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Letters

How about some recognition?

Why is it that there has been no Presidential Unit Citation awarded for all of the Corps’ outstanding achievements and heroics in Afghanistan? We have been over there for nearly eight years. Also, why did the Marines not get a PUC for the Fallujah operations in November 2004, or for President George W. Bush’s surge in Ramadi in 2007? It makes no sense. The actions in these operations were more heroic and outstanding than the invasion of Iraq in 2003, yet there hasn’t been an awarding of the PUC to a Marine unit since then.

Staff Sgt. Stephen Dixon

Monterey, Calif.

IT’S TIME TO END ‘DON’T ASK’

The June 15 editorial [“Don’t rush ‘don’t ask’”] seems to be an implicit endorsement of banning homosexuals from serving in the military.

The editorial staff is certainly allowed to express this view, but I am optimistic that President Barack Obama and the Pentagon have a view that seeks to promote service in the military by allowing all who are willing to serve to do so.

The statement that allowing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender personnel to openly serve is a “distraction” serves to insult those LGBT currently proudly in uniform, and their families, especially those who have been injured or killed in combat. It also serves as a continuing excuse for refusing to bring the military into the 21st century.

The editorial implies that when there are no more wars nor domestic troubles, then would be the perfect time to discuss overturning “don’t ask.”

However, the opposite argument seems to hold more water. We are at a time of two major combat operations, as well as our other global and domestic missions, when we need to expand our force strength. Now is the time to stop kicking out qualified personnel of all ranks simply because of sexual orientation.

I look forward to our policies catching up with where the American people already are, and those of the “old guard” being brought kicking and screaming into the present (as usual).

Former Army Capt. Phillip Gilfus

Fayetteville, N.C.

SURVIVOR BENEFITS FIGHT

Just wanted to thank you for the wonderful editorial regarding the Survivor Benefit Plan/Dependency and Indemnity Compensation offset [“End burdensome offsets,” June 22]. I am one of those widows whose husband contributed to the Survivor Benefit Plan and paid into it each payday so I would benefit by half of his retirement after his death.

He was also a 100-percent disabled veteran and received VA compensation for 10 years. When he passed away, I had to choose between the VA compensation benefit (tax free) and the Survivor Benefit, although they are two different benefits. It’s outrageous that lawmakers and the government are able to delay benefits to survivors and disabled retirees when so much is wasted on less-deserving programs. Hopefully, we will get justice before all of us are gone.

Renee Snow

Vacaville, Calif.

Troops HAVE LIMITS

I have been privileged to be both a soldier and a physician serving in the Army for more than three decades. I now serve as an Army Reserve physician and a full-time civilian medical educator.

From the first days of training, I reinforce a basic truth in my new physician graduates’ mind-sets that:

• They are human.

• They are entitled to be human.

• Humans are, by their inherent nature, subject to frailties.

These fundamental truths have kept many a young physician from a complete mental and professional breakdown when they lose a patient or make a tragic patient-care error.

As service members, we are expected to do extraordinary tasks and endure almost unbearable hardships. But the fundamental truth remains, that as brother and sister professional warriors, we too remain human, have the right to be human and are subject to human frailties.

The simple acknowledgment of this truth throughout the military’s commands will relieve some of the needless self-imposed burdens of survivor guilt, combat losses, collateral damage and the other atrocities of war.

We volunteer to serve our nation as no other citizen does. We are indeed a special, and at times elite, force performing in accordance with our nation’s needs and political agendas. We are proud, but we are human warriors, not machines. Celebrate the wonderment of being part of the human family, push your talent to the limits, but understand there are indeed limits to being human.

Army Col. David W. Towle

Watertown, N.Y.