Letter to the editor: ROTC — not molding killers

Dear editor,

It was to my great shock, even as a self-proclaimed "commonsensical liberal progressive," that I should open my web browser and continue to read the words of Thomas H. Naylor stating, "UVM has an active ROTC program whose aim is to train professional killers to support the American empire's policy of full spectrum dominance." 

With full knowledge that Mr. Naylor will not be affected by my words, I seek rather to appeal to the reasonable left as opposed to his brand of radicals. 

I myself am a cadet in the Army's Reserve Officer Training Corps. I venture to say that everything about myself runs contrary to Mr. Naylor's stereotypical view of the American soldier as the race-hating, ignorant foot-soldiers of the American empire.

Of similar importance is the fact that I am not demographically atypical to my fellow cadets. I, unfortunately, cannot claim to represent any view or opinion of the U.S. Army, but I can represent myself as a citizen of the United States.

I am a "flaming liberal" from Massachusetts, pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and anti-death penalty and, dare I say, anti-war. What's that you ask?  How can I possibly be anti-war but still want to be an officer in the United States Army?

All of my being hates war. The act intrinsically leads to suffering, death, destruction and, dearest to my heart as a practicing Catholic, a degradation of human dignity.

The only thing I hate more than war is the thought of other human beings having to endure more of it than they otherwise would, because the world's "haves" don't consider the lives of the "have-nots" to be valuable enough to warrant intervention.

I truly believe, in a way unaffected by illusion or self-trickery, that potential dangers that I may endure will relieve the suffering of the often oppressed people of certain Middle Eastern nations, and that if death should find me, that it does so in substitute of an innocent American who is saved by the relocation of the front lines to the Middle East rather than our homeland.

As a history major who has concentrated almost exclusively on the Second World War and the modern Middle East, I can say without a moment's pause that the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime made the world a better place. 

The memory of torture chambers, gassed Kurdish and Shiite children, and the psychopath son of a dictator raping and murdering teenage girls abducted from the streets of Baghdad have all but passed from the cradle of civilization.

In a more abstract sense, I hope that we may not be so naive as to forget that the implied safety and freedom that we enjoy, our elevated and protected state of dignity, was earned for us by men across history who endured the suffering and depravity of war and who visited violence upon others in our name.

Mr. Naylor, it is your inalienable right to disrespect the men and women of the military and to slander their intentions, and this I do not dare contend to take from you. Such action would make me the greatest hypocrite of all, since it is our devotion to freedom and, legally under contract and oath, the Constitution that defines the Army's being.

It is thus that I come to you as a brother ever concerned for your continued well-being, and present to you this appeal. 

I have an unending love for you as a fellow human being, so return my kind affection by lending your ear when I beg of you, soften the caustic product of your pen not for some abstract allusion to patriotism, but for the people like me who wish upon you nothing less than life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

To your future,

Dominick B. Healey