To the Editor:

I was saddened to read in "In My Next Life" (column, Nov. 25) that Thomas L.
Friedman is thankful that "the public schools still manage to produce young
men and women ready to voluntarily risk their lives in places like Iraq and
Afghanistan to spread the opportunity of freedom and to protect my own."

Isn't that an example of gravely diminished expectations? I would much
prefer a situation where adequately financed public schools produced leaders
bent on making peace through diplomacy than war fraught with
self-righteousness.

Robert Wagner
New York, Nov. 25, 2004
(From the New York Times)