Iowa State University Lecturer To Students: Don't Send Gifts To American Soldiers Overseas, They Don't Deserve Them

Hey, soldier, give those back!

College Republicans at Iowa State University encouraged students to send gifts to American men and women in uniform serving overseas. Bad idea, says one faculty member. Do I really need to say anything about these absurd comments from Thomas Walker at Iowa State University, where he is a lecturer “in the intensive English and orientation program”?

I read in Tuesday’s Iowa State Daily that the College Republicans have begun collecting sundries for U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why? Doesn’t the U.S. Army victual its soldiers? Don’t their families send them yuletide goodies? Aren’t GIs paid enough to buy what they need, and even what they want?

He goes on:

Necessities should be doled out to people who really need them and who might get them if not for the hundreds of billions of dollars being funneled to the Pentagon in the greatest squandering of money on the planet.

And on:

Why do Republicans care so much about the military? Because the military-industrial complex is dear to their simplistic laissez-faire fantasies: a bottom-line patriotism that excludes the people at the bottom.

Since its the Christmas season and I’m generally and optimist, I will leave with this: at least he’s not teaching in the econ or poli sci department.