Harold Campbell

* Air Force Maj. Gen. Harold N. Campbell, a former fighter pilot who flew 1,000 hours in combat in the Vietnam War and was awarded dozens of medals including the Distinguished Service Medal and Silver Star, described Bill Clinton as a “womanizing, pot-smoking, gay-loving draft dodger.” While fatuously stating, “We’re dealing with the integrity of the chain of command, something about which military professionals, me included, have an almost religious attitude,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Merrill McPeak, fined, reprimanded, and kicked Campbell into retirement (June 19).

What a pity McPeak doesn’t also have “an almost religious attitude” for the truth, which is what Campbell undeniably spoke. I suspect there are millions of Americans who feel, as I do, that the appropriate punishment for Campbell would have been promotion to five-star general and strong consideration to succeed Colin Powell as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

LANNY R. MIDDINGS

San Ramon

* Gen. Campbell has been reprimanded by the Air Force for his misguided attack on Clinton in a speech in the Netherlands. The reprimand was deemed appropriate handling. Military law was violated.

Aren’t we missing something? President Truman really understood what’s at stake here when he said that he didn’t care what Gen. Douglas MacArthur thought of Harry Truman, but he’d better respect the President of the United States.

NANCY MacCOON

Los Angeles

* Campbell, a man who has been there, gets busted for telling it like it is. Clinton, a man who should’ve been there and wasn’t, has never told it like it was and look what it’s gotten him. American politics--go figure.

STEPHEN M. KIENZLE

Whittier