Dave Audino’s letter illustrates just how effective American propaganda is. He is so passionate about the vague abstractions that constitute the “beliefs of America” that he can’t even read.

I didn’t say I want to crush every American soldier’s skull. I didn’t say I hate this country. I didn’t say a damn thing about World War II, and I certainly didn’t say I wouldn’t fight for what I believe in. Yet Dave says I said all of these things.

Here’s what I think happens in Dave’s mind. He sees my letter, has a flash back, and then attacks. I am the “freak on the other side.”

Do I want to crush Dave’s skull? I don’t know. Did he shoot a mother’s child and then rape her? If that’s the case, then you bet.

I want everyone to take the time to visualize it now. Dave kicks a door in and catches a panic-stricken woman, who moves quickly and desperately to shield her 5-year-old son. The boy runs to get under a table, and Dave, who’s “gone months without a real shower,” panics himself and fires his assault rifle at the boy. He didn’t have time to get careful aim, though, and the bullet merely rips off half of the boy’s jaw. The boy stumbles and hits the floor, trying to crawl for the table, unable to cry because his throat is clogged with blood and his tongue is blown off. The screaming mother startles Dave, who has “been eating sub-dog food,” and he freaks out. He runs to the boy, smashing the butt of his weapon into his back, and then proceeds to cave the boy’s head in with a boot.

Then, having nothing better to do and “not having had much sleep,” he throws the grieving mother over the table, rips off her dress and proceeds to sodomize her. Ahhhhh…”freedom.”

Dave, you don’t fight wars because you’re told. You fight because you believe in something. I’d have the courage to refuse to fight in a war I knew was B.S., but you don’t have that courage. You’re not able to look outside the propaganda with which you’ve been brainwashed.

When I see the Vietnam Wall, I hate THE IDEA OF AN AMERICAN even more. Those men died for no reason, and I don’t blame the Vietnamese one bit for killing them. It was your American government that really killed those men, anyway, and it was the power of propaganda that drove the men to do what they were told, just like you did what you were told.

Not everything in America is bad, and I support many things about our country, but I will not call myself an American until I feel America deserves it.

And lastly, I am not a coward. Not a day goes by that I don’t dream of fighting some injustice, even to the death. But the best I could do would be Kosovo.

So, Dave, you don’t fight because you’re told to, you fight because you believe in something real. It takes passion to spill the blood of an enemy. Let’s try to make sure those enemies actually exist from now on.

I wouldn’t want any more Vietnamese getting raped, mutilated or tortured. Ahhh, “freedom.”

Eric Hiatt

Sophomore

Math and music