‘America Has Sacrificed Its Honor’

Nov. 11, 2024 Editor, The News-Gazette: Thanks as always for your excellent, fact-based newspaper and for this venue for individual opinions. I want to call your attention to the flags.

I’m talking about the American flags flying in honor of Veterans Day. I know these flags are flying all over the country, and while in the past they might have been seen as symbols of respect, they now seem insincere and cynical - a gut punch to veterans. If America had any respect for its veterans, if America gave a damn about its veterans, it would never have chosen for its president a man who said on more than one occasion that the men and women, the veterans, who have, over the brief course of our history as a nation, been captured or wounded, maimed and disfigured, tortured or even killed in service to their country, are all “suckers and losers.”

Such a man knows nothing about honor or respect, or sacrifice for country or for any greater good than himself. It seems to me that America has sacrificed its honor for the promise of cheap gas; traded its bill of rights for the right to hate.

Finally, to all veterans, I wish to say thank you. You deserve my honor and respect, and you have it. PHILLIP WELCH Rockbridge County