Step up for peace, '60s generation

I am amazed at the two Oct. 7 op-ed pieces. First we have Richard Cohen ruminating on the shooting of four student protesters at Kent State University by National Guardsmen who were not much older than the students. He takes this emotional story and uses it to paint the nonviolent tea party protests of people in their 50s and 60s as raging racists who want to “take back America. He asks, “From whom? Am I now not free to protest a government that does not enforce its own immigration laws and has run up such debt that I am concerned about my own future as well as those of my children?

Mr. Cohen seems to forget the history of the '60s. He has forgotten the bombs set off by the Weather Underground and the “student orchestrated riots during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. I found these things hard to understand during and after serving in the Active Army Reserve from 1964-66.

Then we have Susan Estrich complaining about a marketing campaign aimed at “selling a career in the service to young men in general and her high school son in particular. Does she not know that the benefits for serving in today's “all volunteer military offer greater monetary incentives than ever before? Perhaps she has forgotten that marketing was not needed during the Vietnam era when all young men had a military obligation and could be drafted as required to serve.

Of course, this country has no right to use military force in an attempt to control the activities of the “new student protesters who are sworn to destroy America and continue to use bombs and terror around the world. Let's get rid of arms and build a “better world. After all, the 1960s generation is now in charge.

Charles E. Glomski

Elk Grove Village