Vet to Protesters: ‘Please, Keep Marching’
As a Vietnam veteran I have only one thing to say to peace activists marching to protest our war against terrorists. Please, keep marching. The reason wars are fought, after all, is not so we can have more wars. It is so we can have more peace and the ability to march about peace.
Who knows. Maybe one of those peace protesters will write a poem or novel about the evils of war. But you should always remember this: Your poems written against war will never be as eloquent as the poems written on the battlefield by the soldiers who sacrifice to allow you to write them. Without them, you have no poetry.
Donnie Dale
Hollywood
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John Gee’s concerns (letter, Sept. 25) about peace activists “rolling over” and abandoning justice in the wake of our recent tragedies reflect a misinterpretation. I firmly believe that those guilty of the horrific attacks two weeks ago should be apprehended and tried for their crimes. Yet, why must it be a given that justice involves killing scores of innocent civilians? If we really want to make sure that the victims did not die in vain, we should work for a new world centered around human dignity and liberation, not profit. To do anything else is to perpetuate the horrors that have been a trademark of human history.
Joshua Sperber
San Francisco
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