Page 5 - Contrast1967November

Dear Mom, Apple-Pie, Freedom,
Brotherhood, and the American Way:

Who are we? men.
We are little boys,
We are grown men,
We are college kids, truck drivers,
laborers, lawyers,
We are country boys and city boys,
We are a cross section of young American

From where do we come?

We come from Michigan, Maryland, Connecticut,
and Tennessee, all the states in between and
more.

Where are we?

We are in the United States Army Training
Center, Armor; a city called Fort Knox, in
the middle of the wilderness of western
Kentucky.

What are we becoming?

We are men being trained to kill

We spend 14 hours a day learning the art
developing the ability that will make us
killers.

We strain and torture our bodies to make them
strong, quick and enduring.

We carry and use weapons all day long that are
made to kill men.

We learn to kill a man at 350 meters in a.
matter of seconds.

We are taught to viciously smash and slash
with a bayoneted rifle. our bare hands in

We are taught to kill with
seconds.

Where are we going?

We are going to a little land 6,000 miles
away, across an ocean, to fight little
yellow men who have been told that they
are making the world a better place by
enslaving people.

Why? III

Before we came here each of us had another
life. We each had a girlfriend or a wife,
a family and friends. We made a living and
pursued our lives in the manner we wished.
Most of us were happy. We lived without
fear or want. Each of us hopeto continue
this way of life some day. We want our sons .
to grow up and have the freedom and happiness
we had. Thus we submit to becoming slaves,
gladiators, killers. We support the system
which provides our way of life. We know the
system is not perfect and often disapprove of
it. But we are realists and have no better
alternative. We must accept the necessary
evils of life, even death.

Pvt. Harold C. Smith