War and Peace
by H. R. Goodwin
May 14, 2006

Holly, a 5th grader at Webster Stanley School,
received a first-place award from 4-H for this speech!

War.   It is?   Well, I don't know what it is. But from what I've heard, I don't think I want to know. To me, war is a fight between two countries. But, it's not just a fight, it is death and blood and sadness and war-orphans and so much more. Sure, war is normally for good reasons, but wouldn't it just be easier to talk out the problems instead of fighting them out? I think so.

I think it would be easier if the leaders of the countries with the problems sat down together and compromised. And when a compromise isn't possible, some one needs to be willing to back down. That's called peace. No violence, no blood, no sadness, no war-orphans, but most importantly, no fear.

It seems easy, but it's not as easy as it looks. You know why? It's this way because adults raise their kids with violence. They grow up and teach it to their children and their children teach it to their children and so forth and so on. But, now people are raising their kids differently. Not all countries are raising their kids to become peaceful adults, though. In some countries, kids are being killed because of war. In some countries, kids are being taught to kill. Some kids, like my friends and I, do not believe this is right.

War needs to stop. We need peace. To be truly free, we need peace. I know there will always be squabbles, but can't we just solve them peacefully? It doesn't look like it, but I think, no, I know we can. I think kids need to say, "this is not right!"

Many kids probably want to do something about, but don't think they can. They're wrong.
They can send a letter to people with power in their community; They can tell bullies to stop at their school, the can do all sorts of things.

I bet a lot of terrorists started out as bullies and no one told them to stop. No one said this is wrong. Well, now is the time to tell everyone what you believe. I encourage all of you, especially the kids, to take a stand, to say what you believe. To stop war and make this generation a peaceful one. Thank you.