Letters

'Support our troops' warms hearts of soldiers and civilians

Regarding your March 22 editorial, "Homefront salute for soldiers in Iraq": I would like to thank the Monitor for its efforts to show what soldiers are doing in Iraq.

As a veteran, I hear all kinds of things about our service members, and not all of it is good. Some would state that we're merely exercising the president's will.

But we have been doing a lot more than that. The men and women serving in Iraq are constantly risking their lives to try and help those less fortunate.

I was able to witness Utah's "Thank a Soldier Day." It was a very humbling experience to see so many of the people in my community willing to show their thanks to people like me who took time out of our lives to help others in other places.

Thank you to all who have in some way thanked people like me.
SPC. Chris Roderick
Salt Lake City

The March 23 article, "Americans support the troops with food, soap, DVDs," made my day!

It was very encouraging and heartwarming to see that while the "public" may not support the reasons our troops are there, they certainly are stepping up to support our troops. A big "thank you" for recognizing this issue and presenting it so well.
Sally Patton
St. Louis

In response to the March 21 Opinion column by John Hughes, "Keep the Voice of America speaking loud and clear": I disagree with Mr. Hughes about the Voice of America (VOA).

The VOA and its related cold-war relics – such as Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and Radio Martí – are not worth wasting another tax dollar on.

I worked overseas for many years and regularly listened to both the VOA and the BBC World Service.

I found the VOA news to be completely politicized, its slant changing with each new administration. It is clearly a propaganda arm of the US government and, as such, it is not credible.

The BBC, on the other hand, is clearly independent of government policies and therefore has great credibility. The BBC has the best coverage of world events, including positive, fair, and believable coverage of the US.

If we want "an accurate picture of America, its people, and its policies" to be projected worldwide and considered credible, we ought to support the BBC World Service with the money we are currently wasting on the VOA.
Tom Adams
Scottsdale, Ariz.

In response to the March 21 article, "Can business ethics be taught?": While reading the article, my thoughts turned to a game called "Scruples," which I played with a bunch of friends about two decades ago.

The game seeks to expose the solidity or hollowness of your ethical positions, and it does so rather successfully.

In the game, your friends guess how you would respond to moral situations, and you have to defend yourself and your stances – although sometimes it's hard to refute their answers. In this way, each player's morals and ethics are laid bare.

I wonder whether corporate human-resources departments could incorporate a suitably modified version of this game in an "ethics/morality party."
Raghuram Ekambaram
New Delhi

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