We can't do it alone; we really need your help. We need you to be at school board meetings and tell the members why you think military recruiters need to go back to their military recruiting offices, or at the very least those of us who actually served in the military should be able to tell our story. Young students are making a life-and-death choice, and this decision should be made from an informed, balanced viewpoint and not a one-sided, biased view, which is now the case. I thought this was what education was all about.

Getting back to the concept of "we need your help" - when it's only Sue Bastian and I testifying against the recruiters it's easy for the school board to write us off. I know that all of you are busy, parents and students alike, but it's imperative that there is a showing of at least 20 parents who value their children's lives and at least 20 students from all the high schools in Central Oregon who actually believe in freedom of speech.

I don't want to get involved in a long rambling rant on the senselessness of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but at this point the majority of citizens in those countries want us out now and in fact the majority of soldiers who might have thought the war was a good idea have now changed their minds. Coupled with this, the majority of North Americans are now opposed to the wars also. It's not possible to separate military recruiting in the schools from the escalating death toll of the wars, despite the spin of the Bush administration that everything is fine now that we've bribed a bunch of Sunni leaders to come over to our side.

Please get involved to save our children's lives and e-mail me at phil@tiedyed.us.

Philip H. Randall, Bend