MR. PRESIDENT: WHY DIDN’T YOU SAVE MY SON?

Tyrone Woods could have been anyone’s son, mine included.  He was an American doing a job for his country with some risk, but by all accounts he liked what he was doing. 

Putting your son into this man’s shoes, he found himself holed up in an American Consulate in a foreign country on a dark night, faced with an overwhelming enemy intent on killing everyone in the compound, including a United States Ambassador.  During the terrible, scary hours that ensued, he fought with valor to his dying breath; he was found dead, slumped over his machine gun. 

While this fight was going on, he and his friends managed to get word out via email and cellphone that they were under siege.  He knew that help was only a short distance away, help that could extricate him and the rest from what was a truly desperate situation.  Drones flew overhead and he knew that his pleas for help had been heard, but also knew that they had been denied. 

So there he was, firing round after round at the enemy until a mortar landed next to him and that was that… the ultimate ending for a man left fighting alone for his country. 

Surely he must know, even in death, that our President told the world a lie about what had happened there, that it was the result of a protest gone badly, and that his President had turned his back on him and his friends.  Although those at the highest levels of government would now proceed to cover up the facts perhaps it was his hand after-the-fact that provided for the sordid details to ooze out, one dribble at a time. 

He’s your son, he’s my son.  We have the responsibility as Americans to stand with Charles Woods and to demand the truth, and to demand it be told before we go to the polls to have an election and decide whether or not the man in the White House is suitable for another four years. 

I know that I certainly would like to know… Mr. President, you had the chance.  Why didn’t you save my son? Why the lies?  Why the cover-up?  How could you possibly get on your plane and fly to Las Vegas and smile, laugh, glad-hand and campaign after letting my son die?  

What kind of a monster ARE you? 

That’s MY AMERICAN OPINION, respectfully submitted.