Letters: In Vietnam, What Ideals Were We Fighting For?; It’s Painful to See Some People Misuse Food Bank; Centralia Needs New Leadership for Schools

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In Vietnam, What Ideals Were We Fighting For?

The Obama administration has committed to a $65 million 13-year propaganda program to adjust U.S. thinking about what the Vietnamese call the American War. Observing the 50th anniversary of this war, President Barack Obama stated, “We pay tribute to the more than 3 million men and women who left their families to serve bravely ... fighting heroically to protect the ideals we hold dearly as Americans.”

We might ask what ideals he is referring to. Almost 60,000 Americans died while killing 4 million Vietnamese. Most of those we killed were civilians living in the South Vietnam we supposedly were there to protect. The book “Kill Anything that Moves,” by journalist and historian Nick Turse, documents at least 400 My Lai-type occurrences during the 10-year war in which U.S. troops massacred Vietnamese civilians.

The Pentagon in this propaganda move would also like us to forget that Richard Nixon criminally sabotaged the Paris peace talks in 1968. There are recordings available in which LBJ calls Nixon’s actions treason. Thousands more on both sides died unnecessarily as a result of Nixon’s actions. 

The government would also like us to forget that many people in Vietnam are still dying from unexploded ordnance and the third- and fourth-generation effects of Agent Orange.

Nineteen million gallons of the lethal herbicide was sprayed over 6 million acres. Since then an estimated million children have been born with birth defects, including children of U.S. personnel who were exposed to Agent Orange.

Members of the Veterans for Peace have launched an educational campaign to counter the lies and historical misrepresentations coming out of the Pentagon. More complete information can be obtained at www.VietnamFullDisclosure.org. The Obama administration seems willing to say that there is a 50-year statute of limitation on mass murder and treason.

Local chapters of Veterans for Peace and the Fellowship of Reconciliation are into our 13th year of weekly peace vigils each Saturday at noon in front of the Centralia library. 

People will occasionally come up and thank me for my service. To those who would thank me for my service I say, “I know you mean well but I was forced by my government into a situation where I had to kill people who were protecting their homes and their children from a foreign invader. This is not something I am proud of.”

U.S. troops have been at war for 222 out of the 239 years since 1776. Pause and consider what that says about the “heroic ideals” of which Obama spoke. 

The Full Disclosure Campaign is a Veterans for Peace effort to speak truth to power and to present a clear alternative to the Pentagon’s current efforts to sanitize and mythologize the Vietnam War, thereby legitimizing further unnecessary wars.

Larry Kerschner

Centralia

It’s Painful to See Some People Misuse Food Bank

My name is Molly Goss. I’m 14 years old, and I like to volunteer at the food bank on Fridays. I have noticed that some people are taking advantage of the food bank system. 



There was a family that came in and said that they had nine people in their family, so we gave them extra food. When we got to the car, it was so small and we could barely fit the food in there, let alone for nine people. 

After the day was over, I went to Safeway and saw those people buying expensive food like organic bananas, and we had just given them tons of food. There are more people who do this and it’s upsetting because I saw a little girl that same day who had no shoes and very old, small jeans. 

Also, the people who volunteer there are the sweetest people and they give up their Fridays every week to feed the hungry people of Lewis County, and to see some of these people take advantage of them like this makes me very upset. 

I just don’t understand how people can manipulate their way into getting free food and walk away like it is no big deal. There are people who actually need food, and for these people to take the food they don’t need is not fair. 

We need to do something about this. I don’t know what, and that is why I am writing this because maybe the people of Lewis County will have a good idea. Thank you.

Molly Goss

Chehalis

Centralia Needs New Leadership for Schools

Same old, same old? For some unknown reason we keep electing the same individuals to the same positions, and keep getting the same results, and then we are dissatisfied. Isn’t it time to out with the old and in with the new?

How is it that almost 87 percent of students in the Chehalis School District graduate in four years while only 72 percent of Centralia students graduate? Looking back at the OSPI Washington State Report Card records of the 2002-03 school year, when the site first started showing this information, I can see that 69.7 percent students reached graduation in four years. There’s been more than a decade to improve that, and we’ve just barely changed it by 2 percent. We are failing to find the solutions with our current board members.

There are three school board members who want to keep their positions. Kim Ashmore, Bob Fuller and Chris Thomas have not bothered to take their jobs seriously, and should be replaced.

Ron Averill, Jami Lund and Tara Bittler should replace them, to restore community support and confidence in true leadership. Our students deserve better.

Judy Selleck

Centralia