Protesters demonstrate their lack of understanding...

Protesters demonstrate their lack of understanding

I am commenting on the Daily Pilot article, “Making a point,”

(Nov. 15), which gave considerable coverage to a “protest” staged on

the campus of UC Irvine. The demonstration was to protest the

possibility of the United States waging war against Iraq. There is no

question these students have the right to protest. It is granted by

the 1st Amendment to our Constitution.

The Monday before the demonstration, we observed Veterans’ Day to

honor those men and women who have spent varying amounts of their

adult lives protecting the rights of these students and professors to

carry out their ill-conceived protest.

Since the inception of this nation, our “citizen soldiers” have

fought many wars to preserve the freedoms that all of us so willingly

accept, in many cases as though they were our right, with never a

consideration of how these freedoms have come about.

These protesters need to look at what precipitated the current

state of world instability and think carefully about what point they

are trying to make. No one in his right mind would advocate going to

war unnecessarily, but the attacks on the World Trade Center and the

Pentagon on Sept. 11 thrust every freedom-loving nation into a

situation where they must take every avenue available to preserve

their freedoms and stop the terrorists at every point along the way.

Under the circumstances we have today, in my candid opinion, it

would be much more productive for our “do gooder” students and

professors to demonstrate in support of our president and the

thousands of American service men and women who are again ready,

willing and able to do those multitudes of unsavory and horrible

tasks necessary to push the “war on terrorism” to a quick and

successful end.

It is high time the United States reinstituted the draft so these

students could give a little of their time to preserving our

freedoms, instead of demonstrating against those things that must be

done to preserve them. We must all be fully aware that what the

terrorists want is to take these freedoms away from us by any means

possible.

These are comments are submitted by a veteran of three wars and

more than 30 years devoted to ensuring the rights these students and

professors are using so ill-advisably because, in my mind, they think

it will get them publicity.

From those who feel that life is not as great as they think it

should be in the United States, I suggest they exercise one last

freedom that is readily available to them: Leave the country and go

to the nation they feel is more to their liking.

LOUIS W. NOCKOLD

Commander, U.S. Navy, retired

Newport Coast