&letterheadToo many too stoic

TO THE EDITOR: We are at war. We're sending our young men and women into harm's way. Too many Americans are being stoic about the dead and injured.

Over 4,000 of our troops have died in Iraq and many 1,000's more have been injured. That is a pretty impersonal way of looking at what we're doing and have done. Maybe we should be visualizing the individuals who have been casualties of this war. I wish the American public could take these deaths and injuries more personally and wake up to the horror of it all.

Maybe just dying is not enough to wake you up to the horrors of any war. Death is not always like the movies show us. Bang, he's dead. For some it may have been a very painful, lingering death. Bullets and shrapnel do terrible things to human flesh. The same can be said of explosives and fire. Picture some wounded, dying person screaming for relief from the pain or from the fear of knowing there is no hope, no future. Darn it, make it personal. Don't just slough it off as the cost of "our freedom."

Then we have the physically and emotionally wounded soldier who will have to go through his/her life without a limb or some other horrible condition. Are they getting the best possible care?

Some of them will be returning home to loved ones. Mom and dad still love them, but for some of them coming home disfigured, the girlfriend won't always be willing to accept them as they are now. The mental scars for some will never heal.

This is what we're doing to these men and women, and I for one want it to stop. Let's not build any more empires on the bodies of our youth.

Dick Scales

Plattsburgh

Member

Veterans For Peace and North Country Democracy For America

&letterheadMum on nuclear

TO THE EDITOR: Shame on Barack Obama and the rest of the Democrats for being afraid of the "n" word. Faced with global warming and dependence on foreign energy, they are mum about nuclear power.

What about wind power? Wind power is unstable, and electrical energy cannot be stored on a large scale. Supply must be continuously kept within 5 percent of demand to avoid brownouts, equipment damage, or the collapse of the whole grid. When wind and other unstable sources of power reach about 20 percent of generating capacity, the grid becomes unstable. Recognizing this, grid operators in Denmark, Japan, and Ireland are refusing to accept more wind power.

Only three power sources can reliably supply the grid: hydropower, fossil fuels and nuclear. Hydropower has been developed where it is feasible. In terms of global warming, fossil fuels are the problem. That leaves nuclear power.