Mr. Thomas Walker, are you a lecturer? By definition, yes, you most certainly are. You have been bestowed with a faculty position at Iowa State University that is, if memory serves me correctly, just above that of graduate teaching assistant.

That you are a lecturer of “intensive” English is apparent in your prose. That issue I will concede without argument simply because it is evident in the way and manner in which you choose to express yourself.

You have been afforded an opportunity to teach an English orientation course. By definition, an orientation course in English is one that sets a point of reference and establishes a foundation that will allow incoming university students an opportunity to fine tune their English skills in order to increase their chances of success in a rigorous academic environment.

The issue that causes me the greatest distress is that you have chosen to engage in your own personal political rhetoric in a very public forum in an attack directed against a well-meaning student organization at your very own academic institution and in doing so have engaged in your own form of psychological warfare at the expense of the very students you have been tasked with educating in a very specific discipline. My personal opinion is that you, sir, have stepped well over the academic line that should separate education from personal politics.

As per your letter to the editor, I feel that you have used a lot of dollar words when a nickel would suffice but then again you are teaching in the “intensive” English and orientation program.

I take personal offense when you attack the members of our U.S. military and will not tolerate from you, or anyone else for that matter, unjustified anger directed at them. It would be wise to remember the abuse our troops suffered during the Vietnam conflict when political frustration led to public anger that, unfortunately, was misdirected against members of our own military. I won’t forget, I was one of them. We didn’t make policy, we simply did our duty. Most of us were drafted, others volunteered. We were underpaid then and they are underpaid now. They put their lives on the line to preserve your sorry tuckus and defend for you your freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. I ask very simply, what have you done for them?

Perhaps those of us who reside in academia might best remember that, “In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible” (George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” 1946.)

Let us leave the propaganda and the politics out of our classrooms and allow our colleagues teaching history, government and political science to do their job in a fair and balanced manner. Our well-educated students are fully capable of doing their own research and drawing their own conclusions without undue influence from us. They should not be attacked or berated simply because their beliefs are different from our own. We can all agree to disagree and we can cast our ballot in the next election to validate our own convictions.