Pre-Veterans Day reflections
My brother lives in your circulation area. This letter is for him, and his many brothers in arms.
My brother was just a teenager when he signed up with his best buddies to fight the Vietnam War. He lost his two friends almost immediately, then spent a year in the jungle, and then another, trying to keep his body and mind intact with the help of his brother soldiers. They had such high hopes for defending America against the threat of communism.
What a shock when they came home to scorn from their own countrymen. Our Vietnam veterans never got their parade, and I think many of them feel forgotten and disillusioned about their great service to our country. Please let them know many of us out here do have a clue what sacrifices they made. I'm sorry it's taken us so long to say: Thank you, we love you, welcome home.
Terry Moore
Mountain View, Mo.
Are we trying to lose?
Listen up, Republicans: Stop buying the snake oil! A man, Trump, who puts mammon as his God should not be president. Trump also promotes eminent domain, one of the most un-American concepts since communist socialism. And, a man (Carson) who thinks Medicare and health insurance should be replaced with savings accounts should not be president. No one can save enough money to cover all medical expenses for their entire life. It's smoke and mirrors to get to the White House.
In addition, this country was built on the former slave labor of the black population; now Mexicans are sustaining us in our food supply, and the foundations of the baby-boomers' Social Security.
Agriculture is the number one industry in Gerogia. The undervalued Mexican labor force here is the majority of crop workers. They are "unauthorized" Mexican workers, and no one else will take those hard jobs. We cannot survive without them! Anyone who says that 11-12 million people should/could be deported is either delusional or lying.
If you are Republican and have a reasonable amount of humanity, and you are clear thinking, stop letting the right-wing media, which promotes and is paid for more and more sensationalism, dictate your morality and lack of compassion in regard to the Mexicans. The extreme media are pushing us into extreme polemics and gridlock in Washington.
Do not contribute to those who are dictating an unreasonable and bad policy. Stop acting like the Dems are our enemy. Start acting like we need to include blacks and Mexicans and address their needs, or see the Hillary vote take the presidency.
Deborah Owens
Columbus
Dress rehearsal
Robert Simpson wrote a commentary on the December 7th Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and some of the myths associated with that attack. I want to add an historical event that led up to that attack which most people have never heard.
Sunday, February 7, 1932, Pearl Harbor was attacked by 152 planes from a fleet of two aircraft carriers and three escort destroyers. The attack was conducted from Northeast of Pearl Harbor during the winter months where the radar could not see them during the frequent storms that time of year. The attack was also on Sunday when most sailors would be off duty. The planes used flares and bags of flour in their attack so the referees of the war games could judge Admiral Harry E. Yarnell's planned attack. The results were that every ship in Pearl Harbor was sunk and every land based plane was destroyed. The two carriers used in the attack were the USS Saratoga and USS Lexington.
The Japanese War College studied this attack in 1936 and implemented their close version of it on December 7, 1941. Rear Adm. Harry E. Yarnell proved that the aircraft carriers were the future, but in the meantime the United States built four aircraft carriers and twelve battleships.
Sometimes you wonder why our leaders and politicians can't see the future when presented with the hard facts.
Richard Tieken
Columbus
It starts at home
In all the hoopla about the police officer dragging the student out of her desk in Columbia, where is the indignation that students are allowed to disobey their teachers, school administrators and police just because they want to? In virtually every case of "police brutality" if the "victim" had obeyed instructions, the "brutality" would have never occurred. I taught my children to respect authority something that is sorely lacking in today's society.
Margie Watson
Columbus
Bad news, good news
Thank you to the World Health Organization for having the courage to speak truth to power: meat, like cigarettes and asbestos, does cause
cancer! No U.S. health agency would ever say this for fear of losing congressional funding.
The World Cancer Research Fund and a number of other international health agencies have been advising for years that meat consumption raises the risk of colon and other forms of cancer, but the WHO panel was actually able to determine a causal effect.
The 630-page report was drafted by a panel of 22 experts from ten countries who reviewed 800 studies of the link between meat and cancer. These included animal experiments, studies of human diet and health, and research into cellular processes that cause cancer.
The panel's conclusions evoked strong responses, with obvious resistance from the meat industry and calls for warning labels, akin to those mandated for cigarettes, from environmental groups.
Cancer of the colon is expected to kill nearly 50,000 Americans this year, mostly through a self-inflicted diet. Fortunately, annual per capita U.S. meat consumption has dropped by 15% from a high of 121 pounds in 2002, as consumers switch to healthier, more convenient, and tastier plant-based alternatives.
Jeffery Bauman
Columbus
This story was originally published November 3, 2015 at 1:14 PM with the headline "Pre-Veterans Day reflections ."