PUBLIC MARKS with tags john & american

As a national uproar continues over comments by Sen. John Kerry suggesting American troops were lazy and not bright, President Bush is hammering Kerry and fellow Democrats for their lack of strategy for winning the war in Iraq, while troops themselves are mocking Kerry. In a photo circulating the Internet today, soldiers were shown holding a banner with intentional misspellings reading: "Halp Us Jon Carry – We R Stuck Hear N Irak."

Pfc. John Jodka III, Cpl. Trent D. Thomas, Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III, Cpl. Marshall Magincalda, Hospitalman 3rd Class Melson Bacos, Lance Cpl. Tyler A. Jackson, Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington and Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Shumate Jr. are all men who volunteered to serve their country in Iraq. Today, and for the last two months, they are in solitary confinement in the brig at Camp Pendleton, shackled during weekend visits with their family members and frequently deprived of their rights as American citizens as they stand charged with pre-meditated murder of an Iraqi last April. The evidence against them is based largely – if not exclusively – on the word of the family of the dead man, 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad in Hamdanya.