American World War II veterans stand during the playing of “Taps” at a ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery on the 80th anniversary of D-Day on June 6, 2024, in Colleville-sur-Mer, France. (Win McNamee/Getty Images/TNS)
A military veteran
The official definition of a military veteran is a person who has served in the naval, air, or space military service and was released or discharged honorably. The majority of U.S. Veterans are administratively, or honorably discharged. Being a military veteran means you sacrificed a number of years of your life for the privilege of obeying orders from those of higher rank than you. It meant performing seemingly endless numbers of push-ups and sit-ups or hiking countless miles. Being a U.S. military veteran also means you were willing to fight and die in service to this country. It meant being separated from friends, family and loved ones. You expect to be respected. Not everything in life goes perfectly or according to plan. Too many veterans did not get the help or it wasn’t enough and they ended up poor, hurt or, for some, hungry and homeless. I am a military veteran who reached my goals, and I am proud to have served.
Tom McGorray
Northwest side
Some autopsy
I have some questions for Mr. Johnson and others of his ilk who voted for Trump:
1. Where was the Deep State on election night? Did they go on vacation?
2. What about corrupt election officials and their fraudulent voting machines? Did they forget to turn them on?
Those who voted for Trump will get the country they deserve. Unfortunately, so will the rest of us.
Larry Fleischman
North side
Red-light cameras for Tucson
Rarely do I advocate following Phoenix on any subject, but they have it right about reintroducing red-light cameras. In 2015, just over 53,000 Tucson voters approved Proposition 201 to eliminate the cameras, with more than 27,000 voting to keep them. For context, there were in excess of 500,000 registered voters in Pima County at that time. County residents, even though impacted, did not get to vote. So, yes, the “no camera” contingent won, but it can hardly be called a sweeping decision based on the total population. Yet the toll in injuries and deaths has been far-reaching. If it takes another Proposition to get 201 rescinded, there hopefully is now sufficient community support to make that a reality.
Sherry Kay
Northeast side
Tucson High School 100th celebration
It was my pleasure to be able to attend the 100th-year celebration of the Tucson High School Main Building. The program directors, Tom Riesgo and Jerry Strutz, did an outstanding job organizing, along with other board members, the event. There were wonderful displays of veterans’ photos and descriptions of their service.
As the names of the more than 830 men and women veterans were read, I felt proud of these persons who served our country. In my class of 1953, Joseph Villegas left school to join the Marines to serve in the Korean War. He was killed serving our country,
Thanks also to Burt Kinerk for his talk down ‘memory lane’ and to General Al Crawford, who spoke on behalf of the Tucson High Veterans.
Julieta Bustamante
Portillo, Tucson HIgh
graduate, Class of 1953
Downtown
Obituaries
Putting an obituary into the Arizona Daily Star is very expensive. I am surprised a magnifying glass isn’t included in the bill. The tiny print and photo of a deceased relative is very disrespectful. If the editors need more space for people to submit a memorial of their loved ones, get rid of the unfunny “Funny” pages.
Esther Richter
Foothills
Trump invading Mexico
From Sunday’s recap of President-elect’s Trump’s agenda, we may be on the verge of another invasion of Mexico to carry out U.S. military strikes on organized crime groups, which he’s said should be designated “foreign terrorist organizations.” This effort is unlikely to succeed. Those who have read history will remember that in 1916, President Wilson sent thousands of U.S. soldiers to Mexico in the “Punitive Expedition” to punish Pancho Villa for attacking Columbus, New Mexico, killing American citizens and soldiers. That effort failed. The only local result has been to erect a statue to Pancho Villa in downtown Tucson. Interesting that as so many statues of those who attacked the United States in the Civil War have been removed, the statue of Pancho Villa remains. He was an early international terrorist, committed atrocities in Mexico and killed Americans. Our city council still allows our own memorial to a terrorist.
David Germain
East side
Enemies from without
Trump has made it clear that as president, he will exact revenge on our “enemies from within,” journalists, liberals and the DOJ, to name just a few. How ironic that in the meantime the FBI, whom Trump detests and denigrates, has uncovered a plot by Iranian Revolutionary Guard assassins to kill him. If Trump is determined to seek revenge on his enemies from within, perhaps he should start with the enemies from without first.
Jeff Aronson
Northeast side
Celebrating Arizona’s cage-free leadership
I admire Arizonans as they join the ranks of people mandating cage-free housing for egg-laying hens. Tucson restaurateur, Grant Krueger, questions the value of this mandate because of its potential economic impact on businesses and customers.
