Defending our constitutional rights
Regarding the burning of the Quran in Florida:
I served in the military for more than 10 years. I was there to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
For the president and the commanding general to condemn the actions of one man who was exercising his constitutional rights and blaming him for all the civil unrest is mind numbing.
Arenít we there anyway because of religous oppression? Reagan got it right ó buck up and donít bow down.
ó Gary Langley
Salisbury
Beyond the call
My wife and I moved to Salisbury about a year ago and really love living here in the historic district. Having a house with a covered front porch provides an opportunity to meet your neighbors and say hello to passersby.
The most pleasant surprise of living here has been the professionalism of the Salisbury police. We previously lived in another city for more than 15 years and had a very bad impression of the local police who were full of themselves and not professional. Based on our experiences there, we lost all confidence and trust of police.
However, when our in-lawsí home in Salisbury was burglarized and ransacked this past month, the police were incredibly responsive, always professional and tried to be very sensitive and caring. I am still in awe of how they tried to help and how they are continuing to work with my in-laws in dealing with their loss.
Recently I was awakened at 4:30 a.m. by a police officer because someone had parked his car in our driveway, blocking our cars in. Apparently this person was caught stealing tires from a car across the street to replace the blown out tires on his car. The officer apologized for waking me, but wanted to advise me of the situation and let me know that they would immediately tow the car if I wanted them to do it. As with my in-laws, the officers were again very professional and caring.
We certainly have been blessed to be living here with such wonderful police officers. I would encourage all readers to let these officers know how much we appreciate their service to us all.
ó Fred Krusemark
Salisbury
A fitting tribute
Regarding Rep. Fred Steenís proponency that the I-85 bridge currently under construction over the Yadkin River be named The Yadkin River Veterans Memorial Bridge:
Thank you for your outstanding legislative effort to honor our North Carolina Veterans, which I feel has been a long time overdue.
In recent years, so many of our bridges, roads, and buildings have been named after individual politicians; and this is particularly true in our Rowan County area, where even the Veterans Administration Hospital Center is so named. If such individual honors are justified to civilian politicians, then at least an equal amount of individual honor recognition should go to our very few mililitary veteran heroes holding the nationís highest awards for extraordinary heroism and valor.
The public in general is so often unaware of the high ranking military honor significance of the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Navy Cross and the Air Force Cross. These awards for intrepidity and extraordinary heroism are not like numerous lesser decorations and campaign medals more frequently presented by the military services, but are very rare top valor awards presented by the president of the United States. Unfortunately, I doubt that our state and counties even have a record of who and where the recipients of these high national valor awards are.
Again, thank you for your awareness for the need for more veteransí remembrance recognition.
ó John Edward Gray
Mt. Ulla
Gray is a retired U.S. Army colonel.