Teach-In

A personal response to the teach-in

Thank you so much for organizing the Teach-in as aired on C-Span last weekend. It was some of the best television I have ever watched! I have felt so isolated in my beliefs as to where my country was headed and, to acidentally come across your program was such an uplifting experience! After they discontinued airing the program, I had to run some errands. My thoughts were still on the various speakers as I was paying for my items, so I said to the cashier, "I am so opposed to this war." The woman next in line remarked to me that she was also and I began to share with her what I had seen and I told her of the links where she could get information. Then, I noticed that the woman behind her had stepped out of line to better hear our conversation. When I also stepped back so as to include her, she immediately stepped back into the line. Thinking she was eavesdropping and realizing that I might be offending her, I apologized to the woman I had been talking to for "getting up on my soapbox" and she said, "Oh, no, thank you", and to my surprise, the woman who had stepped back in line, stepped back out and said she was so glad that someone had said something, that she thought she was the only person opposed to the war and was afraid to speak her mind here in Texas!! She then proceeded to ask me to tell her the links while she wrote them down! Feeling quite heady, I did the same thing at the next shop where I was the only person in the store with the cashier. He told me he was also opposed to this war and I told him about the links; he wrote them on the back of a business card and put it in his wallet!

I have a son in the Navy, forwardly deployed in the 7th Fleet. Fortunately or unfortunately (N. Korea), he is stationed in Japan. My son's contract with the Navy was to serve in the DEFENSE of his country and he would then get a college education.

This attack does not meet my personal test for war...being that we have a civilian military, "does the problem presented by my government make me feel the need to personally pick up arms and personally defend my country?"...only in that instance, would it make sense to me, to send my son or anyone else's son or daughter into a military action...