THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 9, 1996 TAG: 9601090002
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 43 lines
Regarding ``Military out of control'' (letter, Jan. 2): : There are currently three members of our armed services on trial for a heinous crime against a child. However, there are almost 4 million members of our armed services and relatively few crimes have been committed by them.
To put this into perspective, there are as many members of the military as there are people in Los Angeles - about half as many as in New York City. Do we see as much crime from military members as in those areas? To the contrary, the crime rate in the military is much lower. However, crime committed by a member of the armed forces is a big news story; therefore we hear more about it.
Let's talk about some of the recent good that service personnel have done. They went to Haiti, Bosnia and Somalia to help stop ``crimes against humanity.'' They have gone to fight in the Middle East to maintain a free flow of oil, therefore sustaining the U.S. way of life. They have helped in the clean-up of several natural disasters such as Hurricanes Andrew, Felix and Hugo; floods in the Midwest and Washington; earthquakes on the West Coast. They have helped in the fight against drug smuggling across our borders. The public is all too willing to condemn the organization because of the actions of a few.
Does anyone who's not a military member volunteer to be shipped to a foreign country just before the Christmas holidays to live in a tent and dodge bullets and land mines? I think not! Does anyone who's not in the military volunteer to leave his family for six months at a time to protect the freedom of the seas? I think not!
The majority of military men and women do take pride in protecting the home front. We shouldn't condemn the entire military because of the actions of a few.
CHARLES BARAN
Virginia Beach, Jan. 2, 1996 by CNB