To the editor:
I am writing in response to Mr. Julian Fenn's comments about his best friend currently serving in Iraq in the Feb. 1 article entitled, "Geneseo students participate in national anti-war demonstration."
I appreciate Mr. Fenn's sense of civic duty in expressing his anti-war views, but disagree that we should pity his soldier friend. Fenn describes how his friend had to shoot a 12-year-old boy who was carrying a detonating device, a boy who was probably attempting to carry out a suicide bombing. In doing so, Fenn's friend probably saved the lives of countless other Iraqi civilians by performing this unfortunate and horrific duty.
This soldier shouldn't be pitied for having to do this though, he should be honored. It is the boy that should be pitied - pitied because there are criminals in Iraq who are willing to sacrifice a boy to terrorize fellow Iraqi civilians - criminal acts that occur on a daily basis that our courageous American soldiers are risking their lives to prevent.
Our soldiers do not want our pity, they want our respect, and that's what they deserve.
-Dave Rasmussen
Class of '88