I commend Oak Hill Middle School teacher Lucy Rioux for assigning her class to find newspaper articles that interested them enough to respond (Sun Journal, Oct. 6). For eighth-graders, the responses were interesting and well thought.

Of the nine letters printed, two of them really got my attention — Wyatt Giroux’s letter about “U.S. shouldn’t get involved” in senseless wars, and Dustin Chapman’s “Marijuana is illegal.”

Giroux expresses the feelings of probably the great majority of the population about staying out of senseless wars that are never to be won. They only amount to precious lives lost and are very costly. The countries involved are what they are and things will never change.

Chapman’s letter echoes my sentiments regarding marijuana use. Medicinal use is OK, but to legalize it … law enforcement departments would not be able to keep up with the problems that would follow. The law is there for a reason.

Chapman asked why would anyone want to pump that garbage into their body anyway? There is a saying: The hardest thing to do is doing the right thing; the easiest thing is to do what you want to do.

I thank Rioux for starting such a good program and I hope more teenagers (at other schools) get involved in what is going on in this country. Maybe some of them will become involved enough to run for public office some day and have more common sense than what we are seeing from leaders now.

Louis “Bert” Godin, Lewiston

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