Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 5, 1991 TAG: 9102050075
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Madelyn Rosenberg
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I thought it was time our readers - heck, i thought it was time I got some relief.
But there are little signs of the conflict everywhere - stories on the pages of this newspaper, rallies on college campuses, pictures in the windows of businesses.
So, I gave in.
A recent spelling test at Christiansburg Elementary School quizzed fourth-graders on the following:
Saddam Hussein
Saudi Arabia
Missile
Sanctions
Attack
Remember those basic paper airplanes you used to throw out the window during math class?
These days, they're a little more complex.
A few more tucks and folds, and school kids are making "stealth" airplanes.
They know how to spell it correctly, too.
A handmade sign at Virginia Tech says troops in the Middle East are asking for care packages filled with the "essentials" - food, boxer shorts and deodorant.
But it adds this cautionary note: "No aerosols, please. They blow up."
A sign in the post office, this one issued from the Pentagon, says to ease up on packages to the gulf - the soldiers just can't carry them. The Pentagon suggests sending letters or audio tapes.
Beth Chance has been trying for weeks to think of something she could do to help the soldiers in the Gulf. So she started writing letters to a few servicemen.
And she's getting letters back.
The replies, written by soldiers who hail from different places in the United States, have a lot of things in common, said Chance, a Radford University student. Especially their format: The letters keep getting shorter.
The first letters filled the fronts and backs of two pages.
The next letters filled only one. Now, there are only a few paragraphs, a few lines, a few snapshots of life in Saudi Arabia.
A few words of thanks.
"Sneaking away for a few seconds," wrote one soldier, who lives in New York when he's not in a tent in the desert. "The 15th deadline is up. It's time to see reality of war. . . . Thanks for writing me back."
A week later: "It's time to move to Iraq. I'm so stressed it's giving me a headache. Keep writing."
"I wish there was something more I could do," Chance said as she thumbed through the letters.
The message from the soldiers seems clear: "Keep writing."
You know we're at war when:
Arby's advertises "Television News Inside" instead of "Hot roast beef sandwiches.
New cars come with yellow ribbons already on the antennas.
It's funny how quickly military-speak can make it into our daily conversations. The week the war broke out, two completely different people told me at completely different times that my desk looked like it had been hit by a Scud missile.
by CNB