In preparation for the distribution of winter coats by a local foundation to schools in inner city Pontiac, an elementary teacher asked her students to make sure they had their old coats with them for the intended exchange. When one little girl showed up on that very cold day without any winter coat, the teacher inquired what had happened. The child matter-of-factly replied: "It's not my day to wear the coat."

This painful story of an impoverished child was told to me by my oldest daughter, the director of the local foundation sponsoring the winter coat program. When I relayed the incident to my wife, she burst into tears and bitterly questioned how such a wealthy country could allow children to be without needed garments.

While tears and volunteers may express compassion for the poor, our attention must also be directed to the way in which our distorted national priorities exacerbate such distress. Years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. asserted: "True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."

In that same powerful address, delivered at Riverside Church one year before his assassination, Dr. King took that nation to task for its squandering of lives and resources in the Vietnam War. In a sentence that retains its ethically- indicting resonance, Dr. King opined: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

One only has to consider the budgetary priorities of the last several years to recognize the continuing tragedy of a nation committed to insatiable military spending. With the Bush Administration and Congress allocating close to half a trillion dollars to the Pentagon, domestic spending suffers. In particular, child care assistance has been slashed while the percentage of federal tax monies devoted to the military increases. In Michigan alone, nearly 1/3 of the average household federal tax dollars goes to feed corrupt military contractors such as Halliburton and the bloated military- industrial complex.

Because of the misplaced priorities of the Bush Administration, the number and percentage of those living below the poverty line has increased. There are now more that 13 million poor children, one in every three of those suffering in poverty. Lacking winter coats and without health insurance, poor children face the blasts of winter with a cold-hearted federal government. Although non- governmental and non-profit agencies try to minister to the poor, they cannot keep up with the growing numbers seeking shelter and food.

Added to this miserly attitude toward the poor is the wasteful spending flowing to the ill-conceived, illegal, and immoral war in Iraq. Already somewhere between 150 and 200 billion has been spent to prosecute the war. As a consequence, over 100,000 Iraqis, mostly women and children, have died with hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children wasting away from malnutrition. The shrouds that have encased the bodies of innocent Iraqis have, for the most part, been hidden from the eyes of America.

The Pentagon has also tried to prevent any pictures of the nearly 1300 US soldiers who have come home in flag- covered caskets. Thousands and thousands of wounded and maimed American soldiers are also being shunted aside, in some cases into under-funded Veterans facilities. Just as the poor are expected to be satisfied with occasional handouts, so those young men and women suffering from the arrogant and errant policies of the likes of Donald Rumsfeld are insensitively told that they just have to make do with what they have, however inadequate it may be.

Of course, nothing is spared in securing Iraq as a resource for the oil lobby friends of George W. Bush and for the permanent establishment of Pentagon bases. So, we, the ever gullible American tax-payers, will soon be confronted with another request from the Administration for anywhere between 70 and 100 billion dollars to prosecute the war in Iraq. How many million winter coats could be purchased for even a one-hundredth of that amount? How much of that money could be used to insure health care coverage for 82 million American children? How much alleviation of poverty and suffering here and abroad could be undertaken if only the American people would say "Enough! Not a penny more for the war in Iraq!"

If there is to be "peace on earth, goodwill to all," let it begin in earnest now and through the coming year in our commitment to stopping any more funding for the war in Iraq. Let this be a time when our compassion challenges a runaway war-machine that blindly and cavalierly exchanges winter coats for death shrouds. And in the process, in the spirit of Dr. King, may we begin to repair the tattered garment of peace.

Fran Shor (aa2439@wayne.edu) teaches at Wayne State University. He is a member of numerous peace and justice organizations.