Letters from our Readers - December 2005

Mister Ed 
I am concerned as more and more news comes out about the improprieties of Commissioner Ed Rinehart. First it was the sexual harassment charges, then possible political kickbacks for the North Walker Rd. landfill, then his $1000 fine from the Texas Ethics Commission, then his use of county prop­erty for his trucking business and race car hobby, and now a new investigation by the TEC for corporate contributions. Certainly, this all represents “a pattern of abuse”, as opponent Mark Cadwallader says. It’s time for Ed Rinehart to step down.
Victor Patton
Oak Ridge,Tx

Judging Tom DeLay
Parties NOT the solution, they're part of the problem America's two-party system is a catastrophic breakdown of a legendary credible political system that no longer works for the majority of American families. Perhaps DeLay should be tried by a judge supported by the Green Party? After all, Republicans AND Democrats have become such whiners and cry-babies when things go against them, we could be stuck in a trial up to the next millennium. Who better than the "insignificant third" party to rule on this matter? 
Just as unions first emerged to protect American workers from enslavement by powerful employers and companies who abused their rights, the two-party system in American politics evolved from the Whigs and Tories of the Revolutionary Days and were there to protect the rights of their respective members from government autocracy, interference and abusive taxation. And just as unions became frivolous and inadequate towards those ends and in stabilizing American life, our political parties now similarly abuse the system and have developed "franchises" instead that cater to their own special interests. 
In truth, political parties no longer manage America's existence, now the billions of dollars in the Corporate Sector does that. The two-party system has outlived its usefulness and merely appears to be the go-between of government and legislation for special interests. The current political system is for the betterment of corporate American and NOT for American families --- where historically it once was, and where it currently SHOULD be. 
But perhaps DeLay should be reviewed by a jury of "his peers", those same belligerent and primitive sociopathic whining politicos who are ruining the nation for most Americans? Or, perhaps it's the corporate sector who should decide DeLay's fate? Why not let GM, IBM or --- better yet --- Halliburton be the judge of whether Tom DeLay has done anything "wrong"? 
Reality sometimes has a peculiar way of "rearing its ugly head". A politician of DeLay's stealth and power won't have to pay for any wrongdoing in the political world we've created. With his obvious direct link to God, DeLay won't even have to pay for his bullying and multiple "sins" in the next life. It's up to American voters to change this medieval system over time. 
Peter Stern,
Driftwood, TX

Holiday For Heros
Thank you for your moving and well-written words on Veteran's Day. One so very seldom reads such articulate prose in newspapers these days. 
Kay Pierce 
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

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Thank you for writing down thoughts that many of us think and cannot express as well.
You wrote a stirring, eloquent article.
God Bless You!
Karen

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My son is a Plebe at the US Naval Academy and is a member of the wonderful group of young men and women continuing the tradition set by the Founding Fathers of our Nation. I found you article to be right on the money. While I’ve never served in the Armed Forces, many of my family members have. Second hand experience is no substitute for the ugly realities of war, but in my case it serves to consider it a true last resort. Cavalier decisions have cursed the World’s History and many have suffered. We will probably have this condition until the end of time as we know it. Honoring those who served is truly special. Your article help provide me with additional perspective.
Patrick B. Sweeney

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I came across your Veteran's Day column while perusing the Google news page, and wanted to congratulate you for a marvelous piece. It was balanced and thoughtful, and far outstrips the turgid prose found in a lot of our country's more illustrious newspapers. I thought you might like to know the reaction from a Southern California liberal who is appalled at the war-mongering of our current administration, most of whom managed to weasel out of military service themselves and thus never earned the perspective that was so eloquently described in your column. Good work.
Donald Brown
Hollywood, California

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Complements from a guy who read your article, posted on Google, while sitting at his desk in San Diego California.
The by-line reads Music Editor. If you did not miss your calling, you certainly have another: The ability to pen a humble, respectful perspective on a never ending dilemma.
Bill Jansen

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Thank you for www.thebulletin.com/ archives/2005/november/veteransday2005.htm
It's a fine tribute and well done history of the holiday. However, you might want to make a correction in it. You said: "Memorial Day has now become a day of reflection and remembrance -- a day to remember all of 
our fallen heroes from all of the wars." That's true. But today is Veterans Day, as you know and called it in the rest of the article. 
Veterans Day is in honor of all those, living as well as dead, who served with the U.S. armed forces in wartime. History has given us two holidays with (almost) the same purpose. I had to look them up to find 
out whether there was any difference.
Steven Zucker
Manhattan Beach, CA

