No, like most Iraq veterans, I didn't find broken promises serving with the Marines. I found the courage and discipline to become the man I always wanted to be. That man has a strong streak of peace within him, something the Berkeley peace-loving hippies should appreciate.

I fell in love with the people of the Middle East while fighting for them, and my heart goes out to them. I plan to move to Egypt next year as a Christian missionary to reach out to their needy, and when the war's over I plan to return to Iraq, this time without my M-16.

But if Berkeley has its way, the young men and women of their city won't have the freedom to make one of the most honorable choices they could ever make—the right to defend their country. Instead, they would rather make the decision for them, imposing their will upon their people. That does not sound like the freedom I fought for.

While in Iraq, I wrote an “Open Letter to America” that was aimed at the very people who make up Berkeley's city council. You can read the letter in its entirety here. I supported their right to free speech; after all, I was fighting for it, not to mention losing friends for that cause. But I strongly questioned their so-called support-the-troops-but-not-the-war stance. Angry, I called them ignorant, naïve, hippie puppets.

After my tour of duty ended I hoped I was wrong, that I had written that letter out of my own ignorance. But the Berkeley city council proves everything I said in that letter was true. Thankfully, the American Legion and Move America Forward stood up and said “Enough.”

Groups like Code Pink and the Berkeley city council don't care about freedom. They only care about saddling another generation—my generation—with their hippie-loving propaganda.