Troops need a place to train
I read Koohan Paik’s letter in Sunday’s West Hawaii Today, and I was feeling sorry for her getting into the wronggroup of people at the Army base protesting on Earth Day. Either side of the road you would have run intopeople like these. You would never be able to explain your point of view to those people you were with, and asyou are a highly educated person you should know better than to even try. I was going along with your story abit, feeling sorry for you, and thinking some of your stuff sounded okay when you completely blew it saying youcould hear automatic weapons firing depleted uranium into the soil. There has been no depleted uranium firedin the state of Hawaii since 1968. You should research information a bit, and I see there is a Koohan Paik inHawaii who is a respected journalist, and as I think that is probably you I am wondering if you really thought itwas depleted uranium being fired, or you are just saying it was for hype for the folks reading your letter.
Anyway, I would like to point out that we have always had antiwar folks, World War II was no exception. We hadstarted to build up, but were way behind because of the antiwar people. I hate war, but you always have to beready or they will slam dunk you. Japan’s tactic was to hit us so fast and so hard that they could drive us to thebargaining table. Being not ready we lost the Phillipines, and many of the inhabitants were slaughteredneedlessly. Thousands of Americans were taken prisoners, and starved, executed and left to die of neglect andbrutality. These were civilians, just like you and me and they suffered because government was not ready.
When Korea started we were really unready, and the North Koreans swept everything ahead of them almostdown to Pusan. We had to send salvers to countries to buy our war material back. We had to buy bombs fromGerman farmers who had bought them from us to make the insides into fertilizer. Search teams went out intothe jungles of the Pacific islands and the Philippines to salvage vehicles.
I can remember firing mortar shells that were head stamped 20 years earlier. It wasn’t encouraging to myconfidence level.
Troops need training, or their levels of efficiency will be very low. We actually have never been ready in most ofthe wars we have engaged in, and it usually shows with a series of setbacks because the aggressor was ready.
Troops need a place to train, and they have trained for years up on that mountain. The Health Department hasissued several notices on depleted uranium It might be worth your time to read it.
http://malu-aina.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Hawaii-DOH-DU-Fact-Sheet-05-8-13.pdf
Ronald Cole
Kailua-Kona