• Brother’s comrade came home in a coffin • The silent consumers Brother’s comrade came home in a coffin Normally, I do not believe in writing for public review my feelings or opinions of matters. Those who know me know
• Brother’s comrade came home in a coffin
• The silent consumers
Brother’s comrade came home in a coffin
Normally, I do not believe in writing for public review my feelings or opinions of matters. Those who know me know where I stand. I feel I do not need to broadcast and subject others that I do not know to my personal views. However, I can’t stand silent after reading the letter “Cartoon causes stir” (Letters, Nov. 6) by Gini Stoddard of Wailua Homesteads.
My brother and I are one year apart in age and grew up in a Navy family during the Vietman War era. We understand what a polarized nation is. We are also on opposite sides of the spectrum, politically speaking. We have first-hand experience in what a polarized family is. My brother is a former Marine who signed up to go to war in Iraq for his president. He is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican with such a strong conviction for his beliefs that it leaves no room for opposite opinions. Or should I say he was …
We stopped talking about three years ago due to our opposing views. He was sent to Iraq over a year ago and for a long time my only contact with him was through our mother. I was glad to know that he at least was alive. I had no idea where he was in Iraq and what his circumstances were for the first few months.
Then came the early morning phone calls from one of the most hostile areas in Iraq. With each call he was talking more and more like myself.
“The inadequacies of planning, the attitude of his fellow soldiers, the corrupt few Iraqis, the feeling of hopelessness of the Iraqi people, how they want their country back” … on and on it went. He even went so far as to backtalk Rummy and Cheney and Bush.
Now mind you, this is no small feat for a man who thought Bush was the greatest thing since sliced bread. A man who since he was 18 has voted Republican and had managed to convince our 75-year-old Japanese mother to do the same.
By the grace of God, he is home now and after going through a major depression seems to be doing OK. He now swears that Bush is the worst thing to happen to America and her people and apologizes to me often for everything he has said to me and my family regarding politics.
He is worried about the instability in the Middle East and our ability to truly fight terrorism as we are churning out new recruits for the Islamic extremists faster than they could have ever hoped to do.
He wonders how we are going to travel overseas to see our family and my husband’s family. He worries what kind of world his niece will have to inherit with family members scattered all over the globe.
So Gini, according to my Republican brother who has first-hand experience in the war zone, Bush is not doing the “correct thing in the Middle East” and it is not just the “gloom-and-doom Bush-bashers” that harbor a “hatred for this administration.” It goes a bit deeper than that and the line between liberal and conservative continues to blur over this issue.
My brother learned a valuable lesson in listening to opposite viewpoints. It was a hard lesson to learn.
Oh, one more thing: My brother understood the cartoon and was not offended by it. And he has a comrade who came home in a coffin.
Kapa‘a
The silent consumers
I bought my first tank of gas from Costco and was wondering what price I would have been paying if they weren’t here. Have you seen the produce in this big box store? Wow, thank you, Costco. As far as I can see, these big box stores have brought true competition to the island. Competition makes small business better and guess who really prospers from this? We do, the silent consumer. Look at Ace, for example. They knuckled down and found a way to prosper even with the evil big box The Home Depot. If you really want to help us small businesses and have employment for kids to come back to, why don’t you, mayor, start trying to make Kaua‘i a business-friendly island instead of the opposite? Looks like to me, mayor, we silent consumers need protection from you.
Lihu‘e
