Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 6, 1993 TAG: 9301060302
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
HUNGER HERE NOT ON SCALE OF SOMALIA
In response to Irene Grove's letter on Dec. 23, I would like to say that I, too, have found it hard to reconcile the sending of our soldiers to foreign countries and the subsequent deaths of Americans that occured in those countries during the Reagan-Bush years.But sending our troops to Somalia on a humanitarian mission is not "sheer lunacy." Yes, there are many jobless and hungry people in this country. But hungry and malnourished to the vast extent that the skin-and-bone Somalis are? I don't think so. Irene, you said that it tears you apart and makes you cry to see the Somali people starving. Does it really?
You don't offer any alternative solutions in your letter so I can only assume that you prefer that the United States not help the Somali people at all. If it really tears you apart and makes you cry to see starving Somalians, how could you begrudge them the food and medical supplies that the American troops bring in safely for the foreign relief workers to distribute?
Military service is voluntary, and our men and women join the military knowing that if they are ever in a combat situation, it will be on foreign soil that they will be risking their lives, not American soil. It is a choice they make.
But I think the crux of your letter was that "we have gone into an all-black country." Does it really matter if they are starving black or white people? I hope I haven't inferred something from your letter that you didn't mean to imply.
Lastly, you are upset that the United States is alowing 122,000 immigrants to come to this country in 1993. Does it occur to you that, except for the Native Americans, we are all descendants of immigrants. JULIE WILDER ROANOKE