Bobbie Lou Pendergrass sent this letter to President John F. Kennedy just after she lost her brother, Specialist James Delmas McAndrew, in South Vietnam. He was one of seven crew members killed in a helicopter crash.
Pendergrass contrasts the Vietnam War with World War II and the Korean War, in which her older brothers fought. She describes those wars as ones in which Americans knew that they were giving their lives for their country. She questions fighting in Vietnam, “a country where half our country never even heard of.” She describes bitter feelings toward the war and decribes Americans in Vietnam as “sitting ducks,” and says that “we should send enough [troops] to have a chance” of winning.
Kennedy sent a letter in response to Pendergrass.
