My friend Debra Burlingame has a message for our troops serving at Guantanamo Naval Base:

“Operation Valentine: A Salute to Gitmo Heroes” is a special effort to support our men and women in uniform at Gitmo, the war on terror’s most difficult duty.

There is widespread misunderstanding of the mission and the burden that belongs to the men and women working at Gitmo and its importance to the security of our nation. In addition, because the men and women who are on duty there are under tremendous security risk from terrorist attacks, they receive nothing in the way of cards and gifts, while the interned receive plenty, including words of encouragement and gifts.

If you want to send Valentines to Troops in Gitmo, please mail them to this address as he will distribute your cards:

CAPT Peter Husta, GTMO APO AE 09360

Your can also send ‘care packages.’ Please click on the image above to view a list of requested items.

The following is by former Special Forces officer and Vietnam veteran Gordon Cucullu, author of the just released ‘Inside Gitmo: The True Story Behind the Myths of Guantanamo Bay.’ It is an excerpt from his earlier ‘Gitmo Jive’ commentary.

While we observed absolutely no evidence of torture of prisoners at Gitmo, it is clear that the daily atmosphere is rife with harsh abuse: The prisoners are constantly assaulting the guards.

Our young military men and women routinely endure the vilest invective imaginable, including death threats that spill over to guards’ families. All soldiers and sailors working “inside the wire” have blacked out their name tags so that the detainees will not learn their identities. Before that step was taken the terrorists were threatening to tell their al-Qaeda pals still at large who the guards were. “We will look you up on the Internet,” the prisoners said. “We will find you and slaughter you and your family in your homes at night. We will cut your throats like sheep. We will drink the blood of the infidel.”

That is bad enough, but the terrorist prisoners throw more than words at the guards. On a daily basis, American soldiers carrying out their duties within the maximum-security camp are barraged with feces, urine, semen, and spit hurled by the detainees. Secretly fashioned weapons intended for use in attacking guards or fellow detainees are confiscated regularly. When food or other items are passed through the “bean hole”—an opening approximately 4 inches by 24 inches in the cell doors, the detainees have grabbed at the wrists and arms of the Americans feeding them and tried to break their bones.

When guards enter the cells to remove detainees for interrogation sessions, medical visits, or any number of reasons, detainees sometimes climb on the metal bunks and leap on the guards. They have crammed themselves under the bunks, requiring several guards to extract them. Some have attacked unsuspecting soldiers with steel chairs. Determined to inflict maximum damage, detainees have groped under the protective face masks of the guards, clawing their faces and trying to gouge eyes and tear mouths.

Keep in mind that our soldiers — young men and young women — are absolutely forbidden from responding in kind. They are constrained to maintain absolute discipline and follow humane operating procedures at all times, at risk of serious punishment. Documents recently obtained by the Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit show that one detainee punched a guard in the mouth, knocking out his tooth, then began to bite the MP. Several guards were required to repel the prisoner’s attack; one soldier who came to the rescue delivered two blows to the inmate’s head with a handheld radio. For this he was dropped in rank to private.

Support our troops, please.