Hopefully, Mr. Krueger considers the moral implications of rejecting democratically won welfare improvements for some of the most vulnerable, exploited creatures providing our food.
New cage-free guidelines require an average of just one square foot per hen, an improvement from the even more egregious confinement suffered by most industrial-laying chickens.
When slavery ended, slave owners suffered economic harm. However, abolition was the right thing to do. Raising the abysmal welfare standards of our industrially produced hens comes at a cost but remains the right thing to do.
Short-term profits from deceptively cheap food have damaged our rural economies, family farms, health, environment, and moral integrity. Let us celebrate Arizonans’ courageous leadership!
Jennifer Lippmann
Niskayuna, New York
Sour grapes
After reading recent letters to the editor, I am positive that Tucson should “A” secede from Arizona & “B” secede from the United States of America! With the left-leaning Arizona Daily Star’s help you could look for new status in either Mexico or Canada. That way, you won’t have to tolerate the way Americans have voted for a new president! It’s very obvious that between your continual effort to print so much anti-Trump propaganda from national news and even your local opinions that this has been a bitter pill to swallow! I doubt you will print this, but recently you actually had two pro-Trump opinions in a sea of anti-Trump haters, as I had explained in my last letter to the editor that you didn’t print! Your paper has made it so toxic for anyone that would have voted for Trump to just say nothing. I hope you choke on your lies & hatred of Trump. We endured four years with Sleepy Joe!
Brian T Haukereid
Bisbee
Climate change
John Diamond talks about all the advantages to the economy by Trump becoming president but he doesn’t say anything about the damage and deaths by trying to reverse the rules and practices Biden tried to promote to save the environment. I have no idea how many lives will be lost to the increased pollution nor the cost to the world in years to come.
Harry Whitney
Catalina
Elections then and now
By 1972, along with many Americans, I had long since become convinced of the wrongness and futility of our nation’s war in Vietnam. The Democratic Party chose as its presidential candidate a persistent and principled opponent of the conflict, Senator George McGovern. Being unconstrained by gainful employment, I volunteered at the McGovern office in San Francisco full-time beginning around Labor Day. At about 7:30 p.m. on Election Day, I was knocking on doors in Bayview, a largely Black neighborhood in San Francisco, urging people who had not yet voted to do so before the polls closed at 8. Folks pointed to their TVs and laughed. it was all over. George McGovern had been very solidly trounced. It turned out he won Massachusetts, and northern California which sadly had no electoral votes.
I survived; the nation survived. We’ll survive this one.
Frank Bergen
Northwest side
Musk oil
Donald “Drill Baby Drill” Trump has promised us lots of cheap gasoline and fossil fuels. He will open public lands to drilling to keep us up to our necks in oil and gasoline. Trump has also promised to stop making it easier to buy electric cars. Trump promises no more incentives for electric cars. Electric cars are wrong for America. Elon Musk put $175 million in a campaign to get Trump elected. Musk made his fortune developing and selling electric cars. Now Musk will be put in charge of government efficiency. And the insanity goes on ...
Richard Bechtold
West side
Well done, America
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.
Unless you spew forth a never-ending litany of vicious lies, racist insults, threats and grievances, with the promise of being the only savior. Then, with the approval of the Supreme Court, the addled consumer populace of selfish, critical thinking impaired, proudly ignorant citizens is an easy target. The deck has been stacked.
The lesson soon to be learned is that electing someone with a decompensating pre-psychotic borderline personality disorder with paranoid, grandiose and narcissistic features is not a good idea.
Well done, America, and all those politicians, faux journalists, attorneys and judges who have enabled and facilitated this disaster. What could go wrong? We’ll soon find out.
Jeff Whitmore, Psy.D.
Midtown
The auspicious sign
Donald Trump unburdened me of another great fear on Saturday when it was announced Mike Pompeo would not be joining his cabinet.
This was the sign I needed to show me that perhaps Trump has learned from first-term missteps. By overlooking Pompeo, Trump is declaring loud and clear that conscienceless, war-itchy neocons have no place in this visionary administration.
But I also detect an honor-bound commitment to the pledges Trump made while campaigning, to men and women in hardhats, with callused hands and weather-beaten work boots, and to that vast hopeful sea of resolutely supportive red caps.
In two such campaign promises, Trump vowed to end the perverted indoctrination of school children and to deport illegal migrants.
The inference is that these will be more than Band-Aid fixes, that with his election mandate, Trump will overhaul the education system and sign into law immigration reforms that will impregnably safeguard against a future invasion.
Good luck, President-elect Trump. I know you won’t let us down.
Scott R. Hammond
Downtown
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