Dear Senator Mark Emery Udall:

We urge you to do what is right and uphold your oath to the Constitution of the United States of America.

Torture is against all the religious teaching and moral philosophies of the world.

It is against the laws and Constitution of our Nation, world laws as agreed to by the United Nations and world treaties.

And it is against the simple idea of do onto others as you would have them do unto you.

We are members of Veterans for Peace and othersare citizens who are not members of Veterans for Peace.

As former members of the US military and the militaries of other nations, as family members of veterans, and as associate members of VFP, or as citizens we call upon you to do three acts of honor:

1. Release into the public domain the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's "Committee Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.”

You are required by your oath of office to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States of America. Our Constitution and the Rule of Law has been smashed by the massive conspiracy to torture in the name of freedom which your report outlines. You must not become part of the conspiracy to keep this report from the people of America and the world. You must release it.

2. Conduct a press conference at which you call for the appointment of an independent special prosecutorbythe US Department of Justice:

A. To investigate and criminally prosecute those involved in organizing and approving this massive conspiracy to undermine the US Constitution and US laws starting with former President George Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney and all the rest of the present and former federal employees and contractors who took part in the torture programs by any department and any branch of US government; and

B. To investigate and criminally prosecute any and all persons in the Obama administration and any branch of government since January 2008 who organized, approved and continued, in any way, the Bush/Cheney torture programs.

Thomas Hardy wrote: "...if way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst.”

You must call for those who conspired to and tortured, in the name of protecting our freedoms, to be brought to justice and either found guilty and punished or be found innocent.

The only way our Nation can start the long journey toward living under the Rule of Law, not the political whims of men and women, is to publicly face the "Worst" and hope our Nation can move toward the "Better."

3. Conduct a press conference at which you, as a single United States Senator or invite all House and Senate members to join you, apologize to our Nation and our world for being part of such a foolish, immoral, degraded, cruel, and worthless operation of torturing to preserve freedom. And you must call for reparations to all harmed.

Those of us who are former military members know the fear of being killed or wounded is always on a person's mind. But the fear of being captured and tortured is what we try to put out of our minds. But if we are captured, we hope that our captors will abide by the "rules ofwar" and the Geneva Conventions and not torture prisoners.

Mr Bush and Mr. Cheney set in motion a vast torture program that drops to the depth of human cruelty and establishes depravity as US government policy. The victims have been harmed, their families, their communities, the military of all nations, and the people of the world have all been harmed. Cruelty begets an eye for an eye mentality. The cycle is most difficult to break.

We urge you, in your last few days in office, to stand in the Senate and begin the healing process in America which can only begin with justice being done to those who perpetrated these monstrous crimes and justice being done for the victims of these crimes.

Only then will you personally find peace.

We the undersigned are:

Leslie "Buzz" W. Davis III, US Army officer, 1967-70, S. Korea