To the editor:
I'm writing to congratulate Anthony DiMaggio and the rest of the Indy staff on some very interesting points made about Disney movies and the cultural and societal values they reflect ("Disney Values" Sept. 25). I have to say, the points brought up in the article are, in my opinion, just the beginning.
For instance, have you ever noticed that most Disney females have dead mothers? Cinderella, Snow White, Pocahantas, Belle in Beauty & the Beast, and Jasmine in Alladin are all the tragic products of single-parent households. In Alladin and Beauty & the Beast, particularly, it is suggested that men are incapable of properly raising children, especially daughters. Because, as we all know, real men can't be nurturing and a family is only a real family if there are two biological parents. Duh.
And don't even get me started on the unabashed message of physiography that seem to be inherent in all children's films, especially Disney's. Because appearance always dictates behavior, ugly people are always wicked, and people who look different than you are either weird, evil, or both. Right? Of course.
An encyclopedia could be written on what Disney really teaches children. If you take the time to analyze what you watch instead of accepting it at face value, you can learn a lot about your society and it's values. Keep up the good work, and thank you!
Kellie Powell
I find it amusing that Sgt Medlin questions my claims to have served in the US military based on my appearance or my actions of speaking out against war. He says in his letter that "Mr. Bages does not look like and or act like any Marine that I have ever seen." This makes me wonder if Sgt Medlin and I actually served in the same Marine Corps. From my experience I recall that Marines and US service men and women in general came from all walks of life; they were White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Arab as well as from many other varied backgrounds. Some were tall while others were short and not all weighed the same.
I stay in touch regularly with those who I served with and many of them have grown their hair or their beards. What is a former Marine supposed to look like? And how should I be acting in order to live up to the standards of current Marines? Am I supposed to walk around town with a rifle and preach to people that violence does indeed solve our nation's problems? Do they require me to visit high schools and teach children how to use a bayonet just in case they are confronted with an enemy? I don't understand what it is about my appearance that would cause anyone to disbelieve my claims to have served in the Marine Corps during the Gulf War.
I agree with Sgt Medlin that many people do make false claims of having served in the military and I too look at these people with disgust. I take the accusation from Sgt. Medlin very seriously so I encourage him to check my records. To assist him in this endeavor I will provide some information which he may find helpful. My Service Record Book is filed in Kansas City as will one day Sgt Medlin's own SRB. I joined the US Marine Corps in 1989. My MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) was 0811 (Artillery) and during the Gulf War I worked as an 0253 (translator and interrogator). I served mostly with the 3rd Battalion of the 10th Marine Regiment in the 2nd Marine Division based in Camp Lejeune but I was constantly detached from my unit to assist in areas where I was needed for my French and Arabic translating abilities. I have a copy of my DD214 filed with the County Clerk in Vermilion County in Illinois. Sgt Medlin may be able to inspect it there and I will be happy to grant him, or anyone else who so desires, the permission to obtain a copy of this document which every person who serves in the military is given upon completion of their contract of military service.
On my DD214 one can find a section indicating that I was awarded 9 different medals and ribbons including the SWA (South West Asia) service medal (twice awarded), Combat Action ribbon, and the Expeditionary medal among others. I was awarded at least 12 Meritorious Masts and even more letters of recommendations for my translation duties as well as other activities I was involved in. One of the letters of recommendation was signed by then Secretary of State James Baker. I was honorably discharged in 1993.
I hope this information convinces Sgt Medlin of the validity of my claims. Additionally, I have always said that I am proud to have served in the military and have never made a statement otherwise. I do not appreciate those who question my love for my country and ask me to leave whenever I talk about peace and justice needing to be extended to Arabs, Africans or others who may not be White or American.
If our nation is attacked by an invading army I will be one of the first to take up arms and defend our people. But I am not willing to die, or see my fellow citizens die, in order to procure a source of oil in Iraq that will only enrich the corrupt leaders and CEOs of our country. I will fight a just war but I see nothing just about us invading Iraq simply because the Iraqi leader gassed the revolting Kurds in Halabja in 1987 (and did it with our tacit approval).
