"I saw on the news a lot about Vietnam, and how people would come back and they weren't welcomed," the Rye High School senior said yesterday.

There may be parallels between the Vietnam and Iraq wars, but Walsh, 17, and many of her classmates are determined to not repeat the antagonism felt by soldiers of their parents' generation.

Wearing olive drab T-shirts and black caps, members of the school's My Soldier Club set out to raise money and awareness with a four-mile walk through the city on a brisk fall morning yesterday. This wasn't a pro-war rally or even a protest march. These students fall on both sides of the issue.

But this day was all about those who are in harm's way.

"Even if you don't believe in the cause," Walsh said, "we still have to support the troops because we value their lives. This is our way of showing that we're proud of them for fighting for our country."

My Soldier was formed 11 months ago at Manhattanville College in Purchase by Juan Salas, a student who had just returned from a 14-month deployment in Iraq. Salas recalled how a letter from home was like gold.

"What I wanted to do was support my friends who were still there, about 200 of them," Salas, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Venezuela, said yesterday.

Today, My Soldier has 400,000 participants nationwide and a Web site, www.mysoldier.com. The organization, which has been featured on Fox News and NBC's "Today" show, is still based at Manhattanville, director of community relations Anne Gold said.

By signing up, participants commit to write the soldier they adopt at least once a month, though some write daily. The club at Rye High School also sends monthly care packages, supports families whose relatives are away, and plans to buy holiday gifts for victims of Hurricane Katrina who have family in the military.

Senior Lauren Friscia proposed the idea at her school after hearing about it on the news. She considers her soldier, Black Hawk crew Chief Justin Brown of Memphis, Tenn., a close friend and chats with him online regularly.

The soldier Rye senior Stephany Valencia adopted only made it halfway through his first letter to her before he was killed in Mosul on Jan. 28. Army Pfc. Stephen Castellano found time to tell Valencia how he enjoyed boxing and poetry. She doesn't regret adopting the Long Beach, Calif., native and has followed his family's encouragement to write to another soldier.

"I'm proud I did it because it connects the whole situation that people are dying out there for us," she said.