Viral video with a message

Retired Army Specialist Joe Cook is not your typical YouTube junkie.

Cook, 23, who returned to Wauconda last October after serving a year in Iraq and spending months recuperating in a German hospital for an amputated leg, stars in a video featured on the Google-owned Web site, popular with anyone who owns a camera and who has a desire to broadcast themselves.

The nearly 2-minute video titled "Dear Mr. Obama" has been viewed more than 8 million times since it was posted on Aug. 27.

In it, Cook faults Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama for criticizing the war in Iraq and declares his support for Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

"When you call the Iraqi war a mistake, you disrespect the service and the sacrifice of everyone who has died promoting freedom ... freedom is always worth the price," Cook says before walking away from the camera, his prosthetic left limb clearly visible below his khaki shorts.

Cook never expected the video to get so many hits. It was featured on a page for McCain supporters on You Tube dubbed weneedmccain.

"I don't usually go onto You Tube," Cook said. "I figured my friends and family would see it. I'm extremely surprised I got that many views. I'm proud of it. I meant everything I said in it."

The video was not paid for by the McCain campaign. Yet local filmmaker Michael Brown chose to shoot the video like a campaign advertisement.

"I haven't even been in touch with the McCain campaign," said Brown, also from Wauconda. "I got tired of the media hammering us every single night with all the bad news out of Iraq. There is good news coming out but the only way to get that good news is to talk to a soldier who's been over there."

Brown wrote the "Dear Mr. Obama" script in 15 minutes and remembered Cook from meeting him last year when he first came home from Iraq.

"I really wanted a soldier that had paid a price in Iraq, so him walking away I wanted to show that prosthetic leg," Brown said. "I had no idea it would do what it did."

Brown reviewed hundreds of e-mails each day with comments about Cook's You Tube video, and finally shut down the comment feature after it surpassed 700.

"I've just been really amazed," he said.

What's perhaps more interesting, Brown said, is the video is being viewed mostly by 45- to 54-year-olds, followed by 55- to 64-year-olds from the United States, Iraq, Canada and Afghanistan, in that order.

Since being on YouTube, Cook has had quite a few phone calls and lots of e-mails from people thanking him for his service in Iraq, and agreeing or disagreeing with his viewpoint.

"I think maybe it's striking a chord," said Cook's father Robert Cook, former president of the Wauconda Township Republican party. "We're from this small town in Illinois. Nobody really cares what we have to say, but apparently some people do."