Dear Editor:

Today while attending class in Bowman Hall, I looked at the message board in the classroom and saw something that sent my blood pressure skyward. I saw an Army ROTC recruiting poster, and over the picture of the soldier in the poster someone had written “4700 dead and you’re next!” in red marker.

This is one of the most outrageous and ignorant things I’ve witnessed in my time on this campus! This person certainly has the right to hold whatever views he or she may wish but this hardly seemed an appropriate way of expressing such a view.

If this person wants to express his or her view on the war, he or she should post a separate poster with their views. Doing what this person did is not free speech because it violates the right the military has to recruit and advertise, the same as any other employer does (I don’t see anyone vandalizing the posters of any beer or tobacco companies and far more Americans have died from them than have died in the war).

Secondly, the person who wrote this should remember that he or she has the rights and freedoms in the Bill of Rights only because members of the armed forces like the one pictured in the poster fought and died for them. Freedom is not free, and the rights we all cherish were bought and paid for with the blood of men and women who willingly sacrificed themselves for people who will never appreciate what they did.

If nothing else, the men and women of the armed forces (myself formerly being one of them), willingly served so others did not have to. Whoever defiled that poster should consider that and be glad they don’t live in places like North Korea, China or Iran, where defiling such a poster would result in being shot or beheaded. If this person has issues with our foreign policy, he or she should take them up with the ones who made that policy, our elected civilian government, not the military, the ones who have to carry out that policy.

– Matthew Dermody

junior international relations major

Dear Editor:

I was furious yesterday (Saturday) when I received the e-mail from Kent State about the “strong arm robbery” that took place on Saturday morning. Why did the powers-that-be feel it was necessary to indicate to thousands of people the color of the skin of those alleged attackers? If it had been 12 white men who attacked someone, we all know the e-mail would’ve read “12 men,” IF there was an e-mail sent at all. All Kent State did by sending this e-mail was possibly incite fear. They essentially told us if we see 12 black men that we should be afraid and report them to authorities. No other descriptors, no other instructions. Just be afraid.

What a poorly worded and misguided “mistake.” I’d like for whoever sent that e-mail to explain to us what exactly their goal was with that e-mail. Because I do not think they achieved it.

– Dionna LaRue

graduate student in history