My step son and some kids at his school organized an anti-war rally and had a picture of their trip to washington on 3/15 to attend the peace rally printed in the Advertiser. Well the freakish Jingoist of course went off on them and here was the response I sent the the Advertiser.

Brian

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March 31, 2003

Dear Editor;

In reading the online responses to your article on students protesting the US Invasion I couldn't help but be struck by the foolishness of the jingoists. Claiming the mantle of patriotism and support for our troops as something that is uniquely their own is completely unAmerican. Just so your readers know, at least one of those young men (my step son) in the protest has family serving in the Iraq Invasion. I would suggest to your readers if they really wanted to support our troops, that instead of clucking their tongues at people (both young and old) who disagree with them, that they actually do something concrete to support our troops. First they could start by asking the White House why they cut the budget of the Veterans' Administration by a billion dollars the very week they put our young men and women in harms way in Iraq.

Then they could call our representatives and the White House and tell them it is shameful that the average wage of our frontline troops is a miserable $16,000/yr. The sacrifices made by military families across the country and they need welfare to feed their families: It is a disgrace and indicative of the true lack of respect and support this nation provides to its military families. So if your readers really wanted to support our troops they'd set down their flags and pick up their phones and ask the Pentagon and the DoD to buy a few less bombs and double the average wage of our troops. Now that would show support.

While your readers are at it, they could ask their representative to stop using our young service men and women as guinea pigs everytime they're sent into combat. Exposing them to depleted uranium, untested vaccines, and not providing them with PPE when knowingly exposing them to chemical and biological weapons is unacceptable and in every other vocation would be illegal. Just for an example nearly 1/3 of the 624,000 troops that served in the Gulf war filed for disability after completing their service, and over 40,000 children born to these veterans have had serious birth defects. If your readers really wanted to support our troops they would demand that these brave young men and women receive treatment for themselves and their families, because right now they are not. And now Secretary "Rummy" is using them to test his theory that the time tested "tip fiddle" doctrine on troop deployment is obsolete and should be replaced by a more technology dependent model. Although its early days, it's beginning to look like a recipe for much higher than necessary casualties among our fighting men and women. So I would suggest that if your readers wanted to support our troops they would leave the students alone, turn off Fox and pick up the phone.

Brian Brown-Cashdollar