Last Friday's Daily News article "Troop-support service ready for Saturday," stated that Delaware County Veteran's Affairs officer Jerry Griffis has organized a service to show support for American soldiers serving overseas.
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Although I am against going to war, I wholeheartedly support such efforts. However, I disagree with Griffis' comments about the anti-war rallies he says have partially motivated his decision to organize this service.
He is quoted as saying that, although some war protesters may have "good hearts and good intentions," protesting war is "stabbing our soldiers in the back."
He also says that he is organizing this service partially in response to an overseas American Marine's letter to The Star Press of Muncie, which reads, "I was blown away by this so-called anti-war protest ... So are we now ashamed of the members of society who are fighting this war on terrorism? It would seem so."
Most members of the anti-war movement are proud of our American soldiers. If there is a war, it is certainly not the fault of the individual soldier, and Americans on the home front should offer their support to the individual men and women that must face such horrendous danger.
We can be against a war but still offer our encouragement and prayers to the individuals who must fight. Most modern war protesters would agree with this sentiment.
In fact, the average war protester today is far more concerned about the lives of our American soldiers than many of the politicians who hawkishly push for a war that they know that they themselves will not have to fight. "Anti-war" does not mean "anti-soldier."
Returning Vietnam veterans in the '60s and '70s were spat upon by their fellow Americans. I find this disgusting.
Although I may be against the concept of war, and I am against the leaders who send young people to be slaughtered, I am definitely not against those who must follow orders.
One thing often ignored by those with both pro and anti-war agendas is the role that socioeconomic class plays in modern warfare.
Although there are always exceptions, the average soldier in the Vietnam War was either a working class white or a member of a minority. Those who could afford college could often get deferments. Many from central Indiana who served were the children of farmers and factory workers.
The socioeconomic makeup of the modern American military is much the same today. However, the socioeconomic pool from which the American government draws is different.
Those who will have to fight and die in a war will generally come from the classes with the smallest voices in American politics. Those who send these young men and women to war may rest in the knowledge that they and their own children will be safely out of harm's way.
Therefore, although I do not support a decision to send our soldiers to war, I do believe that we should all offer our encouragement to our soldiers if they must go.
If anyone were to call a war protester who shares this view anti-American, I would argue that we are, in fact, emphatically pro-American.
We are for the lives of those who are the very "heart and soul of America."
Soldiers serving overseas should know that the great majority of those who protest the war are very much behind them, but not behind the men who see them as cannon fodder.
War protesters who do not respect our American fighting men and women need to realize these individuals are not the ones responsible for a war -- they are only the ones who must suffer its agony.
Although I agree with Griffis' desire to show support for American troops, the students of Ball State and anyone who may be reading this from overseas need to realize that most of those who seek peace care deeply about the lives of our American soldiers. We have no desire to "[stab] our soldiers in the back."
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