Coast Guard 6017
Dear Editor: The reason that I am sending this letter to the editor is that I would like to remind the good citizens of Sitka of the date of July 7, 2010. It is the date that Coast Guard 6017 suddenly crashed off the west coast of Washington state and took three brave U.S. Coast Guardmen away from U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Sitka.
The crash of Coast Guard 6017 took away AMT1 Adam Hoke, AMT2 Brett Banks and Lt. Sean Krueger. Saturday, July 7, 2012, was the two-year anniversary of their passing. The people of Sitka should have not have forgotten about this date in which these people lived in your community.
All that AMT1 Adam Hoke, AMT2 Brett Banks and Lt. Sean Krueger wanted to do is fly and they had heard their calling to go with Coast Guard aviation and with their calling they wanted to serve the people of the United States. They were angels to mariners who were in distress at sea and they were ready to answer their call of a mariner that was in distress at sea. I ask the people of Sitka on Sunday, July 7, to remember AMT1 Adam Hoke, AMT2 Brett Banks and Lt. Sean Krueger at their place of worship.
They will be remembered for the people they had rescued and took out of harm’s way and to those people they are angels. Indeed that AMT1 Adam Hoke, AMT2 Brett Banks and Lt. Sean Krueger are angels now.
Ken White,
Powell River, B.C., Canada
Veterans Against War
Dear Editor: As the list of possible sanctuaries where the Daniel Ellsberg of America’s domestic so-called “war” against so-called “terrorism,” Edward Snowden, could possibly find asylum from U.S. government reaction, response, and retribution shrinks almost hourly, there is one place that nobody has mentioned: it’s called the United States of America.
Not the “USA ‘MISSION ACCOMPLISHED’ ALL THE WAY” of global military, diplomatic, economic, political, cultural, and psycho-spiritual intervention, domination and control in the name of freedom and peace; and of international and domestic spying, militarization, and droning in the name of security and serenity.
Rather, Snowden’s perhaps ultimate nation of refuge – the United States of America – is what we all like to fantasize about as that place where “truth, liberty, and justice for all” prevails, as somebody once put it. And, where we, the people of that one nation, have the vision, courage, and perseverance to ensure that that is exactly what happens: truth, liberty and justice. For all.
However, as all those “liberation theologians” who were wiped out during Ollie North’s reign of freedom-fighting terrorism in Latino America back under Bozo once put it: “… unless and until there is justice, there will be no peace; and unless and until there is truth, there will be no justice.” And, they might have added – had they lived – without peace, there can be, will be, and is no liberty. Nor security. Nor serenity.
That nation of asylum is where this guy Snowden (I can’t help but wonder if he’s somehow related to the kid tail-gunner who got blown apart and spilled his guts to Yossarian back in the rear of that B-25 bombing mission over Avignon) would get a coast-to-coast ticker-tape parade for being the Paul Revere of the 21st and America’s last – unless, as before, the warning is heeded – century, the one that all the neocons and liberals presumptuously, imperiously, and imperially declared to be “America’s.”
The question, of course, is quite simple: how do you make that parade happen?
Thinking about all the recently disclosed revelations about spying on their citizens and the rest of the world by the U.S. and British governments (to go along with what everybody knows has long been going on in Russia and China with regard to their citizens), one wonders if perhaps what is manifesting here is exactly what “V” suggestively prophesized: “People should not be afraid of their government; governments should be afraid of their people.”
Veterans Against War will facilitate another prayer-meditation-reflection gathering at the Sitka National Cemetery, probably on July 14, Bastille Day. Details to follow.
May all be well with all that you love.
Jeff Moebus,
Master Sergeant,
U.S. Army (Retired),
Veterans Against War,
Sitka Platoon 070212
