Dear Mr. Krol,

Today is Jan. 16. A year ago tonight I had Scud missiles flying over my head during the earliest hours of the Persian Gulf War, a war that I detected from your editorial that you were against.

You stated that you were against the war because it was fought over one of America’s vital interests_oil. Since when is it wrong to protect our vital interests? Oil is what keeps our planes flying, our trucks rolling and your car moving. Mr. Krol, you cannot say that you, yourself, have not benefited from our actions over there in the Middle East. I’m sure you, like millions of other Americans, make your weekly visit to the gas station. The price you are paying for gas today is reasonable compared to the price that you were paying back in September of 1990.

If people like you were left in charge of making the decisions on whether or not to send troops over to Saudi Arabia, this country would be facing harder economic troubles than it is today. I’d like to see your comments on the crisis if Iraq controlled all the oil wells in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. I’m sure they’d be something like, “This is the U.S., the strongest country in the world. How could we let Iraq do this to us? We should do something about it.” Well Mr. Krol, we did do something about it.

Mr. Krol, you say we were sent over there merely to protect our oil interests. I disagree. Did you forget the fact that Iraq held approximately 900 American citizens against their will as hostages? Don’t you think we were justified in being sent over to the Middle East for that fact? I think we were. I guess if “President Krol” was in charge of the country, his decision would have been to sacrifice those 900 or so American lives rather than risk fighting a war over oil. I think our actions over there will help deter other countries from taking American hostages in the future. I feel pretty good about that. Isn’t it funny that we also received our hostages that were being held in Lebanon not too long after the war ended. It makes me wonder.

As I go to sleep tonight, I will not think about you or others like you, rather I’ll think about those fellow Marines and soldiers who did not make it back. They never got the chance to be a “back seat driver” or an “arm_chair quarterback” like yourself.

You may have noticed that during this letter I refer to you as “Mr. Krol” several times, in case you didn’t detect it, that’s not respect … it’s sarcasm. My respect goes out to those men and women who lost their lives in the war. They have more respect than you’ll ever get!!

C.J. Solana

Freshman

Pre_Business