L-E missed historic anniversary
Really? The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer is going to let this week pass without even mentioning the valiant 1st Cavalry Division and the monumental battle tin the Ia Drang Valley in Viet Nam
This was the first major engagement of the war between the U.S. and North Vietnamese forces. It took place at Landing Zone X-Ray, Landing Zone Albany & Landing Zone Columbus 50 years ago this week.
I was only 10 years old when word got back to Columbus that Sgt Bernard James Creed had died in a hellish place in the Central Highlands halfway around the world in a place called Viet Nam. Sgt. Creed was a decorated veteran of World War II, Korea and Viet Nam and a wonderful husband and father of six children. He died fighting November 17, 1965 with his men when his 2nd Battalion, 7th Calvary, 1st Calvary Division was ambushed on the way to Landing Zone Albany.
His son James Creed was a classmate of mine. I remember my dad collecting a carload of my classmates and attending the service for his father. I grew up that night.
Even more importantly, I have never forgotten Sgt. Creed and his family for the last 50 years. I expect the reason is because for the last 50 years they have sat down at Thanksgiving without their beloved father and husband.
Again this Thanksgiving, when I sit down with my family, I will remember there is a place missing at the table for the Creed family of Columbus. This Thanksgiving join me, won't you? Together let's remember Sgt. Bernard Creed and the other brave servicemen and women who gave up their lives on the Ia Drang battlefield and countless others throughout the jungles and highlands of Viet Nam.
As my friend James says, "Gary Owen"
Dave Eversman
Columbus
Sad farewell
It is with much sadness that I mourn the passing of Callaway Gardens. I was a close friend of the Gardens for the last 25 years and an aquaintance for another 15 years before that. I have fond memories of the beautiful plants in the Sibley Center and the displays in the "Victory Garden." Since I no longer golf and have been to the butterfly center many times, I see no reason to continue to visit the empty tract where my friend once stood.
Oh, Callaway, you will be missed.
Johnny Watson
Columbus
Politics of fear
I want to thank Gov. Bentley for "his head overcoming his heart" and protecting Alabama through his stand against being "complicit to a policy that places the citizen of Alabama in harm's way." By Tuesday night 26 other governors, almost universally Republican, joined him in declaring they also would prevent the resettlement of Syrian refugees in their respective states.
Certainly fear mongering -- er, protecting citizens from terrorism -- was paramount in his decision. After all, one of the Paris attackers posed as a refugee from Syria. It would have helped Bentley had the rest not been "home grown" terrorists. The Timothy McVeighs of Europe were already there.
It doesn't hurt to obfuscate a sitting Democratic president, especially with an election coming up, and being "tough on immigration" is the current Republican rally cry. It also doesn't hurt that polls show 73% of the white evangelical voters in America, the Republican base, distrusts Muslims. eiled religious bigotry makes it easier for Republicans to protect "us" from "them."
Bentley chose the time-honored myth that states' rights grant governors "supreme executive authority" over their states. Looking beyond the bluster, however, we find the Refugee Act of 1980 gives the president, not individual governors, authority over immigration, a position upheld in Arizona v. United States. It's expected the Supreme Court will strengthen the law by shortly ruling against the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. So Republicans are quietly executing Plan B, scurrying to get congressional counterparts to change the law. They're even threatening to shut down the government -- again.
America doesn't have the immigration problems Europe has because we systematically integrate refugees through a cooperative systemic process involving family, religious and charitable organizations and state and federal governments. It's proven to be a world-class model, one now jeopardized by political opportunity and masked bigotry.
James H. Centric
Phenix City
Crime of malice
The Ledger recently had an article on a man who did not tell his girlfriend, whom he had reportedly dated for one year, that he was HIV positive. An attached editorial-video advocates the relaxing of laws that pertain to the transmission of HIV by a known virus-infected person to an uninfected person.
But it is done in reckless disregard for the human dignity of those trusting people who were infected with the virus in a deceitful ploy of objectification. All extremes end up in the opposite direction if taken too far. The left hand turns of the PC police have ignored the need to protect the rights of those who were violated. Aren't deterrence and penalty for the wrongs on society part of the total issue? In addition to the personal health losses of those unknowingly infected, who pays for the trusted parties' health care? The government? If someone knowingly infected you with the HIV virus do you not think they should spend years in jail? In fact, years is not long enough; a lifelong jail sentence, like the lifelong sentence they delivered to their trusting partners, whom they used like objects, should be dealt to them, and they should surrender all they own to those whom they infected.
Deborah Owens
Columbus
This story was originally published November 19, 2015 at 3:53 PM with the headline "L-E missed historic anniversary ."