An Oct. 18 letter to the editor compared the possible firing of General McChrystal by President Obama due to disagreement over the Afghanistan war with the firing of General MacArthur by President Truman due to disagreement over the Korean War. Please. General McChrystal is no General MacArthur.

Comparing the two is like comparing a grape with a watermelon. Whoever heard of General McChrystal before he was put in command of U.S. forces in Afghanistan? But General MacArthur, legendary hero of World War II, and brilliant tactician of the Korean War, was world-famous. In fact, his stature was practically larger than life. When Truman fired MacArthur, it was almost cataclysmic.

The letter writer implies General MacArthur was wrong by wanting to attack military targets in China. Had General MacArthur been allowed to pursue this strategy, the Korean War might have ended differently. Conceivably, the Communists could have been thrown out of North Korea, allowing it to become a democratic nation like South Korea. And today we wouldn't have a very dangerous North Korea with its atomic weapons.

True, the president is the commander-in-chief. But the generals are the master military strategists. General MacArthur was the military strategist par excellence. The author of that letter labels the Afghanistan war as "utterly senseless, wasteful and murderous." Please. In Afghanistan, we are pursuing the terrorists who attacked and leveled the twin World Trade Towers in New York and who attacked the Pentagon in Washington. It is not utterly senseless, wasteful and murderous; it is unequivocally a just war.

Joe Schrantz

Villa Park