Veishea tents on Central Campus during the weekend celebration are a tradition. Rarely will there be any overtly political tents, save a pro-life tent here or there. And rarely will there be a tent that causes any real controversy. But that was all different this year.

Snuggled between a booth where youths could have their faces painted, and an area where dancers performed, was the ISU ROTC tent. This is nothing new, and certainly nothing to cause any stir among anyone, right?

Wrong.

The tent itself was not the problem. What was the problem, however, was the display of military training weapons.

It was an almost frightening sight to see a small girl, who couldn’t have been more than five or six years old, wearing a flak jacket. Or a small boy of about the same age scoping a rifle inadvertently pointed at someone else. While these weapons were not real or dangerous, the children playing with them didn’t know the difference.

These training weapons would not be used in battle.

They are a step above the plastic toys most children are accustomed to. They glamorize war and the weapons used to fight it.

When campus peace activists showed up at the tent to protest the activities of the ROTC, they were taunted, spit upon and sometimes pushed. Not by the ROTC officers, who would not disgrace their honor with such an act, but by parents and spectators who disagreed with the activists’ opinions on war.

People – again, not the ROTC officers – even stooped so low as to yell profanities at the protesters. Now remember, we are feet away from the kiddy tent at this point. How sad that the people supposedly supporting their country don’t know enough to respect one of its founding tenents – the freedom of speech.

There’s something surreal about a small child being encouraged by their parents and men and women in uniform to grab hold of an anti-tank rocket launcher and point it at another person. It truly was a morbid sight to see kids pointing M-16s at other kids. And being told this was OK. How is this benefiting our society?

We should instead be teaching children that war is not a game. It is not something to be glorified with all these “cool” guns laid out like toys in a toy box.

These weapons are not toys that need to be flaunted in front of impressionable youth who don’t know any better. Kids like toy guns. They like toys, period. They don’t understand that these guns and land mines and rocket launchers are used to kill other people in battle, some bad guys, some innocent civilians who are casualties of war.

The “our guns are bigger than your guns” philosophy of the United States is a grim reality that children will eventually and unfortunately learn on their own some day.

Now is the time to teach them why people believe the United States is worth fighting for, something some adults still need to learn.

editorialboard: Andrea Hauser, Tim Paluch, Michelle Kann, Charlie Weaver, Omar Tesdell