A couple of weeks ago, I gave an opinion about Tom Knepher’s commentary in the Sun, and it attracted a juvenile response from a Michael Smith (“Get it straight: Take a history class,” Dec. 18), who felt that I was wrong about most every opinion. I reread my submission (“History and another point of view,” Dec. 11) and found no errors.
Who am I? During World War II (1942-’45), I was a combat Marine, which motivated me to study hard in college. During the aerospace years, I was a senior scientist and a high level VP and worked closely with Bob McNamara, secretary of defense under John F. Kennedy, and watched the Vietnam War being escalated by bad decisions.
It was in the mid-’60s that the first Watts riot burned a great deal of the community to the ground. The second riot used King as an excuse.
Obama is a classical example of getting elected if you have $700 million to spend and are willing to promise anything the uneducated want to hear. Obama did nothing in the Senate except vote straight Democratic ticket. We are not even sure he is a U.S. citizen. I wish him all the luck he will need with his total lack of experience. Of course, he will have the Clintons to tell him when to squat.
I would never derogate a good vocational school like Allan Hancock College, though I can’t imagine what they could teach me.
This article appears in Jan 8-15, 2009.