Memorial Day is upon us, and this veteran fears that, for most of us, it has become a sickening event.

Folks watch militaristic parades and then have picnics. Ministers proclaim that "they" gave their lives, a vile attempt to conceal the truth, which is that no one gave their life; those lives were torn from shrieking bodies.

The claim is made that "they" died for democracy, which has never existed here.

I wonder if people think, as they munch their hot dogs, about what their lives would be like if 22 of their friends and family committed suicide every day. That's the number of veterans who do just that. Every day. The atrocities they've committed, in our names, have led them to destroy themselves in an attempt to forget.

Memorial Day, which was created by mothers of the Civil War dead as Decoration Day, is a time to go personally to grave sides with flowers or other remembrances. It is a somber event, not a celebration, certainly not a "holiday."

Jay Wenk
Woodstock

I live in a community that has battled against unsavory developers and the elected officials that have acted as co-conspirators with the developers' corrupt, criminal activities. I have witnessed some municipal attorneys ignore legal, ethical and moral codes of their own profession as well as the State of New York. These unethical attorneys acted to protect the corrupt members of village and town boards and deceive the public.

I believe these attorneys' allegiances were woefully, if not criminally, misplaced. Municipal attorneys deal with the powers, procedures and operations of local government units. Municipal attorneys represent municipal boards as entities elected to represent the municipality. It is not in a municipal attorney's purview to represent individual board member's personal issues and interests, behavior we have witnessed in the past.

The Village of Bloomingburg has a new mayor and a new trustee. Many in the community believe all of the members of this board were elected through fraud and manipulation. Confidential documents of the developers recently made public state in their own words that they, the developers would control the Village of Bloomingburg board. While the Village of Bloomingburg board may presently be controlled by the developers, we are hopeful that the newly hired attorney, Mr. Rory Brady of Goshen, will be advising this board on law and ethics and will be representing the Village of Bloomingburg as a municipality in the State of New York and not a wholly owned subsidiary of developers Shalom Lamm and Kenneth Nakdimen.

Holly Roche
Bloomingburg

One of the amazing things about our great country is that you are innocent until proven guilty, a concept which seems to be ignored in your story about the Pine Bush teacher who allegedly hit a student. The teacher in this headline is one of the most giving and caring teachers that a student could ever be privileged to have in their high school years. She has dedicated her life to giving learning disabled students the skills and knowledge to succeed after high school. What a travesty that a career can be reduced and judged by an incident that holds about as much truth as the presidential platforms in an election year.

This teacher is beloved by her former students and her colleagues for her heart and her compassion, and she would never do anything with intentional malice. Her colleagues, her friends and the community have shown unparalleled support for her, because anyone that knows her, knows her heart!

Rhonda Perrett
Middletown

Have you ever heard about Representative David Jolly before? He won the election for congressman of Florida in 2014, and while serving only two years of his first term, he has proven to me that he is a hero. He has introduced a bill called The Stop Act, which is his plan to override some of the damage done by the Supreme Court's decision in 2010 to approve Citizens United.

Of course, we were all aware of the fact that "big money" is running our country, but Congressman Jolly has exposed to us one of the most powerful methods that explains how that ruling is now being executed. To quote from the Huffington Post: "Members of Congress have long bemoaned how much time they spend raising money for election campaigns. The parties have urged their congressional members to dedicate about half of their working hours to fundraising activities. Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), who is not running for re-election this year, confessed in a recent New York Times op-ed that he'd spent 4,200 hours making fundraising calls since the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision opened the floodgates for corporate campaign cash." Now my (Republican) hero David Jolly has introduced "The Stop Act" in Jan. 2016. In April, Jolly was on 60 Minutes. He repeated his victory speech in 2014, when he said that: "Tonight is not about claiming victory. Tonight is about committing to service." Another quote from the interview on 60 Minutes is: "We sat behind closed doors at one of the party headquarter back rooms in front of a white board where the equation was drawn out. You have six months until the election. Break that down to having to raise $2 million in the next six months. And your job, new member of Congress, is to raise $18,000 a day. Your first responsibility is to make sure you hit $18,000 a day."

Another 2 quotes from the interview are: Norah O'Donnell: "How were you supposed to raise $18,000 a day?" Rep. Jolly: "Simply by calling people, cold-calling a list that fundraisers put in front of you, you're presented with their biography. So please call John. He's married to Sally. His daughter, Emma, just graduated from high school. They gave $18,000 last year to different candidates. They can give you $1,000 too if you ask them to. And they put you on the phone. And it's a script. There are actually scripts for calls. We got our hands on one distributed by the National Republican Congressional Committee to help GOP members invite donors to attend their annual fundraising dinner in March... The House schedule is actually arranged, in some ways, around fundraising." Norah O'Donnell: "You're telling me the whole schedule of how work gets done is scheduled around fundraising? Rep Jolly: "That's right. You never see a committee working through lunch because those are your fundraising times. And then in between afternoon votes and evening votes, that's when you can see Democrats walking down this street, Republicans are walking down that street to spend time on the phone making phone calls. By law, members of Congress cannot make fundraising calls from their offices. So both parties have set up "call centers" just a few blocks away."

