My wife and I spent a week in sunny San Diego revisiting my 1971 duty station. We stayed on Shelter Island. Shelter Island sits in the middle of several military installations. The din of Naval, Marine and Coast Guard activities is constant.

One night we were awakened by a particularly loud outburst. In the morning I asked the desk clerk if the space shuttle had landed. She figured it to be an F-18 doing "touch and goes" on North Island. "We just call it the sounds of freedom," she added.

"Cowards" sure make a lot of commotion, I figured. The noisy training maneuvers went on endlessly. I remain inspired and humbled by the sounds.

Sadly, these same sounds land as the cacophonous commotion of cowardly clatter on the ears of Michael Moore and his ilk.

Later that day we met a real "coward" volunteering at a military aircraft museum. His name is George Emerson, an 89-year-old former prisoner of war. As a 19-year-old tail gunner, Emerson was shot down over Germany on his 18th mission.

As I peered into the cramped quarters of the B-17 Flying Fortress, I could only imagine the level of cowardice this 19-year-old had mustered, squeezing into the gun turret for the 18th time. Shot down at 25,000 feet, Emerson was the only survivor of the nine-man crew. After his capture and imprisonment he was freed in 1945 by another band of cowards.

Sgt. Emerson, what a hero. America, what a country. Moore, Seth Rogen, be nice.

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