Letters: Jan. 20, 1967

(2 of 4)

Since everybody is being labeled now, may I suggest a name for my generation, who grew up in the Depression, worked like the devil to finance our own college education, graduated just in time to give five years to the war, then came back and, while caring for elderly parents, raised our kids with all the orthodontics, encyclopedias, etc., that have made them this strong, bright generation that one college professor has described as "the brightest, most arrogant, most ungrateful group" he has ever taught. Let us call my generation, which is supposed to keep on financing the headlong, headstrong self-indulgence of the Now Generation, the Put-Upon Generation.

J. COLBY Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Sir: I want to comment on an extraordinary aspect of "The Inheritor." I have lived through the floods here, and for weeks The Inheritor of all nationalities has been here in overalls, taking turns with bucket and shovel to clean out the mud from the basements, houses and shops of Florence. Silently, happily and with no recompense except a camp bed and food, the anonymous youth of the world has been aiding the tired Florentine to return to a decent home and workshop. Never before has anyone experienced such a gift to a city.

MANFREDO CAMPERIO Florence

In the Cabbage Patch

Sir: Orchids to you, skunk cabbages to Harrison Salisbury [Jan. 6]. His reports provide fuel for the "moralists" who cry about the inevitable accidents of war in Hanoi. These people are free to moralize because our men and our fathers and their fathers bought that freedom. We want our children to be free, too. If we do not stop the Communists, they won't be. Viet Nam is but one battle in our worldwide war for survival. We must win it. Bombing the enemy is one way to do that. Washington has no cause to pussyfoot. We are defending the freedom of a small nation that has asked our help; we are defending the entire non-Communist world. We have no cause for shame; we have cause for pride.

SERA BAXTER Bethel, Alaska

Sir: When are the American people going to wake up? How many more truces have to be broken? How many more lives will it take? How many more decades of Communism's history of lies, subversion and outright aggression must we endure?

Didn't the spokesman of the Communist world, years ago, make it quite clear when he declared, "We will bury you"? Or must we cling to the hopes of our appeasers and surrender advocates for a peace at any cost? Now we are at war, as "hot" as it will ever be. Let's not get on our knees with the moral cowards who would allow America's fighting men to have died in vain, who would negotiate away our liberties, freedoms and principles every time a Commie says "nuclear." Let's not leave the job half done as we did in Korea. Let's make sure our children and grandchildren won't have to fight in the Viet Nams and Koreas of the future. Let's settle for nothing less than total victory this time.

And if we can't do that, then let's teach our children guerrilla warfare. They'll need to know it.

CORPORAL DALE T. TAYLOR Danang, Viet Nam