In regard to the article on the protests against U.S. aid to El Salvador (Part B, Jan. 18), I would like to relate an experience I had on Jan. 10 when I was one of the people who performed

civil disobedience. Upon being released from custody, I encountered two Salvadoran men who asked me if I had been among those arrested. When I answered yes, they thanked me profusely, one of

them saying that his father would thank me too except that he had been killed by death squads in El Salvador in 1980. Both would have joined the protest themselves but for fear of

deportation. Simultaneously moved and ashamed, I could only reply that it wasn’t like going to jail in El Salvador and anyway I had no choice; I had to take responsibility for what my tax