Alonzo
09-20-2007, 03:04 AM
As a daughter of a Vietnam War veteran, I can attest to how much war veterans suffered during their time fighting and upon their return home. In order to gain an understanding of my father, the war stories I heard as a child, his former alcoholism and suicidal history, I did some reading on the Vietnam War. Eventually I came across numerous letters home written by Marines. Aside from discussing the gruesome details of war, many of them wrote that letters were the only thing they looked forward to in the midst of the horror.
Upon realizing how much a letter can uplift a soldier, I decided to organize a club on campus that was dedicated to writing letters to the soldiers in Iraq, naming it Adopt a Soldier. Members are required to write one letter a week and send one care package a month to their designated Marine. Since I want everyone to acknowledge that Marines in combat are a vulnerable population, no one that is part of the club is allowed to discuss their opinions on the war in the letters. The time commitment is minimal—only, in essence, adopting a soldier and staying faithful to that commitment. Meetings are not required for
membership.
When I started advertising and recruiting on campus, I realized that not everyone viewed Marines in Iraq the way I viewed them. Although society has progressed from slanderously calling former Vietnam veterans “murderers,” there is still an anti-Marine mentality that subsists in society, even in a supposedly liberal one like on the UC Berkeley campus. Many people refused to joiny my club because they saw it as supporting the war.
I remember telling people about it and then asking, “So, would you like to join?” They replied with a simple “No, I don't support the war.” “But, but … it’s not supporting the war…” I started to say, only trailing off silently because the supposed fervent anti-war person who probably never attended an anti-war march had already walked off. I went to numerous meetings and classes on campus to make an announcement about Adopt a Soldier. I got the same reaction. Some even thought “Hey, we can write to ask the soldiers to stop fighting, you know, tell them how wrong the war is.”
Here’s a little information for all you believers that we can actually convince the troops to resist the war by writing them letters. If a military man or woman does not follow orders, they get dishonorable discharge and can go to military prison for up to a lifetime. My father, who served as a cell block commander at Camp Pendleton, saw men get “their ass beat-up” in there. Authorities did things like throw ice water on prisoners at three o’clock in the morning.
Although not as much abuse goes on in the military now due to a more rigorously followed Uniform Code of Military Justice, not everyone always follows the regulations. In one of my father’s stories he leaked that during a moment when he tried to resist, his commanding officer threatened him by saying, “I don't want to have to slit your throat.” Although it was illegal for the commanding officer to tell my father that, he did, and I’m sure similar events are happening right now in Iraq. In essence, it’s not realistic to ask our soldiers in a letter to resist. Besides, who would really listen to an inexperienced college student who naively thinks it’d be so easy?
There remains the question, “How can Adopt A Soldier be an organization that does not support the war?” I would like to comment here that it is possible to be against the Iraqi war and still be a humanitarian who realizes that our men and women at war are currently in terrifying life-threatening circumstances. These soldiers can benefit psychologically with a letter from their home country.
Has society progressed all that much from the Vietnam War? I thought we really did but now I’m not so sure. So we probably won’t see Iraqi veterans refused employment opportunities, disabled soldiers getting wheeled off cliffs and generally mistreated, like my father who had to drop his first class in community college because his peers threatened him and condemned him as a “murderer of children.” But it’s still important to ask—is the mentality still out there? I think so. It’s just subtler now.
So if you would like to fight this mentality, if you would like to show that it is possible to be against the war yet for supporting human happiness, join Adopt a Soldier. Maybe your Marine’s response letters (if you receive any) will convince you they’re not such bad people after all.
Contact me with questions or comments at caladoptasoldier@yahoo.com. Meetings are Thursdays 7:00-7:30 p.m. in 108 Wheeler.
http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=26027
Nice to see anti-war people not labeling an entire population as immoral.
Upon realizing how much a letter can uplift a soldier, I decided to organize a club on campus that was dedicated to writing letters to the soldiers in Iraq, naming it Adopt a Soldier. Members are required to write one letter a week and send one care package a month to their designated Marine. Since I want everyone to acknowledge that Marines in combat are a vulnerable population, no one that is part of the club is allowed to discuss their opinions on the war in the letters. The time commitment is minimal—only, in essence, adopting a soldier and staying faithful to that commitment. Meetings are not required for
membership.
When I started advertising and recruiting on campus, I realized that not everyone viewed Marines in Iraq the way I viewed them. Although society has progressed from slanderously calling former Vietnam veterans “murderers,” there is still an anti-Marine mentality that subsists in society, even in a supposedly liberal one like on the UC Berkeley campus. Many people refused to joiny my club because they saw it as supporting the war.
I remember telling people about it and then asking, “So, would you like to join?” They replied with a simple “No, I don't support the war.” “But, but … it’s not supporting the war…” I started to say, only trailing off silently because the supposed fervent anti-war person who probably never attended an anti-war march had already walked off. I went to numerous meetings and classes on campus to make an announcement about Adopt a Soldier. I got the same reaction. Some even thought “Hey, we can write to ask the soldiers to stop fighting, you know, tell them how wrong the war is.”
Here’s a little information for all you believers that we can actually convince the troops to resist the war by writing them letters. If a military man or woman does not follow orders, they get dishonorable discharge and can go to military prison for up to a lifetime. My father, who served as a cell block commander at Camp Pendleton, saw men get “their ass beat-up” in there. Authorities did things like throw ice water on prisoners at three o’clock in the morning.
Although not as much abuse goes on in the military now due to a more rigorously followed Uniform Code of Military Justice, not everyone always follows the regulations. In one of my father’s stories he leaked that during a moment when he tried to resist, his commanding officer threatened him by saying, “I don't want to have to slit your throat.” Although it was illegal for the commanding officer to tell my father that, he did, and I’m sure similar events are happening right now in Iraq. In essence, it’s not realistic to ask our soldiers in a letter to resist. Besides, who would really listen to an inexperienced college student who naively thinks it’d be so easy?
There remains the question, “How can Adopt A Soldier be an organization that does not support the war?” I would like to comment here that it is possible to be against the Iraqi war and still be a humanitarian who realizes that our men and women at war are currently in terrifying life-threatening circumstances. These soldiers can benefit psychologically with a letter from their home country.
Has society progressed all that much from the Vietnam War? I thought we really did but now I’m not so sure. So we probably won’t see Iraqi veterans refused employment opportunities, disabled soldiers getting wheeled off cliffs and generally mistreated, like my father who had to drop his first class in community college because his peers threatened him and condemned him as a “murderer of children.” But it’s still important to ask—is the mentality still out there? I think so. It’s just subtler now.
So if you would like to fight this mentality, if you would like to show that it is possible to be against the war yet for supporting human happiness, join Adopt a Soldier. Maybe your Marine’s response letters (if you receive any) will convince you they’re not such bad people after all.
Contact me with questions or comments at caladoptasoldier@yahoo.com. Meetings are Thursdays 7:00-7:30 p.m. in 108 Wheeler.
http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=26027
Nice to see anti-war people not labeling an entire population as immoral.