Letters to the Editor
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‘West Point on East Side’
Many thanks to Amy De Rosa for “West Point on East Side” [Op-ed, “West Point on East Side,” November 15, 2006]. As a baby boomer living in Manhattan I am well acquainted with the dominant attitude here towards people serving in the military. As a former Army wife who accompanied my draftee-with-a-direct-commission husband during the Vietnam conflict, I am also well acquainted with the enormous integrity and reliability of military personnel. I lived at Fort Monmouth, Fort Knox, and in Seoul, Korea, and that period changed my life and my outlook. Mrs. De Rosa’s observations and admiring reactions regarding the cadets and the professionals training them resonate and carry me to 1969, 1970, and 1971. I was moved then to respect and like the military people with whom I came into contact when I was between age 23 and 25, and even more dramatic was the surprising (to them) affection my anti-war parents developed for my friends at Fort Knox. My parents visited us there and were impressed and shocked by the intelligence, kindness, and maturity of our friends. Some of them were career, several having returned from at least one tour in Vietnam, some officers, some enlisted, and all honorable. Meeting the military changed my parents too, and I know that they were grateful for, and humbled by, the opportunity. Like me, they came to believe that these people who are dedicated to protecting us and our way of life deserve our respect, gratitude, and loyalty.
JOYCE PARKER
New York, N.Y.
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