‘Hope Amid Terror’

A vision of what man is capable of came through clearly with the stop-the-war-immunize-the-chidren campaign in El Salvador. More children there have died from immunizable diseases than all the people, both military and civilian, killed during the war.

If we can stop a war for a day to save the lives of a whole country of children to protect them against the five major childhood killer diseases, then does it make any sense to go back the next day to dropping burning phosphorus on them out of airplanes? What would happen if we didn’t send them any more burning phosphorus or airplanes, or bombs or grenades?

Which agony will we spare a mother from, seeing her child gag and choke himself to death from whooping cough, or watch him blown to bits by mortar fire? Both are now preventable. Our priorities are in our own hands. Congress appropriates money for vaccinations and for armaments. It will soon vote for funding for primary health care programs and military foreign aid.

One small fraction of 1% of the military budget worldwide would pay to immunize all the children in the world. Five million children a year would not die. Five million more would not be maimed and blinded. You cannot vote in Congress this year, but your representative will. Have you let him know yet where you want your money to go?

MELANIE LAWSON

Irvine