The mail.(Letter to the Editor)

I read your "Real Men" issue (September) from front to back. When I finished, I looked at the front cover and softly said aloud, "Thank God Almighty."

I am a most fortunate woman: age 57, American, and married for 35 years to a bona fide real man. He is a husband, son, grandfather, brother, and in-law extraordinaire; a protector, a provider, an intellect, an artist, an engineer, a mechanic, a gardener, a plumber, a professor, and a leader of men and women.

Americans have finally come around to acknowledging that we owe men like him just about every single thing that we treasure. Not for one minute would I trade places with any man that I 'know, but I am profoundly grateful for the men such as my husband who protect this nation and all that I hold dear. Thank you for honoring REAL men.

Mary Anne Bailey

Melbourne, Florida

Hooray! As the mother of two young men, one a Marine, the other a husband, father, and hard-working provider, I am glad to know there is published material that supports their manhood. I am very liberal, but I realized that my boys were full of testosterone and used sports, bonfires, hunting, and occasional fights as outlets. What is wrong with men being men?

I married a man who played hockey, not with dolls. If I wanted a companion with female qualities, I would have married a woman and we could have adopted girls. And maybe we could have bred males out of the human race.