Why we don't bash Wal-Mart

The election is over and the official season for "Bush bashing" will soon end as well. Now all the bloggers and floggers on the Internet can get back to their second-favorite target, Wal-Mart.

For as many years as I've had access to the Internet, I've seen the venom from various factions trying to tell anyone who will listen how evil Wal-Mart is. I've read every complaint from low wages, lack of benefits, loss of local businesses, loss of employment from those businesses and, the greatest sin of all, they are nonunion and want to stay that way.

All these complaints may or may not be justified and there are arguments that have merit on both sides, but I want to relay my own personal story about Wal-Mart and how I believe they prolonged my life.

A little over a year ago my wife and I were doing OK. Our business wasn't making Bill Gates look in his rearview mirror, but it was adequate and with my wife's income from her state job and the exceptional health insurance package it provided, we were keeping up with everything.

Thanks to my 35 years of smoking, I had developed emphysema, high blood pressure and cholesterol, and Type 2 diabetes, but by changing my lifestyle and diet, and taking my drugs regularly, I was feeling good and had everything under control. Then my wife lost her job and the insurance. We tried to keep it in force, but the premiums kept getting higher and higher and when it reached over $900/month we had to cancel it.

That was when I went to my doctor with a list of the more than 400 drugs available at Wal-Mart for $4 and directed her to only prescribe from this list. It took a little creative prescribing, but she managed to come up with drugs that not only do the job, but testing indicates that they work better than what I was using.

Here's the part where they prolonged my life. If it hadn't been for them and their exceptional $4 drug program, I would not be taking my meds, I would be waiting another year until I could get on Medicare. I shudder to think how much damage I would have done to my body if I had gone off my drugs.

I know some who read this will say that Wal-Mart only did it for the publicity and they may be right, but the fact is they did it and I would be willing to bet that there are tens of thousands of people like me with a similar story who would be a lot sicker, or dead, if not for Wal-Mart.

So the next time you hear or see someone going off about what a bad corporation Wal-Mart is, ask them how many lives has their favorite corporation saved. I believe the U.S. would be a far better place if all corporations used Wal-Mart as a model for community relations and how to be a good neighbor.

Gene Gradwohl, Shedd

We need more like him

Everyone here at VFW Post 584, Albany, would like to thank Bob and Linda Barker of R2L2 Trucking for the generous use of his Kenworth truck and trailer for our float entry in the Veterans Day Parade this year.

Bob was also kind enough to let us use his shop and what tools we needed so we could build the float out of the weather. Because we had his truck decorated by Monday he lost a day's work when he could have been hauling logs. Truckers out there can appreciate what that cost him.

And on top of all that he put in quite a few hours and his own money helping us build the float! Bob and Linda are members of our post and we would love to have more like them.

Again, thank you Bob and Linda, we appreciate your generosity and hard work; it was a major reason we took first place in the veterans organizations category.

Bob Gore, Albany

Dentists on a mission

The Medical Teams International (MTI) dental van parked along a bank of colorful fall trees last week outside of Samaritan Albany General Hospital. In the van, volunteer dentists treated 32 children and adults without dental insurance. In two days, dental professionals saw the smallest of children at 3 years old to the frailest adult of 80.

An estimated $11,200 of dentistry services was donated. Earlier in September, a two-day event generated $7,100 in fair market services for more than 30 other patients. However one adult and one child had conditions that easily could have run into the tens of thousands if gone untreated.

The MTI van will visit SAGH again in January and March 2009.

This program is made financially possible by the Samaritan Social Accountability Budget, volunteer dentists, dental assistants, translators and donors who support Albany InReach Services.

At present, local dentists involved in the efforts are Michael Goger, DMD, Patrick Hagerty, DMD, Douglas Johnson, DMD, Carson Kutch, DDS, DMD, and Chris Walker, DMD. Dental assistants include Mandy Haven, Laura Lange and Katie Olsen. Translators include Viviana Gonzales, Laura Jaimes and Lucrecia Ortega.

We are appealing to the community to recruit more volunteer dentists. Please ask your dentist to get involved, or thank your dentist if he is. Call Stephanie Hagerty at 812-4704 for details.

Kim Sass, Albany

Left out semper paratus

In the Sunday paper you mentioned WAVES (Navy), WACS (Army) and Marines, but not the SPARS - "semper paratus, always ready" - (Coast Guard) which was and still is as much a part of our defense as any other. I just want to say I was proud to be a SPAR and still am.

Maridee Nye, Albany

How pay is set at the top

Mr. Shadle (Mailbag, Nov. 10) has drunk a little too much of the corporate Kool Aid. He asserts that executive pay is based on what the corporations are willing to pay. What he fails to realize is those that are setting his salary have two very greedy goals in mind when approving these insane salaries.

First, the more the boss makes, the more they make. And second, they are gunning for the top spot somewhere soon and want the bar plenty high when the chance is theirs. I find it hard to believe if you polled HP stockholders, myself included, they would agree the salary was reasonable.

And please drop the whole redistribution fallacy. Social programs have always been a redistribution and have been around for years. President Bush's stimulus package was a redistribution as those above a certain income got a lower amount. If you truly want to eliminate a bad redistribution plan, eliminate the tax credit for kids. It redistributes from equal and lower earners to higher earners! Will you support the elimination of that redistribution, Mr. Shadle?

Ed Trotter, Albany