Editorials
Withdrawal—defeat
This summer we watched troops march off to Viet Nam. We watched men take their last slow drinks in the local beer joints. We watched them hawk their personal possessions in the nearby pawn shops. We watched them bid their last farewells to their loved ones, their friends. We watched the sombre events from the far sections of the audience. The full impact of what was happening failed to register on our limited brain. Today the full impact has smacked us in the face like a sophisticated dueling glove.
When the first signs of movement appeared at Fort Riley, we ignored them and went on about our merry way. Later our curiosity caught us and we ambled out to where all the secret activity was being carried forth. We saw the trainloads of jeeps and tanks move out across the flat Kansas prairies. Later we watched the big transport planes fly off toward the west coast and the troop trains head for the Colorado border.
NOW THE MEN ARE gone, close to 33,000 of them. Fort Riley is empty. The business in Junction City is off. The men who frequented these areas are now in foxholes in Viet Nam, defending their country and the American way of life.
Each day two or three, nine or ten of those men, meet their death at the hands of the enemy. The Americans are fighting against Communism, while other Americans in the United States fight against journeying across the Pacific to join their comrades. Americans will burn
their draft cards or even themselves to keep from making the trip. Meanwhile their country men die so that they may have the right to protest in a free society.
Pacifists claim that it is a waste of good human life when men die in Viet Nam. But the only way it is a waste of human life will come is when the troops are withdrawn from Viet Nam before their goals are complete. If they are withdrawn now the men who have given their lives will have died for nothing. The troops in Viet Nam must stay. The companions of the slain soldiers must remain on the front lines. They must continue to fight for the aims for which their comrades died. The war must be one against Communism, so the lives given for the United States and democracy will not be wasted.
A FEW YEARS from now the First Infantry Division will return to Fort Riley. They will either be replaced by another division in Viet Nam or the battle will be over. Many men will be returned earlier in wooden boxes and some moment of their last days will be sent to their loved ones. The war in Viet Nam must be won, if not for the entire U.S. population, at least for those men who did not live to see their aims completed. They have died so that we will be free. The only way their life can have full meaning will be when their fellow fighters can repel the inroads of Communism. If the troops are withdrawn from Viet Nam now, all will be lost.
Bob Stevens
The People Say...
TO THE EDITOR:
Re: editorial "Views on Dissent," Daily Kansan, Nov. 17.
First, you accuse the Peace movement in this country of approaching violence, citing those individuals who have burned themselves and/or their draft cards as a protest to the war in Viet Nam. There is a slight question of degree to be considered here in that the supporters of the war implicitly advocate infinitely more burning and violence than those who have "aproached violence" in protest could dream of. Of course, the pain advocated by those who support the war is "safe" because it is happening to someone else a few thousand miles away; which makes such
advocacy much easier. I wonder how many of those who so avidly support the war have even tried to enlist. Given the democratic nature of our institutions, enlistment would seem to be the indicated consequence to strong support of the war.
SECOND. I WAS not aware that South Viet Nam had become our 51st state. The American soldiers in that country are not fighting for their homes and families, they are merely defending a policy of the U.S. government. Further, the policy they defend contradicts the values upon which this country was founded and which it still pretends to support. To define the United States of America
as a chunk of earth is glaringly inadequate, it can only be properly defined or defended in reference to the ideals and values which it, in truth, represents.
In conclusion, I do not subscribe to your theory that the fatherland must be defended at all costs—unless that land represents values which are worth a defense. I deplore as much as does anyone the killing of American soldiers in Viet Nam, but I also deplore the killing of Vietnamese. I would remind you that an unjust war is not, as you seem to think, sanctified by its imminent failure any more than aggression is justified by its success. Whether it be in Viet Nam or in Hungary, aggression remains aggression, whatever the fortunes of war.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
Thomas Kellogg Wichita sophomore
Wichita sophomore
It Used to be...
Nov. 19. 1915
By Dorothy Elliott
I. R. Miller, a Kansas City junior, is one of four students nationally to pass the Rhodes Scholarship test. Two Washburn students and one from Yale also passed. One of these four will later be chosen to go to Oxford.
Question Box: The front door of Fraser is too heavy for me to open. Can you tell me what to do about it?
Answer: Kick on it and the Chancellor or the Dean will come and open it for you.
Nov. 19, 1940
"Dictatorship!" "No more Saturday sleep." "I'll have to quit school because I can't work on Sundays." "I can't go home." "It will harm enrollment." "I'd rather be in a monestary than in KU now." These were opinions voiced in opposition to the new prospect of Saturday classes announced yesterday.
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Daily Kansan
Friday, November 19, 1965
"On The Other Hand, There May Be Some Who Would Prefer To Vote AGAINST Our Beloved France"
On The Side...
Well, children, after tomorrow you won't have to make any more excuses for the football team. Thanks to nation-wide television, all will know.
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In the new KU alumni magazine a goodly amount of space is devoted to the rise and fall of Fraser Hall. Unfortunately, not much is mentioned about the abomination chosen to replace it. Maybe the new building won't be as bad-looking as the artist's sketch. No building could look like that.
KRAUSE
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We saw our first example of the no-longer-rare patterned chest and leg feminine attire yesterday. The girl said it was all part of a new fashion look, but we think it is some new disease.
Those new granny dresses, which go from neck to toe, might not be bad for some girls we know. It's certainly better than seeing them in Bermuda shorts, considering their legs.
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A reporter who covered the Kansas City junior college bond issue said the persons who vote against education bonds are usually elderly. We guess they feel they won't get anything from it. They fail to realize that persons with college educations make more money than those without it. And more money means higher taxes, which eventually pay for Medicare and such. You get more logical as you get older.
★ ★ ★
We hope you have all been following "The Adventures of Phoebe Zelt-Geist" in Evergreen. She is more alluring than Bond's girls and possibly healthier.
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Unabashed plugs for Christmas gifts department: "Farewell, Angelina" by Jean Baez; "1601" by Mark Twain, as read by Richard Dyer-Bennett; an Antartex Sheepskin coat; a case of Beefeater; an undiscovered Jean Shrimpton; a 16 mm copy of Francois Truffaut's "Shoot the Piano Player"; a story published in the New Yorker; a small dinner party with Bennett Cerf, Henry Cabot Ledge, Ayn Rand, June Andrews and BB. as guests and a year's lease on the Cloisters gallery in New York.
Harry Krause
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY kansan Serving KU for 76 of its 100 Years UNiversity 4-3646, newsroom UNiversity 4-3198, business office Founded 1889
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