Theft from a soldier’s grave

On Saturday, June 14, my husband, Michael, and I went to Twin Oaks Memorial Gardens to take flowers to our son, Lance Cpl. Tyler J. Troyer, KIA. When we got there and were watering the plants, my husband saw that someone had dug up three flower plants and taken the froggy ornaments.

I was so totally shocked. Why in the world would someone take something from the cemetery? The flower garden that is by our son’s grave was put together by the people that love him the most, his parents, his sister, his aunts, his nana and his friends.

We spent all day planting flowers. There is a lot of love in those flowers and in that ground. How dare you come in there, steal something that was left there as a way for all of us to let the world know that we haven’t forgotten our fallen soldier?

You are a coward! What you don’t know about this family is that if you had asked we would have gladly given you flowers. This family will continue to put new flowers and things out there for Tyler!

This won’t stop us! Just remember that the next time you take those things, you are stealing from a fallen soldier who died for your freedom.

Terri Thorpe, Tangent

Too little on cancer relay

Come on D-H, I feel more coverage should have been in the paper Saturday concerning the cancer Relay for Life ceremony held at West Albany.

I hear the Gazette-Times really had a good article. Maybe next year the Relay for Life, with more than one picture and a blurb, will be on the front page.

To all the teams, walkers, Safeway and others — you deserve a big resounding applause.

Freda Lambert, Albany

We’ve done it to ourselves

I wish to respond to Jerry Schneider’s letter (June 27) regarding the building of an eco-city here.

I agree it is a shame that we don’t use the magnificent talent that is CH2MHill and OSU science to solve some of the biggest challenges we have today. For one, OSU has helped develop some of the newest nuclear technology that is far safer and more reliable than what we have now. Yet we are not using it.

The funding for the massive project over in the Emirates comes from, you guessed it, oil! We can fund projects like that too if we responsibly drill, log, mine, refine here at home, but in the current political climate that’s not going to happen. Instead we have shut down our industry. The paper mills are bankrupt, the aluminum smelters are being torn down (at least five that I know of) and we haven’t built a new refinery in 32 years!

If you have a city with a 2-foot water main designed for “x” number of residential usage and then double the population, you’re going to have a massive water shortage. Same thing with refineries. If they are running flat out trying to keep up with demand without downtime maintenance, you are going to have shortages and accidents.

It’s politically popular to parade the oil companies before committee and say you’re ripping us off. No, we are doing this to ourselves. We have asked the government to shut down industry because it “feels good.” Well that chicken has come home to roost.

Just think of the high-paying union jobs that we would create if we allowed a new refinery, or a nuclear power plant, to be built. Pipefitters, welders, concrete, trucking, scientists, don’t forget engineering. All this resource, yet we are not engaging it. What a loss!

Electric cars? Solar panels? Windmills? Sure, why not? As long as it’s free-market driven. However, that’s not going to get done without a balanced energy policy. It starts by telling the truth about our money supply, going back to the gold standard, and obtaining our own resources instead of demanding everyone else doing it for us. Finally, don’t make promises that we cannot pay for with cash.

Spencer Watkins, Albany

Why we worry about warming

Richard Owen (Mailbag, June 23) may be a very good professional engineer, but he appears to lack the most basic understanding of how greenhouse gases work. Gases such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane are called “greenhouse gases” because they are good at absorbing electromagnetic radiation in the infrared region, with wave lengths from about 1 micron to 1mm.

Nitrogen and oxygen, though more abundant in the atmosphere as Mr. Owen correctly observes, do not absorb in the infrared and do not contribute to the greenhouse effect at all.

Water vapor is responsible for absorbing most of the infrared radiation, but its concentration in the atmosphere is dependent on the global average temperature. Other greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, have been added to the atmosphere in accelerating amounts as the result of human activity. Carbon dioxide comes from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas). Major sources of human-related methane are landfills, cattle and coal mining. As the levels of these gases in the atmosphere rise, more infrared radiation will be absorbed, increasing global temperature and the amount of water vapor that the atmosphere will hold. More water vapor will lead to more warming, etc.

This is the greenhouse effect and this is why we activists are so concerned about carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases. They are not “negligible.” We neglect them at our peril.

Robert Waterhouse, Scio

A selfless act of kindness

On June 19, I fell unconscious in my front yard after mowing part of my back yard. I had just been though a great deal of stress. I had lost my husband in 2003, my grandma in 2002, my best friend of over 35 years three weeks ago, and my beloved daughter on June 11, 2008.

I was wearing the First Alert button but do not remember pushing it, but when I hit the ground it must have gone off.

After I got to the Corvallis hospital, two friends told me that they saw an ambulance worker mowing my lawn! When they told me, it moved me so much that someone cared that much to finish that which I could not do.

They told my friends that “they saw a need and just completed that need.”

This world is so full of hatred, killings and war and stealing, I hate sometimes to even read the newspaper. Here is a good reason to read the paper.

They knew of my losses and wanted to show their love and concern. How can I repay them? By giving service to another, and they to another and pay it forward, and so on.

I do not know their names but thank them so very much. I will never forget their unconditional, unselfish act of kindness.

Barbara Clare, North Albany

MAILBAG GUIDELINES: Letters must bear the writer’s full name and address, but we’ll omit the street address in the paper. Please include a daytime telephone number. Letters should be as brief as possible and are subject to editing and abridgement.