Violence is Not the AnswerBy Lauryn Olson

Katrina Herrmann, a fifth

grader at the American school in Japan, wakes up every morning feeling half empty because her father is an American soldier posted in Afghanistan.

When my parents explained Nine Eleven, they said someone had high-jacked an airplane and crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City. Thousands of people died because of the crash. I first thought the crash was just an accident, that someone was flying an airplane and missed or something. But I learned the crash was a planned attack on Americans by someone with a huge problem with Americans.

Violence is never the answer. “If you use violence for your problems,” says Hana Aram, a fifth grader at the American School in Japan, “you will just hurt people for no reason.”

I think violence is meaningless and only leads to heart break, but it also takes troops from their families. Military families barely get to talk to their Dad, Mom or siblings that are in the military. I’m sure if these families

were in charge of the world they would have their family members in the military come right home. “I would make all of the troops go back to their families,” says Katrina Herrmann, a fifth grader (at ASIJ), “then, instead of fighting and trying to kill each other I would have them do something else.”

Violence can be started by many different things like, a difference in religion, people trying to get power over people or their property or maybe even a small thing that no one else would care about.“People can get hurt and killed,” says Conner Olson, an eighth grader (at ASIJ), “and the people who are using violence never really get what they want by hurting or killing people.”

Violence should never be a solution or a resource that should be used in any way by anybody. Violence is not the solution, even if someone gets really mad at you and you don’t like them anymore doesn’t mean that you have to hurt them. You could come up with a better solution instead of getting someone hurt and using violence.