To the Editors:

Viet Nam Vets

The parade, the national acknowledgment for the Viet Nam veteran [July 13], will never come to pass. We who fought in the war must reconcile ourselves to the memory of it. But should there ever be another Viet Nam, take care when you come for my son.

Randall Dick Battle Ground, Wash.

I would have preferred to have more attention given to Viet Nam veteran success stories, to those men and women who are today giving time, energy and ideas to their communities, states and nation. We are truly a valuable resource for our country. We survived the war. We can handle anything.

John B. Dwyer, Publisher Perimeter, National Viet Nam Veterans Newsletter Dayton

Those of us who served in Viet Nam may be fitter, but it is usually those who didn't go who have the jobs.

William R. Sawtell Brownville, Me.

We used to tell ourselves: "When we die we'll go to heaven because we have spent our time in hell." Fourteen years later, I as well as other Viet Nam veterans return to that hell almost every night.

William Solymosi Wyandotte, Mich.

I was a first lieutenant in the Army stationed in the Central Highlands. I used to write my wife that I was in a safe area in Viet Nam, just putting in my time What did she know about Mang Yang Pass, halfway between insanity and hell? A few weeks after I returned to the "real world," we went to a friend's wedding. A truck backfired. I reacted instinctively. My understanding wife couldn't quite comprehend what I was doing cringing in the gutter, rolled up next to a parked car on New York City's Third Avenue. I should have told her. I should have told the whole damn world!

Victor S. Podell Reston, Va.

The basic reason for the vets' postwar distress is that they were not allowed to win the war. The media provided the ammunition (albeit defective) that the peacenik militants used to label our men baby killers and monsters of all kinds. There was little or no mention by the press and TV of enemy atrocities, which were commonplace, or defeats (Tet). The war was probably journalism's lowest point.

William M. Coffey Devon, Pa.

Let's get one thing straight. We were demonstrating against the paranoid politicians in Washington, B.C., who, at the wave of a red flag or a dollar sign, put our youth as sitting ducks into an impossible situation in Viet Nam.

We honor these veterans. We also honor the youths whose consciences would not allow them to be used so outrageously. We are all casualties of the Viet Nam War. Perhaps that is why there was no parade.

Rosemary Loeb Guthrie Center, Iowa

Dairy Stockpiles

After reading the article "Buttering Up the Farmers" [July 6], I am quite convinced that capitalistic economics is a discriminating, nasty tool without any viable source of humanity or emotion. Stockpiling all those dairy products while poor people around the world are starving is clearly inhumane.

Gary Mark New York City

I love cheese and I'm tired of having my tax dollars used to store cheese that I can barely afford to buy.

Claude H. Hallman Pottstown, Pa.

A gallon of milk here costs twice as much as a gallon of gasoline, and cheese costs more than some meats at the supermarket. Because of Government subsidies, it's senseless for the American consumer to boycott the dairy farmers, but they make the OPEC nations look like philanthropists.

Joe Parker Ocala, Fla.

Wimbledon Winners

John McEnroe is a great tennis player, but when you've said that you've said it all. His behavior at Wimbledon [July 13] was that of a foulmouthed adolescent and an embarrassment to the U.S.

David T. Grant Stony Creek, Conn.

Only one American truly represented the U.S. with a win at Wimbledon--Chris Evert Lloyd.

Alice P. Schow Tallahassee, Fla.

Maryknollers Under Attack

Those who dedicate their lives to helping the poor and oppressed, as Maryknollers do [July 6], can aptly be called heroes. If some of them are extreme in their efforts, at least they are on the side of charity and justice.

Catherine Costello Yorktown Heights, N. Y.

God bless the Maryknollers! They're a gutsy group of dedicated Christians with discerning conscience and vision ahead of their time. They seek to raise the dignity of the poor. Conflict, prisons and martyrdom are not new to them.

Cynthia Stuart Davis York, Pa.

These missionaries do not serve God or the poor, they serve Marx. At least, we Latin Americans recognize them as Communist agitators. Robes don't make a monk.

Mario Letelier Vega Los Angeles

Congratulations to the Maryknollers for their honesty in simply reporting that the emperor has clothes; it's the people who have none.

Stephen J. Donahue Scotch Plains, N.J.

Elderly Runaways

I am several decades away from the trials borne by the aged, but I am appalled by the "problem" of nursing home runaways that you described [July 13]. If residents really do possess the right to sign themselves out, and if the homes are not prisons, why do guards watch the doors and police hunt for escapees? "For their safety" is not a good enough reason, not if we respect the elderly as people with their own set of priorities and values. Imagine yearning to see the place where you grew up, or the seashore. Then consider the horror of a guard or nurse saying, "I'm sorry--go back to your room."

Douglas Smith Brookline, Mass.

Whether a person is young or old, he or she likes to have something interesting to do, and if it cannot be found at one place, he goes elsewhere. If nursing homes created a better atmosphere and provided more outlets for their residents, perhaps there would not be as many walkaways. To stay alone in a room with four blank walls is not what one would call the good life.

Jane Reiner Toledo

I do not agree with your statement that nursing schools do not adequately prepare their graduates for coping with the aged. Nurses are the products of the society in which they live. To suggest that the attitudes of a person can be significantly changed during the relatively short course of nursing school is unrealistic.

When our country as a whole treats the helpless elderly with the respect they deserve, the field of geriatrics will become less stigmatized for everyone.

Nancy E. Reilly, R.N. Oakland Community College Farmington Hills, Mich.

Freud and Cocaine

Sigmund Freud did view cocaine [July 6] as "a magical drug," but only early in his career. He later came to recognize its addictive and destructive power after a patient for whom he had prescribed the drug developed a severe cocaine psychosis. By late 1887 Freud had discontinued his personal and professional use of it.

Robert A. Furey Jr. Concord, Mass.

Turmoil in Iran

Iran's Islamic leaders received exactly what they so richly earned when a bomb ripped through their headquarters [July 13]. Some day the mullahs will wander eternity hand in hand with the Shah and share the justice meted out to all murderers by the Almighty. Eternal damnation shall be theirs as it is the Shah's.

Theodore M. Kravitz Washington Crossing, Pa.

After witnessing the outrages the current leaders of Iran have inflicted on their people, I am gratified to see that resistance is taking shape within the country. It is always distressing when fanatics of any sort come to power and influence, but when they arrogate to themselves the right of speaking in the name of God in order to justify acts of monstrous inhumanity, it is particularly unsettling.

Daniel R. Gavaldon Santa Monica, Calif.

Wordless Signals

Verbal communication is so often abandoned to be replaced by nonverbal messages [July 13] because it has so often been abused by power seekers and manipulators. The "I promise you" of the politicians and "I love you" of the one-night stands force people to search for more reliable signals.

Perhaps because of mass media, the spoken word itself will have to be reexamined and a new language developed with genuine communication as its goal.

Larry Christy Phoenix

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.