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This is a matter of great delicacy and about which surviving members of families have varied, and naturally, deep feeling. What is said here is with full appreciation of how deep the memories go. . . .
The bodies of our men & women who have died or been killed are cared for as reverently and as carefully as may be. . . . From any angle it would be far better to let those who have died overseas rest there.
If a person is a sheer materialist, the bodies are properly cared for until they go back, inevitably, to the soil.
If one has faith, and believes in the spiritual resurrection from the dead, then too much emphasis upon the body which will soon disappear, is, in a sense, a denial of faith.
One must realize the conditions of battle also. Of some bodies, little is left. Also, it would be impossible not to mistake the identity of others. . . .
Often I have heard soldiers say that if they fell they wished to be in the countries they helped to liberate.
Perhaps these carefully tended acres of our dead will be a testimony as to the purpose of the United States, that men in later generations may see we have not been unmindful of the necessity to stop aggression, that the world cannot remain half slave and half free, and that many were valiant enough to pour out their blood for freedom. . . .
GEORGE STEWART
Rochester, N.Y.
Another Forgotten Man
Sirs:
There is another forgotten man—me.
When, in print and on the radio, the issues between General Motors, U.S. Steel and other corporations v. labor are reported, the impression is given that the large companies are fat, avaricious and Fascist. Labor delights in fostering that impression.
It's a lie. Labor is talking about me. . . the small stockholder who owns American industry. . . . I'm here with a protest that I and my kind have been completely overlooked. And I protest also that until labor is willing to do an honest day's work, and permit its exploited members to compete with each other and to permit the brains and ingenuity and industry of the individual to earn more than a union scale for turning out a better-than-average day's work, the best intentions of Washington will lead us deeper into a national mess, and democracy will become only a word for radio comedians to kick around.
MONTE SOHN
New York City
Cheers for Global Education
Sirs:
The suggestion of Senator Fulbright [TIME, Dec. 31] that the Government use the possible $6 billion credit from the sale of surplus war goods overseas to finance an exchange of U.S. and foreign students is the most constructive idea for advancing global understanding that we have yet heard.
It has been apparent to us in both Europe and in the Philippines that American soldiers abroad have misunderstood on every possible occasion the people they have known so slightly. The education of students abroad, with its advantage of personal contacts, would have a twofold value: the broadening of the individual student's viewpoint, and his ability. . . to erase a few of (his countrymen's) misconceptions concerning foreigners. . . .
. . . There is no better way to further global thinking, so necessary for the future, than global education.
(CPL.) BUD R. FISHER
(PFC.) JOHN S. DICKINSON
Luzon
Sirs: