A Massachusetts law professor has called care packages for U.S. Troops “Shameful.” Michael Avery, a professor at Suffolk University Law School, sent a five-paragraph email to colleagues in response to a school-wide appeal for care packages for deployed soldiers. Said the professor: “I think it is shameful that it is perceived as legitimate to solicit in an academic institution for support for men and women who have gone overseas to kill other human beings.” The VFW is, of course, upset. Paul Spera, past commander in chief of the VFW, called Avery’s remarks “despicable.” And then he makes this ridiculous statement:
One of the things that we’ve learned from Vietnam is to separate the warriors from the war. You can be opposed to the war — you can disagree with the tactics and the political decision involved — but the individuals on the battle field are there protecting us,” said Spera, an Army veteran who served in Vietnam.
The troops in Vietnam were protecting us? The troops in Iraq were protecting us? The troops in Afghanistan are protecting us? Paul Spera is mad. He belongs in a mental institution. What he should have learned from Vietnam is not to fight any more unjust foreign wars.
I think I like Professor Avery, who also said this: “Excessive patriotic zeal is a hallmark of national security states. It permits, indeed encourages, excesses in the name of national security, as we saw during the Bush administration, and which continue during the Obama administration.”
