Dear President Obama, please get rid of nuclear weapons

The following letter was sent to President Barack Obama on April 23, 2010 by a Chicago high school student.

Dear President Barack Obama,

I heard from my parents that on May 1  countries are having a meeting at the United Nations about if they should disable the nuclear weapons. So I would like to tell you how I fell about it.

I’m a teenager, 14-years-old, and as we get older we should get worried about things that would effect the future, but I’m not worried about the nuclear weapons…I’m afraid of them.

I’m afraid of the nuclear weapons.

I’m afraid that there will be no future.

I’m afraid that half the world will be destroyed by nuclear bombs.

I’m afraid that a war will come for some silly reason and millions of people will die.

This is what I fear…war, bombs, nuclear … death.

I just want a future and so do a whole bunch of children and teenagers like me.

I want to have a job, start a family and get married and have a life when I get older.

I want life and light in the sky, not a world that’s consumed with darkness and death.

Also a reason you shouldn’t have nuclear weapons, you could have saved a lot of money. Think of how that saved money could help the economy and environment. It could fix some jobs and you can make environment-safe technology.

With all that money, you could save it in you budget, instead of using it for making nuclear weapons. If you could listen to my reasons and really convince the other leaders from the countries to disable nuclear weapons then I don’t have to be afraid, and I will see a bright future for the next generation.

From a teenager in Chicago,

Winona Albano Bachtell

Photo: An artist’s rendering of a nuclear winter. http://www.flickr.com/photos/vermininc/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0