Dear Editor:
Most recently, we, as a nation, celebrated Veterans Day with parades, speeches and dinners honoring the men and women in uniform who gave us the freedom we wanted, and established the liberty that we enjoy to this day.
Behind them came others who have preserved those ideals under duress, with many giving the ultimate sacrifice.
One war has been all but forgotten while another threatened to tear this country apart. And yet, they still came, put on a uniform, took an oath and served.
Behind all of this was another type of veteran who was not in uniform – family.
While those who served, the families – men, women and children – remained at home supporting them in ways few will ever know.
When you return from basic training, you are changed; when you deploy and return, you are chang-ed. Additional deployments create a multitude of problems for the families in adjusting to the changes in the veterans. It is difficult for children to know four or five different mothers or fathers and how to handle it. It is often impossible for husbands and wives to balance that transition with the problems of raising kids and daily life. And yet, they come, serve, and sacrifice – both families, and those in uniform.
These “silent veterans” deserve our admiration, respect and assistance.
Sometimes they were the only thread we were holding onto and they, along with our training, gave us the resolve to accomplish our assignment and come home.
Let them be not forgotten; let them be not silent; for they are us!
John S. Lamb
USMC Veteran
Marlinton
Dear Editor:
In the November 19, 2015 edition of The Pocahontas Times, Attorney Robert Martin is quoted: “I know the attorney for the school board in Kanawha County. I talked to him. He believes that, as I told you, it ought to be brought up in federal court and find out what is going on…”
Art. III, Sec. 2 of our U.S. Constitution is clear that a case that would involve the citizens of a state petitioning a court questioning action against them by an agency of the same state is not a case the federal court system has been given authority by, We, the People of and since 1787 to weigh in on.
We, the taxpayers are paying Mr. Martin $36,000 as appointed legal counsel by and to the Pocahontas County Board of Education and another $36,000 more in tax dollars for appointed legal counsel by and to the Pocahontas County Commissioners.
When Mr. Martin, as an acting attorney, does not understand the jurisdiction of the federal court, that is which cases the U. S. Supreme Court and its inferior federal courts can hear leaves me wondering whether he is the one for the job. Let alone his appointed duties are ones that might even be just simply the responsibility of the elected prosecuting attorney’s already salaried position.
The lack of understanding by any practicing attorney of this Article III is bad enough; it just seems like a lot of money to pay someone who should know his stuff.
And now let’s consider the massive deception that has just taken place on the American Citizenry for lack of the same.
Conservatives, liberals and progressives alike have come to believe that an opinion of a majority of nine U.S. Supreme Court judges has legalized gay marriage.
The U.S. Supreme Court does not make law – only the U.S. Congress can make federal law. The Congress has not changed and codified the definition of marriage from the 6,000 year old globally recognized one as “one man and one woman.”
For a county clerk to end up in jail for six days – the United States of America’s first political prisoner – should be alarming to all Citizens of our Nation.
The truth is she was the only one upholding her oath of office and defending her First Amendment right to live out her religion’s belief.
A federal judge overstepped his jurisdiction trying to force her to violate the Kentucky State Constitution as the Kentucky Attorney General, cowardly, did nothing to protect one of his citizens when she requested an accommodation to not have to issue a marriage license for a gay couple. There were enough “constitutional conservatives” and presidential candidates claiming she was not fit for the office and should resign to assure me we have very little working knowledge of our rights.
It’s time we start re-educating ourselves and our youngest generation or at least get re-acquainted with our founding documents; it is our civic duty as U.S. Citizens to protect our personal and national interests.
If we don’t know the basis of our system of governance – our rights come from God, not government, along with the substantive Law of the Land and the process in which it is carried out, as Ronald Reagan warned, “We will no longer be one Nation under God, but a nation gone under.”
In liberty,
Monique Grimes
Green Bank