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I just read your article on Google news. That was powerful . Thank you for stopping us today and making us think. I'm not a veteran ,but have always respected and admired them for their sacrifice. I am printing this off to show to my sons... I think I will put this away for Veterans Days to come
Brian Howard
Sterling Heights MI

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I just finished your splendid essay on the history of the Armistice/Veterans Day holiday. Many things occurred to me while reading it and I would very much like to share them with you, but do not have much time for writing today. However, when I got to the paragraph about Theodore Roosevelt, I remembered a letter to the editor that I had sent some months ago. It never got published, but I thought perhaps you might find it worth reading...
RE: Fathers, Sons, And War (Newsweek June 20, 2005)
I couldn't help but notice a curious omission in your otherwise fine treatment of the special bond between fathers, and the sons who follow them into military service. All four of Theodore Roosevelt's sons fought in France in the First World War, yet you chose only to mention Teddy Jr. who fought in both world wars and was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on the beach at Normandy. But in 1944, Theodore Roosevelt had already been dead for 25 years, and Teddy Jr. was an Army General who would tragically die of a heart attack five days after the landings. 
A better choice would have been to highlight the poignant story of Theodore Roosevelt's youngest son Quentin, who was killed when his airplane was shot down over France on July 14th, 1918. Quentin was only 20 years old at the time of his death, and the news had a devastating effect on his father. Upon reading the unofficial dispatch announcing that Quentin had been shot down over enemy lines 3 days prior, the former president walked back and forth across the length of the piazza at his Sagamore Hill home asking "But Mrs. Roosevelt!" "How am I going to break it to her?" On the following day Roosevelt delivered a speech to the Republican State Convention at Saratoga, and a friend in the audience, Isaac Hunt, later remarked that he had never seen a face marked by such extreme human misery as was Roosevelt's when he mounted the convention dais.
We all are familiar with the story of how Theodore Roosevelt overcame a sickly childhood and went on to become a strenuous man of action, with a well-known fondness for war. Roosevelt was in the forefront of those agitating for America to become involved in the European conflict and when Congress finally did declare war on Germany and Austria in April of 1917, the old lion fully expected his sons to answer the call. Less well known is the grief, perhaps coupled with guilt, which marked the final months of Roosevelt's life. Theodore Roosevelt never fully recovered from the shock of Quentin's death, and he would follow his son to the grave six months later. 
In a letter to her son Kermit, Edith Roosevelt described just how deeply Roosevelt was affected by his youngest son's death. "Quentin's death shook him greatly," she wrote. "I can see how he thinks of him and not the merry happy silly recollections which I have but sad thoughts of what Quentin would have counted for in the future." 
In the end, Theodore Roosevelt finally learned the true meaning of war. 
Scott Tyson
New York, NY

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I don't live in Texas, but travel a great deal as a trucker through it now and then. I just wanted to say "thanks" for you words of remembrance and tribute to all veterans, especially those who served in WWI. I remember seeing a photo of a second cousin of mine dressed in his uniform during the war, and was told by my great aunt that he'd suffered "shell shock". For years, whenever I visited my grandma, in San Diego, I slept in a bedroom in which hung a photo of the ship my grandpa served upon as a blacksmith during the war. 
But perhaps my greatest memory, which made the most impressions upon my mind, were the cemeteries in Holland in and around Maastricht. German cemeteries, unkempt, unvisited most likely or not very often, which further helped me see the uselessness of it all. And if that wasn't enough, most people don't realize that Normandy isn't the only American National Cemetery overseas. There are more in France, Belgium and one in Holland, very near Maastricht (Margraten). 
The administrator there took me up to the top of the monolith there, which gave us a bird's eye view of it. Acres and acres of crosses, interspersed with Star's of David. That most of those boys went home after initial interment there, didn't make the place seem any smaller. And to walk among their graves and see how old they had been has forever left me grateful for any Vet who has served his country. 
I was 21 in 1980 when I was there. I have never forgotten it. And lest anyone think it is always in vain, even if so very stupid that men fight one another, I would strongly encourage a visit to Auschwitz, Poland. Even though I speak fluent Dutch, and believe I can express myself well enough in my own American English, words leave me in attempting to describe the horror of that place, even all these years later. 
God bless all Veterans! 
Allan Beamer 
Provo, Utah 

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I was surfing google's news page and found your article. I enjoyed and appreciated it, but you may want to correct the following:
"Some veterans voice their feelings clearly: Confederate General William T. Sherman’s admonition that “war is hell” is often remembered for its irony..." Sherman was a Union general. 
He is arguably still the most hated civil war personality in the state of Georgia due mostly to "Sherman's March to the sea"
http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/sherman.htm 
Rob Brown 
Indianapolis, IN

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