Letters

A “funny” thing happened while we were napping — we lost our Republic.
Usually on this special day (Thanksgiving) we speak to and honor the founding documents and their inspired speeches of the greatest nation on earth.
But those documents have been systematically shredded and we find ourselves gripped in a progressive nightmare beyond our comprehension.

Gerald Largen’s Thanksgiving column was excellent.  He gave thanks for friends and mentioned Hal Jones who had recently passed away. 
My wife, Jean, and I also remember Hal, whom we knew though his sister, Selma Myers.
Gerald also put forth a cogent explanation of concern about the possibility of the soon to be vacated Harriman hospital being taken over by the Veterans Administration. 
It was much better stated than my sort of similar thoughts.
Jim Leitnaker
Kingston

How many suicide bombers would al Qaida or the Taliban have sacrificed in order to eliminate these two generals, David Petraeus and John Allen?
Yet, we are doing it for them because of a private tryst and a flood of emails that conflict with an antiquated Uniform Code of Military Justice article that requires marital fidelity of our military officers who live from day to day and year to year in combat zones far from their spouses.

The U.S. government keeps a lot of secrets it doesn’t want you to know about.

Inadvertently, I read some declassified material I obtained from a fellow who worked in a nuclear byproduct dump.

It had some horrifying details about the nuclear pollution in Watts Bar Lake  and the Tennessee River.

It seems as though there were releases of strontium 90, cesium and, I think, tritium. Some have 6,000-year half lives.The main concentration is right out in the bend at Kingston City Park.