They are what they are: people

They are what they are: people

EDITOR:

All week we heard about “30,000 “troops.” What exactly is a “troop” anyway? My dictionary defines it as “a group of persons, or a body of soldiers such as a company of infantry.”

One person is not a troop. When I was a Boy Scout, the troop to which I belonged was made up of about 30 scouts. By this measure, President Obama would be proposing to send 900,000 soldiers to Afghanistan.

Why don’t the military, the government, and the media start saying what is really meant? We’re not sending 30,000 troops into danger. We’re sending 30,000 people into danger. This deliberate misuse of language misleads the public by dehumanizing the people who have to fight and suffer in the conflict.

SHAWN KOSIOR

Canfield