The media machine seems to be making a lot about the high percentage of the public who are apparently opposed to any coalition aggressive action against Saddam Hussein's regime.

At 45 years of age, I enjoy the freedoms purchased only at a terribly high price with other people's blood.

These people - mainly young men but some young women, too - I never knew but, when it came to it, they bravely did their duty.

I am so very grateful for their sacrifice, which I value deeply, for this gained the freedoms I now enjoy yet never had to purchase.

Perhaps that is the root cause of the apparent reluctance of the people to back the need to topple or disarm Saddam.

Since most of us now alive are here because of the blood sacrifice of a previous generation, we do not realise there is a real price to pay for the freedoms we take for granted.

Therefore, that which we did not purchase with our blood has no value and, since it has no value, it is perceived as not being worth fighting for.

If you are to take notice of anyone, listen to those who bought our freedoms and see whether they feel freedom is still worth fighting for.

The idle chattering of "freeloaders" is irrelevant. We, the masses, who contributed nothing to purchase these freedoms, do not own them and so, by extension, have neither the right to hand them over nor to try to influence anyone else to.

-Trevor Hinkley, Northease Gardens, Hove