Letters: Readers discuss voting Trump, the National Guard, Scouts and Journey to a New Life
Wrong reason
Thank you for your feature “Choosing Trump.” (Feb. 12, 13A).
I have been puzzled, frankly, by the fierce aversion to Hillary Clinton in the election and have sought other articles for reasons — none of them, in my mind, accounting for voters’ willingness to choose Donald Trump over her.
Statements from your readers labeled, “It’s the Clintons, stupid,” reveal, finally, that the choice to vote against Clinton in favor of the man who won turn out to be more shallow and short-sighted than I had imagined.
Robert Stewart
Prairie Village
Honorable action
Last weekend, four members of the Kansas Army National Guard’s 35th Military Police Company drove hours to get to the middle of nowhere by 8:15 a.m. to show a group of young Boy Scouts how to properly raise an American flag.
The four enlisted servicemen and women did not know each other, but they quickly assembled, shared ideas and allowed the ranking servicewoman to lay a plan for her newly formed team.
They performed flawlessly. The sight of the stars and stripes whipping against a bright blue sky made me swell with pride.
After the ceremony, the guardsmen and women volunteered an hour to discuss service to others.
We should be honored that our young guardsmen are willing to give of themselves so freely and openly for the betterment of the future.
I would like to publicly thank the leadership of the Kansas Army National Guard, the 35th Military Police Company and the state coordinator for military funeral honors, Rod Moyer. These are outstanding members of our community. I am proud of their contributions to the development of youth in our state.
Robert Wilson
Shawnee
Restore funding
There is a great nonprofit in Kansas City called Journey to New Life.
It provides food, housing and job training for women who have been recently released from prison. The average recidivism rate in Missouri is 35 percent, conservatively estimating. If you include people who return to prison because of probation violations, the recidivism rate might be 60 percent or higher. Journey to New Life’s clients have a recidivism rate of less than 5 percent.
It is funded in part by the state, but the project reaps net savings for the state of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. It also reduces crime and helps women re-entering society to be good mothers.
One of Gov. Eric Greitens’ first official actions was to cut all state funding for Journey to New Life. Greitens is clearly a very smart person. This was not a smart decision. I urge him to reconsider.
Gregg Lombardi
Kansas City
Real ID
I have relatives living on a military base and cannot visit them using a Missouri driver’s license. My passport expires in March, and I cannot justify renewing it. I am a senior citizen and most likely will not live 10 more years, the lifespan of a passport.
Lawmakers should get our state in line with other states and comply with Real ID requirements. (Feb. 16, 5A, “Missouri lawmakers want to push back at federal rules on ID”)
Harold Wears
Lowry City, Mo.
With interest I read the complaints from a couple of legislators to the Missouri attorney general regarding Real ID requirements: “The letter to [Josh] Hawley states that the people of Missouri ‘want their privacy’ and do not want ‘arbitrary conditions set forth by the government under the guise of security.’ ”
It seems funny to me that the same legislators have said they want similar arbitrary conditions under the guise of protecting against voter fraud.
GOP of Missouri, thy name is hypocrisy.
Dennis Nicely
Overland Park
Colors of fear
I think President Donald Trump should reinstate the George W. Bush-era Homeland Security Advisory System’s color codes to alert us to threats, as it did after the 9/11 attacks.
You remember the colors: Green meant “low threat,” all the way up to red’s “severe threat.” I never would never go out in those days when the news was showing us a red-coded alert. Too, too risky.
Trump tells us that he now knows how much danger we are in because, as president, he has insider information. Bringing back that old system and tweeting us seems like the right thing to do so we can all be as afraid and anxious as he thinks we ought to be.
And we ought to be very, very afraid. He wants us to be very, very afraid. And he ought to know.
Marianne Ronan
Kansas City
This story was originally published February 18, 2017 at 8:30 PM with the headline "Letters: Readers discuss voting Trump, the National Guard, Scouts and Journey to a New Life."