“What a Great 4th!”

This column presents a conservative viewpoint about items of interest in our community and our lives. Focus is on items impacting your pocket book, your personal freedoms, and your rights. I hope you will read the column regularly and it occasionally influences your opinions and actions.
I must be getting soft in my old age, but I found myself choking up emotionally during this holiday weekend. I hope you felt something special also.

It began on Thursday when the county turned out to welcome the 144th back home. To see the huge crowd of patriotic Jackson County citizens lining the streets, eagerly waving flags and banners as the fire trucks passed through town loaded with returning soldiers who were proudly waving and smiling at the crowd was a wonderful way to begin the Forth of July holiday. I felt a surge of patriotism and gratitude…both to the returning hero’s and to the patriotic citizens who were cheering them.

Then out at the Armory the ceremony itself was meaningful as the community showered the assembled troops with praise, gratitude, gifts, and love. To hear States Attorney Glenn Hess give his thanks, while he himself was a Viet Nam War pilot, and currently has a son serving in dangerous areas of Afghanistan. He could hardly speak from choked up emotions.

When the welcoming remarks were over and the troop formation was dismissed, another wave of emotion filled the room as families reunited. Children cried and hugged their dads and moms after months of separation. Dads picked up young babies and examined them – some for the first time. Beautiful young wives embraced their hero husbands and sobbed as they kissed. This revealed the real level of human sacrifices which have been endured during their year long ordeal in a hostile land far away from the green fields of Jackson County.

Because this war against those Moslem radicals who wish to destroy our society and hope to destroy Christianity is being fought through a political agenda instead of a purely defensive patriotic agenda, we are only putting forth a small measure of our potential force to resist them. This approach did not work in Viet Nam, and is equally foolish in the Middle East.

I favor mustering our might to a level which will overwhelm our foes quickly, totally, and permanently. Then we can rebuild and depart. This is the only approach which makes sense. To dibble dabble in half fought wars is costly…both in resources and lives. We need to elect politicians who will take politics out of national defense. We should never tolerate killing and being killed in a half hearted manner.
Rudiments: Odds and Ends Worth Mentioning-

• How many years does a person have to draw unemployment before we quit calling it unemployment and start calling it Welfare?

• It appears that the reason the Administration refused the offer of a fleet of Dutch skimmers at the onset of the BP oil well blowout in the Gulf was in recognition of the provisions of the “Jones Act”. This was a pro-union act passed in 1920 in order to assure that all vessels used to perform transportation or services between US ports were built at US union controlled ship yards, were crewed by union member merchant marine crews, and operated from Longshoremen maintained ports. Thus, it was their loyalty to the union movement that led to this decision which worsened the amount of oil now reaching our shores….I thought they were environmentalist? It seems that union money speaks louder than birds can sing.

• Work is progressing on what I perceive as two unnecessary, inappropriate, and wasteful projects. These projects were fostered by ill conceived grants from the state, and/or by bad, selfish decisions made by local officials. I am specifically referring to the “sidewalk to nowhere’ project which is wasting a million dollars to provide a sidewalk to the new high school; and the construction of a four lane promenade into the airport industrial park. I suppose the rush hour traffic from all of the employees working in all of those factories at the park justifies this expenditure of over $300,000.

• The reality of the story is that the grant money was available, and instead of refusing the funds for use in another area for some worthwhile project…we decided to waste the money here. We took the old “If we don’t spend it someone else will,” approach. We need to elect officials who are willing to do what is “right” instead of taking a selfish, wasteful approach if we are serious about changing wasteful government practices, locally, statewide, and nationally.

• (Always say at least one thing nice…) Soldiers of the 144th...THANK YOU FOR YOUR SACRAFICE AND SERVICE!

Note: The opinions stated in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Hatcher Publications.