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Local Marine vet shares memories

Letters to the Editor

At this time of Thanksgiving I just wanted to share some thoughts of a Thanksgiving day in Vietnam. I joined 2nd Bn, 5th Marines on Hill 69 at An Ton Bridge near Chu Lai in 1966. Several companies were up north near the DMZ on Operation Prairie and in late November 1966 our battalion conducted Operation Mississippi in the An Hoa basin relieving 3rd Bn 9th Marines. We had assumed the tactical area of responsibility (TAOR) of protecting Liberty Bridge, Nong Song (coal mine), and the An Hoa industrial complex area and Duc Duc district refugee compound. We also had responsibility of the ...

Small Business Saturday

Editorials

Those who have endured the madness of Black Friday and still have plenty of holiday shopping to do should consider using this Small Business Saturday to explore retailers (and gift ideas) that will help add a personal touch to your giving. Since 2010, the annual event has celebrated small, independent businesses in our communities. American Express estimates as much as $22 billion was spent on Small Business Saturday in 2024. For the 99.9% of businesses in the U.S. that qualify as “small,” according to Forbes, that kind of spending is essential. It helps employ more than 62 ...

Fraying at the edges

Columnists

MAGA’s problems with the administration continue to grow. One of the disputes regards Israel and the American ambassador Mike Huckabee. He visited with Jonathan Pollard, who spent 30 years in prison for having spied for Israel while working in the Defense Department. Huckabee had no problem cavorting with a convicted traitor whose first allegiance was to Tel Aviv and not Washington. Jack Posobiec, a top MAGA influencer, has emphasized the affair and is not pleased. Once more, add in the Epstein scandal, mixed with preferential treatment given to a foreign techno specialist for Visas, ...

Gratitude

Editorials

While the origins of our modern Thanksgiving Day are more a matter of many traditions eventually running into a single idea than the straight line from familiar paintings of the Plymouth Colony’s observance more than 400 years ago to our holiday tables today, there is a common theme: gratitude. Thanksgiving is a day on which we celebrate with friends and family (for which, presumably, we are grateful) with an abundance of food, parades, football and other traditions that also help us remember how richly blessed many of us are, here. It is a day on which many can be grateful there ...

Changing the focus

Columnists

Over the past two weeks, as the national press and Democrats have cared deeply about Jeffrey Epstein and political buzz has amplified Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s lurch leftward, the more Americans are offline. And the more they spend away from the constant Sturm und Drang of twenty-four-hour news, the less they care about these stories. Our well-being increasingly depends on being unplugged from the sensational stories designed to keep us angry and engaged. This week, millions of Americans will go to work thinking about when to thaw out their turkeys (start today), which ...

Economy

Editorials

Something about the relationship between Toyota and West Virginia should be studied by those hoping to expand and diversify our state’s economy. Since the days of former U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s encouragement of the Toyota Motor Manufacturing project in Buffalo, W.Va., the partnership between the state and Japan has been rock solid. Now, Toyota Motor Manufacturing West Virginia is expanding with a nearly half-billion-dollar investment in increasing the assembly of four-cylinder hybrid-compatible engines, sixth-generation hybrid transaxles and rear motor stators. “What really ...