THE PUBLIC MIND: READER: PROTESTERS SHOULD STUDY EVENTS THAT LED TO WARS

To the Editor:

This is to the protesters of the Gulf war.

I have noted in the TV reports they are mostly too young to have experienced Vietnam for the most part.

They have a right to their opinion, but before they go too far I would like to give them the benefits of an eighty-year-old man's experience.

At 80 it is rather hard to remember dates. I do, however, remember it was in the early '30s that Hitler made his first move. The allies from the first world war were very concerned.

In moves to try preventing further conflict they sent messages to him protesting the action. Even sent emissaries to talk with him. (Many of us here in the United States felt it was none of our business.) We were still paying for the first one and had no business in this one.

Some time later, after many promises that he was not interested in going any further, he proceeded to take Poland and the Netherlands. We still did not think it was our fight.

Then Hitler made a pact with Japan to cover his flank for him. It soon became our fight and took us four years and several thousand good men to finally stop him and his allies.

Is this what you want? Do you want to depend on the word of another power-hungry idiot?

I think not and ask you before you go any further to look up the full history of World War II and compare it with today and Saddam Hussein.

William H. Allen

Perryville