Time to find way out of Iraq mess

To the editor;

I hope our leaders can find enough brainpower to get our seven astronauts home safely. Then I hope our nation will realize we are losing three times that many wonderful soldiers in Iraq every week and many more are wounded. Are their lives any less valuable than the lives of the astronauts? Surely there is enough brainpower in this great country to get us out of that mess and bring our 150,000 loved ones home safely.

It is a sad day when it takes the death of 14 Marines to give the president a "grim reminder" that America is still at war. He needs to put the nation on an all-out war effort or bring the troops home. If his daughters and friends were over there trying to fix his mess, it would be a different ballgame. All Americans, especially the president, should feel pain every time a soldier is wounded in Iraq.

I believe those boys deserve a big picture on the front page like the astronauts will get when they come home. We shouldn't try to hide the bad news.

We should have a windfall-profit tax on the oil companies and keep the inheritance and other taxes to pay for the war, and not lay it on our grandchildren.

PAUL LANPHER, Advance, Mo.