ISU Bengal

Issue date: 4/20/05 Section: News

Media Credit: Mary Schroeder/Detroit Free Press Mike Mastela, 52, of Livonia, Michigan, is photographed with the stickers he designed and had made. He is selling them on a website for $2.95 plus $.55 for postage and handling. He is also selling them to anyone who wants to buy one. The website is www.supporttroopsopposewar.com.

DETROIT, Mich - The magnetic ribbon affixed to the rump of Mike Mastela's car doesn't just implore fellow motorists to "Support Our Troops," like millions of its yellow cousins.

This bit of trimming, which is half blue and half yellow, also proclaims "Oppose War" and sports a peace symbol.

Designed by the 52-year-old from Livonia, Mich., this ribbon with the hybrid motto is for sale on the Internet for $2.95 plus 55 cents for shipping and handling. Mastela, a sales engineer by day, says he has received orders from across the United States.

Mastela's mixed message reflects the mixed feelings of many Americans. A recent Harris Poll found that 41 percent of Americans say military action in the Iraq was the right thing to do, 45 percent say it was wrong and 15 percent are unsure.

"I'd heard lot of right-wing media say you couldn't support troops without supporting the war. I never bought into that," Mastela said. "It's my protest to put these ribbons together with my message."

But some are not applauding.

"It's a total oxymoron--support the troops and oppose the war. The blood that has been spilled by our heroic soldiers on the battlefield, not just in Iraq and in Afghanistan, has been in vain," said Glenn Clark of Troy, Mich., chairman of the 9th Congressional District's Republican Party.

"These folks are playing in a virtual Disneyland of sorts. They're saying, `Bring our troops home and forget our country has been attacked' ... It's ultra-simplistic, their approach to foreign policy and the war on terrorism."

Though Mastela, husband to an ex-soldier, is against the war in Iraq, he's consigned himself to the fact that America is involved. Since the U.S. military is there anyway, he's decided to support those men and women facing danger every day--unlike the pervasive attitude of the country during the Vietnam War, when opposition to the conflict sometimes extended to soldiers who fought it.

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