Letters

Dear F.E.,

Just got the new issue. It’s too good to be true! Two issues in a row with relevant, well-written, hip articles specifically for women [FE #105, May 14–27, 1970].

Women being equal with men in all things except glandular and physical makeup, such articles as the Women’s News Co-op’s are welcome [FE #105, May 14–27, 1970]. And the tone of these articles is so positive and pleasant-natured. They give the Fifth Estate a freshness it has been needing.

Also liked letter from worker [FE #105, May 14–27, 1970]. It was beautiful because it was genuine and the truth. It is pretentious to come from one life, a foreigner, and leaflet another’s. I admire that fellow for speaking out and signing his name. There’s a man worth listening to. By the way, The Tea does a beautiful song called Wesley. Someone should pick up on them. They have a great keyboard person.

My best to John Sinclair. He will get out sooner than he thinks, I’m sure.

I hope he does not harbor a grudge against me for letter awhile back before incarceration. I have felt badly about that critical letter ever since he was sentenced.

Your friend,

Cella Alderson

Rochester

Dear Fifth Estate:

I’m writing a book about censorship in the military press and would welcome comments from your readers. Especially needed are statements by former Combat Correspondents and photographers.

Any aspect of censorship is important, including censorship of mail, reading matter and examples of “slanting” in military news releases. Also G.I. newspapers data.

I was a Marine Combat Correspondent, RVN, 67–68.

Anyone wishing to contribute should forward a biographical sketch and a summary of his military history.

Gustav Hasford

2821 Terry Avenue

Longview, Washington 98632

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Well, the lifer pigs think they have me for good now, but they soon will see who gets the O.D. shaft. They have threatened to beat the shit out of me (my platoon Sgt.). My C.O. has told me he will bust me down as far as I can go.

An incident happened yesterday in our motor pool. I was almost choked by a young buck Sgt. (who went from PFC to Sgt. E-5 for two reasons. He has a brown nose, and he grabbed an M-16 from a NVA officer who had his hands up, standing in front of a big gun of a tank).

They locked me up in a conex-container, but it isn’t too bad cause the MPs understand (some of them) what a lifer pig really is. Sometimes I wonder if they are really human. Some of the bull-shit they pull.

They want you to be a combat troop and a garrison troop at the same time. Dig. I am going to see my lawyer now, so keep your head. Peace. All power to the people.

Mr. Andrew Spagrolo

HTRP 17^th CAV.

Dear People:

I’m being held prisoner in Vietnam. I read one of your papers, not for the first time, but the first time in many moons.

I’m a little stoned, pretty good grass. The V.C. aren’t bothering us probably because we are like a peaceful band of hippies out in the middle of nowhere, like Taos.

I live in New Mexico, well that’s where I lived last. I don’t live today. Maybe in 260 days I will live again.

I got busted from E-4 to E-3 for little things like: having a tee shirt on without sleeves, not wearing my hat and for wearing an out a sight strand of beads, solid black.

Listen man, I’m sick of this shit. I have a rifle with 1400 bullets. I’ll use it if worse comes to worse. Death to the pigs is our motto. No death yet and I hope there isn’t.

Well, man. I would go really deep into how much the world needs fixing but it is already known. Keep fighting for Peace man. I’m fighting for it too. Love, peace,

Later.

Harley Davidson

Got it, I’m a biker all the way.

Dear Fifth Estate:

I’m hoping you’ll print this letter even though you may not wish to do so.

Homosexuals are unjustly oppressed. Make no mistake about our oppression: It is real. In Detroit a homosexual is legitimate as an individual but illegitimate as a participant in a homosexual act. Hell, every homosexual and lesbian in this country survives solely by sufferance, not by law or even that cold state of grace known as tolerance.

Our humanity is questioned, our choice of housing is circumscribed, our employment is tenuous, our taverns are mafioso-on-the-job training schools for dollar worshiping hoods.

I salute militant oppressed groups, and I have offered aid, but I realize that very often that other oppressed people are also our own oppressors. Through mutual respect, action and education both the homosexual community and other oppressed groups can become a cohesive body of people who don’t find the enemy in each other.

Being homosexual says only one thing: Emotionally you prefer your own sex. It says nothing about your value as a human being.

Remember that your own children may be gay; do you want them to be oppressed by society? If not, Brothers and Sisters, accept gays and if you are gay don’t be afraid to express it. After all I seriously doubt that there are many who can say that they have never been attracted to a member of their own sex.

Think how beautiful it will be when men and women can relate to both sexes!

Michael F. Boyle

To the Fifth Estate:

I am ashamed I waited so long to hear the sound of your falling bodies, my children. The previous 4 murdered children in Alabama I could have forgotten about in 20 or 30 years, if only one of them, half your age, had not asked her Daddy to let her demonstrate in the bus boycott. He told her she was too young to be involved, and she replied, “THEN YOU DO IT DADDY.” He didn’t. His daughter’s murderer is still unpunished.

Children, you called me again this week, massacred by a frightened, tired, criminally untrained militia. I died with you and was reborn with your slaughter as the symbol of my resistance. This time I hear the righteous anguish of millions of your brothers and sisters. I promise you that the society that feared your power so much that it had to waste you to “keep you in your place” will be brought to justice.

How can they silence us all? We are the women, the children, the poor people from barren hills and rotten cities, the young, the aged, the drugged and the maladjusted; those without Northern European culture (smugly labeled “culturally deprived”), the unschooled, speakers of nonstandard English, the dark-skinned, the dissenters in religion, politics and morals.

We oppressed ones are all the people, but the middle-class conforming white men. How long can they wreak their wickedness on us and call us violent?

Let us refuse to help them oppress us any further. Impeach our leaders; prosecute the commander of the guards who slaughtered our children; refuse to support institutions which keep us powerless and force us to oppress each other. No child is safe anywhere from these would-be gods who hold themselves up as the only people really worth considering.

Mama, wake up and smell the blood on your corsage

as you sit in your comfortable pew

in your new spring clothes.

Daddy, take a good look inside your snappy new car.

There are four more on the floor

This Mother’s Day.

How long, how long, grown folks how long!

Can you smother your love for your children and brothers and sisters,

for what you think is the good of your country?

Isn’t your country the people—All the people?

Love,

Nancy Lee

Dear Fifth Estate,

I just wrote this enclosed letter to the people because I felt the corruption in the school system is really bad. As one person once said, “ Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Board of educators have given the administrators absolute power over us! We shall not be oppressed!

Peace

Steve Kass

Garden City

“Brothers and sisters,

“I was suspended from Vogel Junior High School for reading and allowing my brothers and sisters to read a newspaper—the Fifth Estate during the lunch hour. The two pages my father gave me contained no vulgarity or obscenities of any sort. The rag just told it like it is in Nam and an article on the high school students “‘Bill of Rights,’ the same rights as contained in the United States’ Bill of Rights.

“I was ‘asked’ to leave school for two days, though it was not a long suspension, the reasons I was given raises these questions:

“A) When may I use my constitutional guarantees concerning freedom of speech and freedom of peaceful assembly?

“B) Should the school offer time to examine who we are, where we are or any subject we choose, irrespective of the material, so long as we do not force ourselves upon others?

“My name is Stephen Kass. I am 14. Am I a revolutionary because I tell it like it is? What will I be allowed to read or discuss when I am sent to Nam in 5 years?

“Voltaire said: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend with my life your right to say it. What has changed?”