Ard Mhacha's comments (accusations) remind me of the time in the late Sixties when I was working at a radio station as an announcer and newscaster. One of the stories I read in the top-of-the-hour news had to do with casualties in the Vietnam war. The copy had come off the teletype (Associated Press, as I recall), and I read the story in the standard, matter-of-fact newscaster's manner. Even though I was appalled by the facts presented, I read the copy straight and made no comments of my own. I did not editorialize, which, of course, I was not supposed to do.

A moment or two later, the phone rang (it was a weekend and I was alone in the station). It was a listener. He was furious with me for not having an emotional breakdown over the story and sobbing into the microphone. "Cold fish bastard!" was one of the many colorful things he called me.

Only a few weeks before, a very dear friend of mine, a medivac helicopter pilot, was killed when his helicopter, filled with wounded he was trying to transport to safety, was shot down.

I am sorry if the listener who called was also suffering a personal tragedy because of the Vietnam war but he had no idea of my own emotional reaction to that story, and he had a lot of gall to assume that he did.

Don Firth