Slobodan Milosevic

* We as a nation shouldn’t be so hesitant to employ our ground troops. The war in Vietnam ended 24 years ago, and since then it appears that it’s anathema to use ground troops in support of American foreign policy. This is wrong-headed. NATO should go ahead and inject ground forces into the Balkans in support of its air operations.

Slobodan Milosevic is a mass murderer in the image of Hitler and must be stopped before his local wars infect the region and greater Europe. Only American troops as part of a NATO operation and American prestige and weight can bring the war in Kosovo to a peaceful conclusion.

JAMES D. REAGAN

Norwalk

* If because of NATO’s bombing program the Albanian freedom fighters gain the upper hand and the genocide and other atrocities are visited upon the Serbs, will NATO strafe the Albanians? What a mess! If ever there was a time for our country to pray together, this is the time. If ground troops go in, it will be a long and bloody and slow series of battles.

BENNY LEGASPE SR.

Whittier

* I saw World War II while living in Potsdam, Germany; I have served in the U.S. Army and Air Force. I have seen a lot. I don’t know any Serbs, I don’t know any Albanians, but tears come to my eyes as I watch the pictures on TV.

What is morally wrong in searching out Milosevic and taking it out on him personally? Under normal circumstances I can understand the reasoning; in this case I can’t. Why doesn’t the U.S. undertake a clandestine operation and get Milosevic?

RON HOHN

Los Angeles

* It is incredible that President Clinton and our National Security Agency would even consider sending our troops into Serbia. Any student of military history could point to the pitfalls of such a dire operation.

Mountainous southern Yugoslavia has been the ideal terrain for Serbs to defend against invading armies for centuries. The Turks couldn’t capture this area, trying for over 100 years. They gave up in 1878. Austro-Hungarian forces couldn’t do it in 1914. In World War II, the Serbs, fighting on the side of the Allies, tied up two Nazi divisions in those mountains. Gen. Tito’s Partisans and Draza Mihajlovic’s Chetniks held the German army and Croat paramilitary units at bay for the entire war.

The Serbs have been fiercely fighting their traditional enemies, the Croats and the Kosovo Albanians, for hundreds of years. The militaries of both sides have been guilty of massacring their opponents’ civilians. Today, we call the Serbs terrorists; during World War II they were “freedom fighters.”

COL. RUDOLPH A. MAGLIN, ret.

San Juan Capistrano

* If there is a more horrific, soul-chilling phrase than “ethnic cleansing,” I hope I never hear it.

PAUL KNEIPP

Tarzana

* Our country blasts Serbia apart with bombs, yet we do not declare war. Is it so passe to declare war? Ever since the Korean War, we don’t declare war. Are we just too sophisticated to call a war a war?

ROBERT PETERSON

Woodland Hills