LETTERS

Philippines memories

Upon reading, after the recent typhoon, of a veteran recalling his time in the Philippines during World War II, I too remembered Tacloban at the invasion of Leyte Gulf, and I too felt great sympathy for the lovely people of the Philippines, as they were devastated by the typhoon.

I was a member of the 5th Air Force, 85th Fighter Wing, and had hedgehopped from Milne Bay, Dutch New Guinea, island by island, to Hollandia, New Guinea, and there we staged to invade Leyte. We arrived on Leyte (Leyte Gulf) on D-Day + 6 by landing ship transport three days after Mr. John Baran. By the time we arrived, the dead bodies had been buried by the Quartermaster Corps, and we set up our tents near their graves.

Our group set up operations on the airfield at Tacloban where we plotted air activities for the area. Our next assignment was staging for the invasion of Japan. When the atomic bomb ended the war in 1945, our group went on rotation to be sent home. I arrived in Little Rock (Hillcrest) on Christmas Eve 1945 after 33 months in the service, and have been here since.

RAYMOND D. TROILLETT Little RockPlan just might work

Have you seen the Economic Freedom Zone “plan” Rand Paul proposes for Detroit’s salvation? Those most opposing his proposal seem to represent the thinking that brought on the mess in the first place.

Why can’t we learn from the 60+ years of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty that making people wholly dependant on the government does not make them free (economically or in any other way)? Couple this with what we’ve done to the American Indian for the last couple of hundred years and you would think we would learn something from the obvious evidence.

If President Barack Obama is correct in saying we cannot carry on a war on forever, at some point the War on Poverty and dependency creation must also end.

If this Freedom Zone idea is tried (isn’t it time to try something different?) in Detroit and is successful, my guess is it would work throughout the U.S. All we have to lose is the blight and ruin; what we have to gain is ourselves. If it doesn’t work, we’re no worse for the trying.

RONALD HILL Hot Springs VillageHow end will be met?

Being in the last quarter of my life, I expect to meet my end from heart disease, cancer or Alzheimer’s. After reading the recent National Geographic piece on rising ocean levels, I realize that climate change may add more possibilities: An EF-5 on-steroids tornado Fracking wells waking up New Madrid (earthquake crack = free funeral) Drowning by gullywasher Heatstroke Drought-related wildfire Toxic-groundwater poisoning

On an overpopulated planet with climate refugees seeking new places to live because of shrinking land masses, I expect escalating human conflict and violence. On the bright side, my heirs may be pleasantly surprised to find that my Arkansas address has become oceanfront property.

BETTY HUNT North Little RockCupcakes aren’t cheap

Just doing a little year-end figurin’.

Head Coach Bret Bielema was paid $3.2 million this year and won three games. That’s about $1.07 million per cupcake.

I’d say ol’ Bret cut himself a pretty fat hog. Wouldn’t you?

SCOTT VAUGHN North Little RockWorse drugs out there

I think people who know marijuana know that all it primarily does is give you a peaceful, easy feeling and better ability to do very wide-ranged thinking as you ponder the logics. Marijuana also leave no ghastly repercussions such as hangovers and nauseations like alcohol and some other drugs do.

Now, on the other hand, alcohol can make me and many others ornery, pugnacious and liable to misjudge everything. I think alcohol is likely the most preferred date-rape concoction since it can make someone become plumb mentally and physically incapacitated by drinking too much.

So alcohol gets my vote as the heaviest drug, and if people are fine with it being legalized, then they should have no problems with a softer drug like marijuana being legal.

But I am against legalizing marijuana only for medicinal purposes because this will probably make so many feign ailments to get it. And due to the astronomical prices they charge for medicinal marijuana, then it will be the government buying what is practically a free-growing weed for all these people because the doctorsordered it and Obamacare rules.

We are now seeing prescription pharmaceutical drugs becoming a catastrophic menace with so many people becoming heavily addicted. The most prevalent and widely abused pharmaceutical drugs are the opiates, which are derivatives of opium.

So again, if we are okay with all these people doing alcohol and opium, then all this squawk about marijuana doesn’t make sense.

GARY McLEHANEY BentonComplicit in deaths

Recently there was a story of Mexican Bishop Miguel Patino Velazquez, who is heroically battling the druggangs who are inflicting death and destruction upon the Mexican people to such an extent that the rule of law itself is jeopardized. What wasn’t said but should havebeen is that it is Americans who are responsible for this violence and chaos.

It is Americans who are consuming the marijuana, the methamphetamine,the cocaine that the drug cartels are producing. I believe American drug users, thus, are directly responsible for the death of Mexicans; the blood of these Mexicans is on their hands.

All of this is directly relevant for Arkansans in that we are, once again, confronted with the misbegotten idea that we should legalize marijuana. The predictable, nay inevitable, result likely will be an increase not only in the consumption of marijuana, but also (since marijuana is a gateway drug) of hard drugs. Which, in turn, will fuel the Mexican drug cartels and (thus) the violence in Mexico.

So: When you are confronted by one of these petitioners, reflect on this fact: You are contributing, whether you like it or not, to Mexican drug deaths. You sign; a Mexican dies. Reflect on that.

J. FRED HART JR. Little RockAll that for so little …

Re Obamacare: So much angst and consternation, not to mention money, and less than 400,000 show up for the party.

BRAD CROMLEY Little Rock