Perhaps the most poignant point in Denise Grollmus' excellent article was Timothy Coil's comment that he is a "Christian trying to stop young men from coming back in a box" or suffering the emotional wounds he struggles with as a result of his Gulf War service.
The Coils' actions epitomize the message of peace preached by Jesus Christ centuries ago, yet we have in Washington alleged Christians -- most notably George W. Bush -- who instigated an endless policy of death and maiming among Iraqis, causing the same to thousands of our own men and women.
How such warmongering hypocrites can call themselves Christians is beyond comprehension. If it were a felony to impersonate a Christian, Bush and his lying band of remorseless reprobates would be doing big-time hard time. In a perfect world, they would be judged as war criminals.
I can relate to Timothy Coil's change of heart during his military service, eventually morphing into a dove. Although nowhere near being a hawk during the Vietnam War, I did buy into the government's propaganda.
Back in the late '60s, I used to think Jane Fonda's anti-war activities played into the hands of the North Vietnamese government, but over the years I have come to understand she was simply trying to stop the killing.
In retrospect, Fonda's actions seem rather Christian, don't they?
Good luck to Timothy Coil in appealing his case. Where can readers send contributions to his defense fund?
Louis H. Pumphrey
Shaker Heights
Reporter tells tall tales? Talk about a lazy reporter. "Disturbing for Peace" wasn't as one-sided as one might expect, but when [Grollmus] wrote that Mr. Coil "towered over the bespectacled librarian," she lost all credibility. Give me a break. For Mr. Coil and his "300-pound frame" to tower over that "bespectacled librarian," he'd have to be well over seven feet tall. Anybody who's ever met Mr. Dotterer would get a good laugh out of this. Obviously the reporter didn't.
Craig Mancuso
Stow
Ain't no pro-life T-shirts in Baghdad: Every Christian has been commanded to stop war. "Thou Shalt Not Kill." Come on, right-to-lifers -- or is it just babies' lives that are important? I believe in fighting to protect our time-honored way of life, but not at the expense of civilian lives and my civil liberties.
Remember what being a patriot really is. It is not mindlessly listening to a government that was barely elected. It is for standing up against oppressive government and taxation without representation, and, more than anything else, for religious freedom.
There is no embarrassment to a country that tries to fix an error, just to one that continues to make them. I remember the struggle Vietnam vets went through. Where are these young Americans going to get the mental and physical rehabilitation they need? From the V.A. hospitals that have been shut down? From our already overtaxed Social Security system? War debt plus medical burden equals a country full of paupers.
Dave Kasl
Cleveland
Fair and Balanced Bias
From Rodney King to the Hit King, blame the media: Bravo to Bob Gross [Letters, June 20] for bringing up the shameful Anne Hetman episode. In this country it's only racial injustice if it happens to a black person.
One of the biggest culprits of this mentality is the mainstream liberal media. Case in point: Recently a group of four black thugs kidnapped, brutally raped, sodomized, tortured, and dismembered a random young white couple. It never made the headlines. It was treated like a stolen bicycle.
How about Rodney King? The original eight-minute video shows him violently fighting the police, throwing them off like a crazed gorilla for more than seven minutes, until the police had no other option to subdue him. But we only see the last 30 seconds, ignoring what led up to it. And what did Rodney do after his $2.8 million settlement? Try to run over a police officer who was trying to arrest him in another crack deal.
Does anyone really believe that if Pete Rose sliced his ex-wife's head nearly off, he'd be walking around like O.J., let alone doing speaking engagements? Until the liberal media start telling the truth and we silence morons like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, racism will remain a cancer on this land.
Nick Djukich
Parma
Comfort-Zone Advice
Good enough, smart enough, and darn it, folks like him: In response to the letter sent by Monique Moore [July 4], may I commend her on a very well-articulated response to Bob Gross' ugly one.
One point regarding the [Anne Hetman] incident: She said she understood the black response. That comes just short of condoning their ignorance, which was inexcusable.
I'm a lot like Mr. Gross in my feelings toward black people. Since age seven I've lived around whites and developed their attitudes. I've never been comfortable around black people since. I fled to an all-white comfort zone and stayed there. Whites were hard on me at first, but I learned how to deal with them over the years, and now we are fine.
So, Mr. Gross, you can do like I do, and accept your flaws and expect to answer for them, or grow and change. But if you aren't ready to do that, don't complain about your lot in life. It's all up to you. Good luck.
Davey Houston
Lakewood
