Dear Editor:

During the earliest days of the American Civil War, folks would pack picnic lunches and head off to battlefields to watch the fighting like it was a football game and they were in the stands. After four years of war their feelings changed radically from novelty to profound grief.

I thought of that naivete today (Jan. 6) as my heart broke watching the events in Washington, D.C. unfold. Folks waving and hamming it up for news cameras, sitting at Capitol office desks smiling like they were at a picnic tell me that they have no understanding of what their insurrection means. Love of America is not in their hearts. There is much film footage of people bypassing Capitol metal detectors, entering the building, breaking glass doors and destroying federal property. These perpetrators should be arrested and charged with insurrection. All of their agitators, government and civilian, should be charged with and prosecuted for sedition.

Our American experiment must survive in peace and with respect for each other. This is not the way.

Laura Lee Keating

Cortlandt Manor, New York

and East Boothbay