Let me clarify: these same kids were allowed to sing these same songs (no 'real' Christmas songs, this was a "winter concert") in the auditorium for two days for two sets of parents, prior to the field trip. Now, admittedly, I got this information from my seven year old, but the teacher did acknowledge that these three children would not be attending the field trip to the American legion. My daughter asked one of the kids why he couldn't go and he said (I paraphrase)'my mother doesn't want me to visit American soldiers because they hurt muslims'. This may just be these particular parents. Perhaps in other classes going on this field trip, there was no problem. I can only speak to what happened in my daughter's class. I think its pretty clear it was the American Legion that stuck in the craw, not the music.
It wasn't that the Afghans around here (we have something like 60,000 of them locally) were against the war ~ but that they were human and that's how they expressed their anxiety.
We'd stopped in a local Afghan store to pick up some bread that evening and there were people crying so terribly they couldn't see to make change.
I don't know what they tell their kids to keep them out of Christmas season merrymaking but they don't attend either, and it's not about our soldiers. Good grief, we have Afghan neighbors who are our soldiers.