BY RONI McCANN
FAIRBORN, Ohio - Opinions about Washington sending troops to Yugoslavia varied among workers and soldiers here, where Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is located. The base was the site of the much-publicized meetings where the U.S. government pushed through the supposed peace agreement that calls for placing 20,000 U.S. troops in Bosnia. Supporters of the Militant newspaper spent a day showing the paper around and discussing the war drive now under way.
"If the heads of governments want to fight over Bosnia they should get in a ring and do it themselves," said one former U.S. Army soldier who spent time in the Persian Gulf. His opinion was echoed by a friend who had just returned from a three-month stint in Croatia. "We shouldn't go," she said, "We have enough problems here."
Pointing to the Militant's coverage on the strike wave in France, she commented that they hadn't heard this was going on over there because news and information was limited. The armed forces' Stars and Stripes and newspapers in Serbo-Croatian were often the only sources available. They did hear of the struggle for independence in Quebec, but U.S. troops were advised not to talk with the Canadian soldiers about the subject so as not to stir up controversy.
Dennis Cooper, a Native American who has two brothers currently in Bosnia, said he's for Quebec separating. He paged through the Militant. "A woman's choice of abortion is the only choice she can make by herself," he commented on the struggle for abortion rights.
An aircraft mechanic who was recently discharged after three years said intervention into Yugoslavia was a bad idea. "You probably won't like what I have to say about [U.S. president Bill] Clinton but I hate him. He's a self- serving politician just like all the rest of them." He said he would go back to Bosnia if called upon, though, to back the troops.
A former U.S. Army reservist who took a few minutes to talk said his views went back and forth. "On the one hand the troops are trained to do a job and they know that when they sign up. But it does bother me that the president himself got out of going to war yet he's sending troops over now."
Some people expressed the view that troops being sent would not resolve much, if anything. "The fighting has been going on for thousands of years and it won't stop now," said one person, echoing a frequent theme in the media. "The government will just send more people to get killed."
Another woman whose brother was stationed in Georgia and just got deployed to Bosnia was emphatic, "They should not be over there!" She liked the paper's coverage of the struggles of working people, including against the war drive, and bought a copy. All told, the team sold five copies of the Militant and one of the Spanish-language magazine Perspectiva Mundial.