Support our troops today
I am privileged to live in the greatest nation in the world! This is due in large part to our brave troops who have served through the years.
As Veterans Day approaches, Nov. 11, 2013, I would like to thank all who serve and have served in our armed forces.
There is never enough we can do for you, for what you are doing and have done for us! I ask of you, who read this letter, to petition the Congress and Senate, as I do, for better treatment of our military men and women. Also to give whatever it takes in material and manpower to bring this war to a quick conclusion and bring our brave heroes home.
Do not believe everything you read through the media about non-support for our troops. These people are in the minority!
Let's fly the American flag proudly, write the Congress and demand they build better hospitals and staff them with the best doctors, for the care of wounded veterans. Also post yellow ribbons in support of our troops until every one of our brave souls has returned home.
Troops we love you and are extremely proud of you.
GENE O. WAGNER JR.
Going green will stimulate city
The race toward a balanced lifestyle has begun! Operations such as Bike Chattanooga Transit and the Chattanooga Market are two of many ways to stay active and find sources of clean eating from a local standpoint.
Other programs like the Bessie Smith Cultural Center and the annual Multicultural Fair exist as educational bridges to close gaps. The drive for "going green," expanding horizons, and stimulating the local economy is becoming an important part of Chattanooga culture.
Witnessing such revolution, it becomes obvious the changes that need to be made on a broader perspective. When considering the global health and socioeconomic crises, one should feel urged to share knowledge needed to begin and maintain a clean and locally sustained lifestyle.
Chattanooga's firming stance is a beginning foundation for what could be furthered. With the ideas that have been grown locally, it is now time to plant the seeds elsewhere and help them flourish.
MORGAN SELL, Chattanooga
U.S. wrong on Vietnam
Jane Fonda's cameo appearance in the movie "The Butler" opened an old wound with a reader of the paper who called her a "traitor" because of her antiwar activities in Vietnam.
She subsequently apologized for seeming to blame our soldiers for the horror; whereas the real guilt and treachery was by Johnson and Nixon who ordered the debacle. They were traitors to American ideals of being a peaceful, noble nation. I attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1971 for a very tense, informative week.
The information provided by the North Vietnamese and Provisional Revolutionary Government turned out to be valid as contrasted to the American delegation. George McGovern was right, but right before the majority caught on. Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, who was called "the architect of the Vietnam War" much later admitted, "we were wrong, terribly wrong."
We could have saved thousands of lives and millions of dollars if our government had paid attention to citizens who were brave enough to cite facts. Iraq and Afghanistan were Bush's and Obama's Vietnam.
If our government had listened to the better informed protesters, the Vietnamese could have been making Nike shoes for us 30 years sooner.
FRED H. WRIGHT, Ph.D