried.

I don't know about you veterans out there, but I did not serve in the military to forcefully project Democracy into other countries. I served to defend our country and our allies from threats, foreign & domestic: that's what my oath as an officer said. There's a big difference.

This administration got us into war, based on two primary assumptions: WMDs & Saddam's supposed ties to Al Qaeda and 9/11, neither of which has proven to be true.

Yes we know Saddam was a ruthless sadistic dictator, but they exist in many countries. Only after the problems started in Iraq did George Bush give us the ultimate bait-and-switch (real?) reason for invading Iraq - to get rid of Saddam, the thorn in his father's side.

Nobody was sorry to see Saddam Hussein go down. Nevertheless, a growing number of veterans, and virtually all of you out there, did not agree with how the Bush administration justified its actions in going to war - did you?

As we start 2004, it's worth making a New Year's resolution that we will not forget the more than 500 who have fallen and the many more thousands of wounded, nor the administration's bait-and-switch tactics for getting us into this pre-emptive war, that in fact has not made us safer from the terrorism that threatens us.

In case you missed it over the holidays, as Gov Dean confirmed this fact, and was getting hammered on all the networks for saying so, they all had to break off to announce that the country had elevated its terror alert to "orange." Interesting isn't it, that not one of them commented on this irony afterwards, but instead continued to flood the airwaves with criticisms of Gov Dean.

Now, briefly why else should you care about what this administration is doing to veterans, active duty troops, the Reserves and National Guard? Because this administration is failing in Leadership 101 with regard to veterans, and is putting our best-in-the-world military at risk for the future.

Some examples:

When Mr. Bush committed us to war in Iraq: Gen Shinseki, his Army Chief of Staff told Mr. Bush that the intended use of the military was badly flawed. Gen Shinseki was fired.

We're committed around the world in many places like Korea, and a war in Afghanistan that's still going on. But instead, because Mr. Bush had his personal agenda blinders on, to take care of the Iraq aftermath, we've had to use Reserves and the National Guard for 18-month call-ups, many of them in combat areas longer than active duty troops - with no guarantee that they won't have to be used further. Their job return guarantee by law is just 12 months.

You probably know we have an all-volunteer force these days, but our Reserves and Guard are at risk in many ways for the future, because this administration has put them there.

Their families, businesses, and incomes are being shredded as these men and women faithfully follow their oaths of service. This administration has bitten the hand that helped deliver it's victory and worse yet sidetracked us from focusing our efforts of going after the real terrorists of 9/11 and others who would harm us.

And by the way, this is no scare tactic, many military experts say that if Mr. Bush is re-elected, expect the draft to be reactivated in 2005. Richard Perle a Bush inside advisor, in his new book, An End to Evil, pushes Mr. Bush to end the regimes in Iran and Syria, treat France and Saudi Arabia as enemies, blockade North Korea, withdraw from the United Nations, and abandon what Perle calls the illusion of a Palestinian State.

In other words, continue to use our military to keep us in a permanent state of aggressive warfare. Mr. Bush simply does not have the numbers of people to carry out more of his wars of pre-emption without adding a lot more forces through ready sources like the draft.

Something else: In his determined push to prove himself right about WMDs, Mr. Bush had over 1,400 military intelligence experts chasing WMDs for 6 months after the war supposedly ended, while we continued to sustain casualties.

When it became clear that WMDs weren't going to be found, many of these experts were finally free to help in critical areas where we've sustained most of our casualties like the Sunni Triangle. Not coincidentally, in my opinion, just over a month later, we were able to track Saddam Hussein down.

Furthermore, until last month, military retirees who had been disabled on active duty, could not receive both their military retirement pay and full VA disability compensation. Why? Because George Bush opposed it.

For several years a Democrat, Senator Tim Johnson from South Dakota and his colleagues from both parties in the Senate have worked to fix the concurrent receipt problem, as it is known.

However according to Sen Johnson, every time the Senate made the decision to provide full concurrent receipt benefits the Bush Administration fought it. The provision was only partially approved in the new military appropriations bill. And now Mr. Bush is taking credit with veterans. What a sham!

These are the last examples I'll cite. there are many others. Many VA hospitals are being closed and other veterans health benefits cut back including prescription drug benefits to veterans. The Disabled American Veterans, a group with no political ax to grind other than helping disabled veterans obtain their benefits authorized by law, has been blocked from visiting wounded and disabled GIs at Walter Reed hospital for "security reasons", and the list goes on.

What's the bottom line here? George Bush has broken this country's contract with its Veterans, its Reserves and National Guard, and its active duty forces. He's broken this country's relationships with long time allies. He has flagrantly misused our ability to respond to the real terrorists behind 9/11 by pre-emptively invading Iraq. He thumbed his nose at the international community and yet now expects their cooperation. He's signed into law Patriot Act I and parts of Patriot Act II that threaten your freedoms. And he plans to do more of the same. He's divided this country, in ways not seen since Vietnam. Is this who you want again in 2004?

Contrary to the hogwash put out by the media talking heads, Gov Dean has clearly stated his support for a strong military, strong support to veterans, and a presidency based on hope, not the fear of a John Ashcroft coming through your door.

Here's what Gov Dean has promised to do for you, veterans: "As President, I will ensure that veterans receive the respect and recognition they so greatly deserve for the sacrifices that they have made serving our nation. This is fundamental to the ideal of the American Community, which my campaign seeks to restore."

Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove are said to be salivating at the prospect of facing Howard Dean. Maybe they are so overcome with bloated self-confidence that they have failed to notice that Gov. Dean has confounded the other candidates, party insiders, and the media who continue to attack him, bewildered by the fact that it's having the opposite effect than they intended.