In an interview with the National Journal iCongressman, Jolly said that his proposed Stop Act would bar elected federal officials from directly soliciting campaign contributions. "Penalties range from paying fines for civil offenses to up to 5 years in prison for more serious criminal offenses," reads a summary of the bill provided by Jolly's office. The reach of Jolly's legislation would be relatively limited. Lawmakers could no longer personally ask potential donors for money; that job would fall to campaign aides or fundraising consultants. But they would still be allowed to attend fundraisers for their own campaigns or for outside groups, such as PACs.

Okay. It's not repealing Citizens United, but it's at least a start and may lead to our representatives spending a bit more time doing the job that we are paying them for.

Jill Paperno
Glenford

As a lifelong union member and a retired CWA member, I have to say how inspired I am by the fight the union is waging against Verizon to keep jobs in the USA. Also inspiring is the public support the strikers are receiving, especially on the picket lines.

Verizon wants to set up call centers overseas and move 5,000 jobs out of our country. This is taking place now in the Philippines. These are jobs that our kids, grand kids or ourselves will never get if allowed to happen. Politicians talk all the time about the need to keep jobs in the United States. But they just talk. The unions are doing something about it. Supporting the labor struggle in this country is crucial to retaining good jobs and maintaining our standard of living.

Timothy McManus
Warwick

The government estimates 0.3 percent of our population is transgender and, to keep them from feeling uncomfortable, they should be allowed to use the bathroom or locker room of their choice, ignoring whatever embarrassment the rest of the population might feel.

The real problem is it puts women and girls in danger. Any man can say he identifies as a woman and use the ladies' bathroom or locker room. While women will not be endangered by true transgender people, there's nothing to prevent a pedophile, stalker, flasher or other pervert from following them into a bath or locker room. While a stall in a bathroom may provide some privacy, it provides no security.

Would you like your daughter or granddaughter showering with a strange male? At present, if you see a man going into the ladies' room, it puts up a red flag. If this goes through, it will give predators free access. As a man, I don't feel threatened by a woman using the men's room as I don't remember a case of a woman sexually assaulting a man; the reverse is all too common.

This policy is a real war on women, and there will be casualties.

John Habersberger
New Paltz

The money generated by sales — sales tax — belongs to the people who generated it. It is not a political football to be kicked around by this assemblyman or that county executive or this mayor. In the highest-taxed state in the union, when an opportunity presents itself to help the taxpayers, as this does, then it should happen automatically. The best and fairest way to distribute the sales tax would be by city and town on a per capita basis.

That is, the county receives $110 million a year as half of the total eight percent sales tax. Simply enough, $110 million divided by 180,000 people is $611 per county resident. If Kingston has a population of 22,500, that amounts to 0.125 percent of the $110 million, or $13.75 million a year that belongs to the people of the City of Kingston every year. This formula works for the towns also. New York State recently lost two seats in Congress because our population is in decline. The main reason for the exodus is excessive taxation at every level of government in the state and its counties, so if "basic fairness" is still to be considered, it doesn't get any fairer than this and the overcomplication of the math and its verbiage makes it appear to be an act of deception.

Charles Landi
Kingston

This morning my feelings are outrage, sadness and disbelief.

We live in the United States of America and many citizens do not have acceptable drinking water available! (Flint, MI, Newburgh). This is not a third world country! And many children live in poverty and cannot be fed in their homes and must have food available in the school system. What's wrong with this picture? Hungry children in the USA.

Maybe this is why so many of our citizens are flocking to presidential candidates outside the current system. We do need a "shake up and a wake up" in the USA. Business as usual is no longer acceptable. Help.

Pamela Winter
Cornwall

I am writing in regards to the May 5th article about the Ellenville First Aid and Rescue Squad written by Chris Rowley. It is certainly a milestone to celebrate 60 years of volunteerism with countless hours dedicated to the well-being of the community. The article was very interesting, although there was an error in it. In the article it is explained that the reason the first aid squad was formed was due to the Loucks Funeral Home being unavailable to respond with their ambulance to a sad and tragic accident that occurred at the Ellenville School Pool in August 1954. The Loucks Funeral Home was not involved. Sherman and Adaline Loucks did not purchase the funeral home and ambulance from the previous owners until January 1955.

I want to congratulate the squad for its service over the past 60 years, and for continued success in the future.

Allan Loucks
Ellenville

The recent Shawankgunk fire at Sam's Point in Cragsmoor destroyed more than 2000 acres and was declared a state of emergency by Governor Andrew Cuomo. Sam's Point Preserve was immediately closed to the public.

Hank Alicandri of Sam's Point announced this past weekend that the park will re-open Memorial Day weekend in a "soft opening." I say NO opening of the park until the Route 52 signs are up and running efficiently for the following reasons...

85,000 people visited Sam's Point last season. All visitors must drive (mostly they speed) through our tiny residential community to the Preserve parking lot. When the lot is full they are denied park access and they drive once again (frustrated and angry) through our community, down Cragsmoor Road and back to Route 52.

We are a small hamlet with narrow, winding county and township roads. During the past years our community has alerted the Sam's Point Preserve directors to the continuing annoyance, hazards and potential dangers of so many cars speeding along our roads.

We have emphasized, for many months, the need for timely informational signage on Route 52, (1) alerting drivers when the Sam's Point parking lot is full; (2) informing them of opportunities and locations for turning around before ascending Cragsmoor Road; and (3) directing them to other nearby towns, vistas, trails and parks.

We desperately need signage on Route 52 . Where are those signs? They were supposed to be up and running mid-May and they are not.

Linda Rogers
Cragsmoor