I am a little confused. Maybe you can help answer my question: How do I support our troops? Every time I am driving, I am surrounded by cars proudly displaying magnetic ribbons that instruct me to support our troops, but they inevitably leave out the important detail of how I can do so. Pardon me for questioning these drivers' support, but last time I checked, supporting a cause meant actually doing something besides giving $4 to a company usurping patriotism to make a quick buck.

I realize I may sound rather harsh, and I don't mean to generalize. Surely many ribbon-flaunters do take some form of action, but it's probable that the vast majority do nothing else.

What is most disheartening to me is that while this 'support our troops' trend is catching like wildfire, we are doing anything but actually supporting our troops. In fact, our government is putting our troops in needless danger by withholding necessary supplies, but we have yet to put sufficient pressure on the Bush administration to change this. The Boston Globe illustrated this perfectly in a Jan. 4 political cartoon that showed which changed the 'support our troops' on one of these ribbons to 'supply our troops.' Can you imagine if the $4 spent on each ribbon actually went to buying our troops supplies?

But alas, as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld reminded the troops on Dec. 8 after he received a question from a soldier asking about the lack of supplies, 'As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.' Now, this statement is what I would call anything but patriotic.

President Bush is also someone who often fails to 'support our troops' with action, rather than just words. Only this month-more than three years since American troops first went into Afghanistan-is Bush offering higher government payouts to the families of troops killed in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Until now, families received a measly $12,420 of severance pay, if you will. Although money is no equivalent for a loved one, these families deserve a 'death gratuity" and life insurance.

Yet, despite these shortcomings in military policy, very little pressure has been put on the Bush administration by the public. Rather, we see passive support in the form of magnetic ribbons as sufficient. Is this what patriotism has evolved to, an empty aphorism? A notion of, "We'll support you with our words and by adorning our cars, but when it comes to actual support, try again later?"

More importantly, this idea of patriotism has created a vitriolic schism between those perceived to be 'unpatriotic' and so-called 'patriots.' Bush's infamous 'you're either with us or against us' statement has carried over into the argument over patriotism. A popular misconception is that only those who support the war in Iraq support our troops. Is it not possible to oppose the war and still support the troops? Of course it is.

We are all patriots in this sense. None of us wish harm on our troops. We all know the sacrifices they must make to protect our nation. But many of us are not willing to buy into the idea that in order to truly be a patriot, you must support an empty trend.

It has become so increasingly hard to define patriotism in our country that I admit I, too, am rather confused how I can help truly support our troops. This war on terror that we have been hearing about for over three years is being fought on the other side of the world and many of us feel so far removed from it. Especially at Brandeis, few of us know people directly involved who had to drop everything to go fight. The idea of war seems more real to us than the reality of war.

But perhaps we can start our own trend here. Rather than buying a magnetic ribbon, we can write letters to our government putting pressure on them to give the troops what they need to be as safe as possible. We can send our money to the troops. And we can write letters letting them know how much we care, even if we are so far away.

During the first Gulf War, when I was in the second grade, each student in my class wrote a letter to a soldier in Kuwait. I was lucky enough to receive a letter back along with a patch from the soldier to whom I wrote. I wore this patch until the war was over to show my support. Unlike a magnetic ribbon on a car, this patch had true action and meaning behind it.