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LETTERS IN THE EDITOR''S MAILBAG.

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Byline: The Register-Guard

War stress claims thousands

How grim the report on the number of Iraq veterans coming home mentally broken (Register-Guard, Nov. 15). One out of six, nearly 17,000 out of 100,000.

Who are the ones who crack up? My guess is that they are the gentle, the kind and the loving, the young people we need more of. But they don't fit well in the killing fields of the warfare society.

Perhaps it is also those who have been taught that America's leaders are the good guys until the truth suddenly hits them that these leaders are false gods who are willing to waste the blood and sanity of other people's children to get control of the world's oil.

And what of the many of us at home who also don't fit well in a warfare society, who are torn by grief and anguish for the suffering in Iraq and Afghanistan? Perhaps we don't have what the psychiatrists call post-traumatic stress disorder, but we feel pain about Iraq, lots of pain in our heads and in our guts. We might call it compassionate stress disorder.

Will it get so intense that we crack up? If not, why not?

CHARLES GRAY

Eugene

Hate and fear are choices, too

Once again, Don Richey (letters, Nov. 19) reminds us that homosexuality is a choice.

The newspaper reminds us that there is a hunger problem in Oregon....

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