Wissmiller Letter to Editor-1968

THE VIETNAM VETERANS OF
COMPANY A 70TH ENGINEER BATTALION
(COMBAT) (ARMY)
1965 TO 1969

The following letter to the editor was found by Mrs. Eldon Wissmiller
(Dan Wissmiller's Mother) in her local newspaper in September 1968:

Letters to the Editor

View of Vietnam War

Editor:

It's beyond me how so many feeble-minded liberals can oppose the U.S. Vietnam policy since our government has cogent grounds for doing what it does:

1. Our domestic industry is vastly fostered by the huge quantities of napalm, explosives, planes, tanks and other supplies expended in Vietnam.

2. The drafting of young men off the street generally the poorer, less educated, racially undesirable and in short, expendable ones eliminates potential troublemakers and shortens the unemployment lists.

3. The problem of over population is alleviated. The 22,000 Americans killed while trying to kill South Vietnamese and the many hundreds of thousands, well over a million in fact, of Asiatics killed in Vietnam are that many less consumers and competitors on this earth.

4. U.S. agriculture is helped (this is important for Mayor Daley’s state) by the elimination of a rival. South Vietnam is a rice basket of Asia, a former great exporter of rice. Allied with India or China this would be a great asset to those starving nations.

5. As a religious nation, we must stop communism at all costs. Even if all South Vietnamese are exterminated, it’s a small price to pay. As long as we stop Marxism with its empty promise of betterment to the poor.

6. Just because the government of South Vietnam is an unpopular and detested dictatorship, that is no reason why we should not support it. Throughout the world we find ourselves constrained to support dictatorships and reactionary governments which oppress their peoples and are hated by them.

These are some of the reasons why the U.S. must not waver in Vietnam. In fact we should use the atom bomb not only against Vietnam, but against North Korea for capturing our spy ship, and against all Communists and neutral countries including France, India, Sweden, Cambodia, Egypt, Guatemala, Cuba and most other South American countries, where our ambassadors are not treated with the devotion they deserve.

Mr. DS

With one son already critically wounded in Vietnam, Dan just
leaving for Vietnam and a Third Son in the Marines, in California
Mrs. Wissmiller could not let Paragraph #2 above pass without comment.
Mrs Wissmiller wrote the following reply:

Letters to the Editor

GI Mom Protests Letter

Editor:

I write in regard to DS’s letter published September 7. First, he used the word “feeble minded” After reading his letter, I wonder who is feeble minded.

I wonder if he realizes how he tore at the hearts of us mothers who have had sons wounded or killed in Vietnam.

Who is he to judge the quality of these fine young men in uniform?

They are not picked up off the streets, nor are they the poor, the less educated, racially undesirable or expendable. No, they are the cream of the crop who are fighting for your freedom.

They must pass mental and physical tests and they must live, fight and die under conditions that some of the so-called educated could never face.

Mr. DS stated these are the troublemakers. Well, I have never seen a college protester in uniform nor were the troublemakers at the Democratic national convention in uniform. And what about the trouble makers who are striking for higher pay? Do they know what the men in uniform are paid, and that they are buying savings bonds while others invest where the stakes are higher?

There is good and bad in all walks of life and it takes a mighty small man to degrade our young men who are giving so much for our country.

My oldest son was critically wounded in Vietnam. I took my second son to O’Hare Monday en route to Vietnam and my third son is in the Marines in California. I know what your letter did to me and also how my sons felt when they read it.

I suggest Mr. DS take a closer look at the men in uniform and then visit a college campus, a factory, a construction job and then decide where the real troublemakers are.

Mrs. Eldon Wissmiller

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