I joined the military as a 17 year old who firmly believed that in order to protect the values, ideals, and principles upon which this nation was built, all young men and women should join the military. It was out of patriotic duty that I joined the military and it is now because of this same sense of patriotism that I speak out against my nations warmongering actions.
All over the world I see people who have the wrong idea of what America is and what it stands for. In the minds of millions, if not billions, of people around the globe, the American nation is an arrogant one willing to kill at the drop of a hat. All what these people are able to see from us are our B-52's flying over their heads or our mortars as they "stream overhead and explode." Few people outside our borders (or within them for that fact) realize that the United States of America is a nation built on justice and the notion that all people in the world have a right to be free from oppression or the threat of war constantly having over them. Non-Americans rarely see the America that I or Sgt. Medlin know. The same America that allows me to write these words without fear of persecution is the America that I want citizens of other nations to see and to know. Perhaps through our example people currently living in persecution may be able to build a nation for themselves that would allow them to enjoy these same freedoms. I traveled to Iraq a few months ago and walked across the country in order to teach ordinary Iraqis about the America that I believe in because I am afraid that our guns and artillery shells are not doing a good job at making people understand us. Nor do our missiles or tanks compel others to share with us our love for the system that we live in. As a Marine I never realized that America could ever be hated by anyone who loved freedom. However, one ordinary day while I was stationed along the Turkish/Iraqi border during operation Provide Comfort, a Kurdish refugee, whose people the US military was there to assist by providing food and shelter, approached GySgt Clements who was walking alongside me and spat in his face as she cursed us and blamed Americans for the death of her children.
Her village was indeed bombed by US aircraft who indiscriminately dropped their bombs on any and every Iraqi population center they could find. This one random act by this Kurdish woman caused me to question everything I had ever believed in. It caused me to question myself and what I was doing in a foreign country where we were not wanted, I questioned my government and its actions and I have continued to do so until this day.
Sgt Medlin may be correct when he says that I never saw the destruction that the Iraqi military has brought on their own people or on any people for that matter, but I have seen the destruction that the US military has brought on the Iraqi people. During the Gulf War approximately 250,000 Iraqi soldiers perished at the hands of the US-led coalition. It can be argued that these are accepted casualties since they were uniformed combatants. Can anyone argue, though, that the high number of civilian deaths that occurred while our military bombed the entire length and width of the Iraqi nation is acceptable? More bomb tonnage was dropped from our military planes over Iraq during Desert Storm than was dropped by all combatant nations during WWII. Iraqi Women and children perished in their sleep as our bunker-busting missiles destroyed one bomb-shelter after another. Numerous residential neighborhoods were flattened by US bombs.
Civilians continue to die in Iraq by the most evil weapon of destruction known to human history: economic sanctions. According to the United Nations over 1.5 million Iraqi civilians, mostly children have died as a result of this weapon that keeps on killing. For 12 years the US government has been single-handedly responsible for the continuation of the sanctions regime that has prohibited Iraqis from importing much needed healthcare or food supplies. The sanctions hurt only the ordinary Iraqi people and do not affect the ruling elite in Iraq. No wonder the Iraqis aren't too fond of the US government. What's worse is that the entire world is able to see the effects of the sanctions on their television sets as foreign news agencies continue to report on the miserable conditions that exist in Iraq, further fomenting hatred towards American foreign policy. However, in the US, our news media has failed to show any evidence that the sanctions even exist.
As Americans we are living in ignorance of what our government is responsible for doing in our names. This includes my name as well as Sgt. Medlin's name. If Sgt Medlin is fine with being a part of this then I am not. As a Marine I was taught time and time again to speak up if I thought that my superiors were engaged in any wrongdoing and that if I did not I could be prosecuted for taking part in any illegal activity regardless of whether I was just taking orders or not.
As the civilized world witnessed during the Nuremburg trials, the My Lai court-martial and countless other war crime trials, subordinates are as much guilty of committing wrongs against humanity as are their commanders. I believe that our military commander-in-chief is violating the laws of humanity and his subordinates are complicit in these actions and I am speaking out so when the time comes and history judges those who were responsible for these crimes, my hands will be clean of the blood that makes their hands dirty.
