Letters

Different view

I read Nicolas Kiessling's statements against Coach Leach last week, and I must state a different view.

If what Kiessling says about what Leach said, is accurate, (and I have no reason to believe that it is not) then I must applaud Coach Leach.

I think it is ridiculous for millionaires and multi-millionaires to take-a-knee and somehow claim that the USA is oppressing them because of the color of their skin.

Are they so ill-educated that they can knowingly and purposefully disrespect the flag that approximately 650,000 Union soldiers died fighting under to put an end to slavery? The same flag that so many other Americans have fought and died fighting under to end genocide against the Jews and stop National Socialist (NAZI) totalitarianism from subjugating much of the world just a generation ago.

To stop all of Korea being oppressed in the same manner as is currently North Korea.

Even on top of all that, those who stood ready to bleed and die if necessary and by their readiness stopped International Soviet Socialism from enslaving more of the world.

I am a Viet Nam Veteran and this distain for the flag and the anthem is a very sore point with me. I take it personal. It is an affront to my lost comrades in arms for that past 247 some odd years. I would just laugh at these ill-educated athletes, but then I recall all the blood and treasure that America has spent in the cause of freedom, and it burns me up that some folks acting as grandstanding spoiled brats will thumb their noses at that precious sacrifice.

Can America be improved upon and become even better? By all means, I certainly hope she will.

But, I am old enough to recall Martin Luther King leading the civil rights marches in the south against the attack dogs, fire hoses and worse, and I can compare that with today when some people will sift through other folk's words and actions to find and point out so called “micro-agressions" and "dog whistles"; then they act as if there has been no progress.

Undeniably the trend line is generally in the right direction.

Has America done wrong things-of course.

None of us as individuals are perfect and no nation is either.

But, I believe, if you took unbiased balance scale and piled up all the good America has done for the cause of freedom on one side and then pile all the evil on the other, it would solidly land on the side of the good.

And on top of that, I can't think of a single other nation that has spent so much blood and treasure in the cause of freedom.

By all means if Mr. Kaepernick and his supporters want to protest "police brutality" let them call a press conference (they have the celebrity status to do that) and let them have the spotlight to complain all they want.

I would hope they also include a complaint or two about gang brutality at the same time -considering that gang brutality in America dwarfs police brutality by several hundred orders of magnitude.

Then again, that may be asking a little much from a group that throws out gang signs and symbols and routinely wears gang tattoos and dresses as "gangstas." Maybe they could demand that all police and security be banned from football NFL stadiums across the nation.

Still, I doubt they would be in favor of that idea either.

They can complain all they want-just don't disrespect the flag and the anthem.

The flag ceremony and the anthem were designed to be unifying symbolism.

In and of itself a call to unity.

Those taking-a-knee have used it to divide people and disparage those that have rallied under that flag to defend the rights and freedoms of even those who would disparage it.

I have loved to watch good football. But this take-a-knee has made me so sad that I just can no longer watch the NFL. To use a military phrase (and clean it up a bit to use in polite society) I think they may have defecated in their own mess kit (lunch bucket). So, for now I will just say thank you Coach Leach and go Cougs!

Travis Brock,

Colfax