Jade Helm fears; opinions worthy of reprint; Stockyards heritage

Jade Helm fears

Why give coverage to the lunatic fringe? (See Thursday news story, “Nerves frayed as Jade Helm starts.”)

This is a tiny operation (only 1,200 personnel) compared to Operation Sagebrush in 1955.

The largest training exercise since World War II, it involved about 150,000 Army and Air Force personnel.

The operation was to be conducted in Texas until the ranchers around Fort Hood refused to lease the additional large area required.

Northern Louisiana, where the famous “Louisiana Maneuvers” had been very successfully conducted in 1940 and 1941, was the logical site anyway. So the entire operation was moved from Fort Hood to Camp Polk.

The tanks and other tracked vehicles were moved by rail and we convoyed the tired vehicles — the entire 1st Armored Division was moved more than 200 miles. Other units came from all across America. The vast movement of tanks, planes, helicopters and soldiers evoked no hysteria in Louisiana or Texas.

The purpose of Sagebrush was to develop tactics to deal with atomic warfare, not anti-government nuts.

Cooler heads, less politics, a responsible and educated media and a lot more patriotism prevailed in 1955.

— Carl V. Flores, Grandview

So some Texans are fearful that soldiers may swoop in during operation Jade Helm 15, declare martial law and confiscate their guns.

What a laugh!

In 1942 and 1943, the U.S. Army held maneuvers in nine Tennessee counties and trained 850,000 soldiers. In my hometown, Cookeville, sometimes we had as many as 30,000 soldiers bivouacked in the woods and fields around the town.

Cookeville people loved them. The boys in uniform crowded into every movie theater, football or basketball game, restaurant or church service.

As a Nashville Tennessean delivery boy, I benefited from their economic boost. I ordered extra papers and was allowed into the camps to peddle them to soldiers. I also worked in the large USO that volunteers operated in an old factory building.

Cookevillians couldn’t do enough for them. One night, my parents found a drunken soldier on our lawn.

Did they call the police or the MPs? Nope. They brought him into the house and put him to bed in the spare room.

Next morning, they gave him coffee and breakfast, and sent him back to his duties.

— Claude Crowley, Fort Worth

How can it be other than obvious to Gov. Greg Abbott that feeding the paranoid delusions of people who accumulate military weapons and study how to make truck bombs and roadside IEDs cannot be a good idea?

— Jack Ellis, Burleson

I’m offended by the phony politicians and their Tea Party followers who call into question the loyalty and intent of our military in conjunction with the military exercise Jade Helm.

Our governor, U.S. senators and their political cronies, some of whom have never served in defense of this country, pour gasoline on this shameless attempt to make citizens fear a military attack on them. These are our own sons and daughters who have risked their lives on our behalf at an untold cost to them and their children.

I am offended by these Second Amendment advocates carrying military weapons. Who are these paranoid National Rifle Association supporters? How many of them have served their country in time of war voluntarily?

I have, and I can tell you that the men and women who join the military are more devoted to the foundation and continuation of our nation’s freedoms than any faux patriot lining his or her yard with American flags on July 4 or Sept. 11.

— Michael S. Tomasic, Burleson

Worthy of reprints

Last Sunday’s Opinion section had two of the best pieces I have ever seen on the same page of a newspaper.

First, Professor Warren Carter of Brite Divinity School — an actual Bible scholar — debunked the notion that the Bible forbids all marriage other than one man and one woman.

Second, Richard Greene noted that many citizens are ill-informed about government and history.

I would hope that both these opinion pieces are reprinted in every newspaper in the country.

— Terry Talbot, Keller

Stockyards heritage

John M. Pritchett’s July 3 commentary on the future of the Stockyards was exceptionally well-written — so much so that all of us should become concerned as to what certain parties envision the Stockyards should look like in the future.

The Stockyards, as Pritchett wrote, “will be lost to the dustbin of history” if we fail to be good stewards of our “treasure.”

Please don’t let the Stockyards be a repeat of what happened to the 7th Street Theatre. As concerned residents and the city rushed to the front door with documentation that could have saved the building, the bulldozer was taking down the back of the theater. Collectively, we must do what’s necessary to make sure that this doesn’t happen to our Stockyards.

Petition the City Council that what is needed is a local historic district in the Stockyards to preserve our heritage.

— Bert Robles, Fort Worth

This story was originally published July 17, 2015 at 6:59 PM with the headline "Jade Helm fears; opinions worthy of reprint; Stockyards heritage."