Dallesport — To the editor:

I think that fireworks on the Fourth of July has degenerated into a mockery of freedom. I spent a year of fear in Iraq in 2004 and 2005. On March 24, 2004, at 5 a.m., my soldiers were under a rocket attack. These rockets wounded 29 soldiers and killed four. These booms had serious bloody consequences. (The attack was in Taji, about 10 miles north of Baghdad.)