Soldier Stunned by School Kids' Rants

Originally posted by iori_komei

If my child wrote a letter that accused American soldiers
of these things I definately WOULD NOT send it. It would
be LIES.

You do realise that would be considered tampering with mail,
which is a federal offense that could land you in jail.

Not even close. It's called good parenting. If my 8 (almost 9)
year old wrote garbage to a soldier stationed overseas I sure
in all heck wouldn't give her a stamp and I certainly wouldn't
mail it. I'd explain to her the error of her assumptions and
then invite her to write a nice letter. If she declines the
invitation then fine. But I certainly wouldn't mail it and that
in no way 'tampers' with the mail. That's beyond silly.

Originally posted by FlyersFan
Not even close. It's called good parenting. If my 8 (almost 9)
year old wrote garbage to a soldier stationed overseas I sure
in all heck wouldn't give her a stamp and I certainly wouldn't
mail it. I'd explain to her the error of her assumptions and
then invite her to write a nice letter. If she declines the
invitation then fine. But I certainly wouldn't mail it and that
in no way 'tampers' with the mail.

That's beyond silly.

So you show her one side?
Show her your side?

Originally posted by smallpeeps
If a man can be so gung-ho that he signs up to fight a war...

gung-ho? How about patriotic? How about that he signed up
because he believes in freedom? How about that he signed up
for the free college tuition and benefits? How about that he
signed up just to serve his country? (like I did, like my brother
did, like my husband did, like my father-in-law did?? - all just
to serve our country. My dad was drafted for Korea, so I won't
count him) You don't know why he signed up. To say he is
'gung-ho' insinuates that he wants war or whatever. You don't
know that. There are many many reasons a person enlists.

What is this soldier after? Does he want to change free
speech in America?

Why do you think he's 'after' anything?
He got some radical letters from school kids with junk that was
very wrong in them. So the soldier wants to draw attention to what
the kids said.... you then jump to saying that he wants to 'destroy
free speech in America?' He's in the military to DEFEND free speech!
Part of free speech is to be able to complain that kids are repeating
things that aren't true and that they are RUDELY repeating them to
the soldiers who volunteered to defend America. It's the soldiers
right to complain. You'd do it too, if you had a bunch of school kids
send you letters at work and some of those letters had errors -
errors saying that what you did was something that you didn't and
that it cost lives, etc.

Why didn't he WRITE THEM BACK

Excellent idea. He should. I hope he does.

Originally posted by TheBandit795
I hate using the words "liberal" and "conservative". But I don't see any difference between the extremists of the two. In the beginning we didn't have them on ATS. I personally wish it was like that again.

This is one of the worst threads I've ever seen here.

Agreed, these types of posts are trashing ATS. I would love for the moderators to crack down on this junk.

- Attero

Originally posted by drfunk
I would hate to be forcibly spoonfed education
FlyersFan style instead of being in a secular, public
school that ...

... that teaches lies ... that has it's administration
(The NEA) show F911 propaganda at it's meetings ... that
has kiddies as young as 11 going to abortuaries without
the parents knowledge .... that teaches we are all accidents
of nature and not lovingly created by God ... that consistantly
score an average in the 50 percentile while homeschoolers
average 85 percentile (figures available at Home School
Defense League - google them up).

Yes, I'm sure you'd HATE to be spoonfed the truth that F911
was chalked full of lies, the truth that abortion is murder of
a human being, the truth that God loves us, and I'm sure you'd
really hate to have your SAT percentile scores raised 30 points -
but it would be good for you and as we all know, medicine
usually tastes bad when it goes down (and the sicker you are
the worse it tastes) but you get healthy because of it.

Back to the topic. The teacher shouldn't have sent the letters
from the kiddies that weren't supportive. There was no purpose
in sending critical letters.

Originally posted by devilwasp
So you show her one side?
Show her your side?

Oh man. It's YOU again. Read what I said. I tell my
child the truth. If she were to write a letter to a soldier
that was not the truth and that was not helpful, I certainly
wouldn't mail it. There would be no purpose in sending an
upsetting letter to a complete stranger on the other side
of the world. It's common sense and good manners.

Originally posted by Kidfinger
You did not even read your own article did you?

The JHS 51 teacher, Alex Kunhardt, did not return phone calls, but the school principal, Xavier Costello, responded with a statement:
"While we would never censor anything that our children write, we sincerely apologize for forwarding letters that were in any way inappropriate to Pfc. Jacobs. This assignment was not intended to be insensitive, but to be supportive of the men and women in service to our nation."

Oh yes. I did indeed read the whole article. It was comical. The
principle said 'this was intended to be supportive ....' Yeah, right.
Sending letters from kids to service men that contained non-truths
about the job our service men were doing. That contained insinuations.
Yep. REEEEEEEEEEEALLY supportive.

The teacher should have known better, but I'm glad the principle
apologized.

I'm off this thread.

[edit on 2/21/2005 by FlyersFan]

There are a couple people on this thread that have talked about hanging the teacher or killing the parents... Allow me to enlighten them to the following.
Writing a letter to speak your greivences, is perfectly legal and protected by the Constitution.
Inciting violence by saying these parents and teachers should be killed, is illegal.
These kids are well within their rights, you nutjobs, are not.

Quit waving your little flag around long enough to think about this...
We are telling these kids that it is not ok to speak out against war. Folks, war is never ok. If these kids speak out against it, then good! People are dying, PEOPLE are dying, not terrorists, not 'insurgents', people. Families with kids, kids like the ones who wrote the letters. We are telling them it is not ok to speak out against war and violence, and your ok with that? Are you people really that far gone? That teacher did the right thing, she sent all the letters, not just what Uncle Sam, or you nutjobs, would have wanted sent.
It's called dissention, get used to it. I always wanted to say this to a right winger...Love it or leave it.

Originally posted by Kidfinger
FF, you are making to big of a deal out of this. It was only a few letters that said anything remotly like your accusing.

One Muslim boy wrote: "Even thoe [sic] you are risking your life for our country, have you seen how many civilians you or some other soldier killed?"

His letter, which was stamped with a smiley face, went on: "I know your [sic] trying to save our country and kill the terrorists but you are also destroying holy places like Mosques."

Most of the 21 letters Jacobs provided to The Post mentioned some support for the armed forces, if not the Iraq war, and thanked him for his service. But nine of the students made clear their distaste for the president or the war.

The boy sounds like he is supporting the soldiers, he just wants less civilian casualties. And you would be a fool to think we have not caused any casualties.

[edit on 2/21/05 by Kidfinger]

YOU WOULD BE A FOOL .. TO SPEAK OF SUCH THINGS YOU B*&%H A*$ liTTLE C**T. You have a child run up to you and blow up inside your base taking a couple of your friends with them along with harming you by shrapnel as well as others standing around. or no wait ... you get stuck on a street where people just got through blowing away your buddy your with .... and they all take off together the civilians and the people that are KILLING YOU. What ever you don't knwo what the hell you are talking about .. at all

Thread closed.