To The Editor:

I am writing to you today to update you on the activities we (St. Francis Preparatory School) are planning to celebrate Veterans’ Week and specifically for November 10.

Beginning on November 7, a 40 flag display will stand on and around the path of St. Francis in front of the school, along with a sign reading “St. Francis Prep Veterans’ Day—Honoring all who have served”. Sufficient light will be on the display during nighttime hours. The display will be taken down on November 18, following parentteacher conferences. It is our hope to have a flagraising ceremony as a complement to the exhibit.

Morning prayer for each day will be offered with a veterans/military theme focusing on each branch of the U.S. military. Foreign language/ culture classes for the week will focus on WWII campaigns in Europe, and U.S. involvement there. It would be appropriate to emphasize the European campaigns as each of our four foreign languages are of European origin. Social studies classes will be viewing a number of documentaries covering various veterans’ issues. They will also be researching veterans’ organizations such as The Wounded Warrior Foundation, Green Beret Foundation, No Greater Sacrifice, and Special Operations Warrior Foundation.

There are plans to have some U.S. veterans come in to speak to our students and we are hoping to have some present U.S. military personnel speak live from the Middle East via Skype. Vincent Mazzurco (‘03, USNA ‘07) spoke to some of our classes this past Thursday. He is currently on leave from Camp Pendleton, but will be back on his base for the week of November 7.

On November 10, as you are aware, the U.S. Naval Academy’s Women’s Glee Club will perform for many of our students. The performance will take place during F period. Lists of students attending will be posted in the faculty room and should be noted as the performance may run into the beginning of the hour period.

Again, if you are a veteran who would like to be involved or know of someone who is, please let us know.

Chris Mendolia
Fresh Meadows

Support Our Vets

To The Editor:

On November 11, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, across this great country—and throughout the world— Americans will pause on that Friday to honor our brave fighting men and women, who for 235 years have fought to defend those freedoms we hold most dear. I myself have served in the United States Navy during the Vietnam era and was proud to have done so. Veterans’ day is a time to remember all veterans. We need to remember all those who gave their lives and the many veterans who have lost limbs, hearing and sight. These veterans who have served our nation did so with pride and devotion to duty so that we might have those freedoms we enjoy today. We need to salute our brave men and women who are serving in Afghanistan and who are still serving in Iraq and other parts of the world. This Veterans’ Day I find myself thinking what it means to be an American. The answer is crystal clear, and that is the pride to live in a country that allows personal freedom to express ourselves and to speak our minds. Our system may not be perfect, but still is the greatest in the world. These freedoms do not come without a price. They come with great personal sacrifice by those who leave family, friends and jobs to serve the greater good. I hope on Veterans’ Day there will be many flags flying in support of our men and women who have served and who are still serving this great nation of ours. In closing, I remember the words of our first commander-inchief, George Washington, who said, “The willingness with which our young people will fight in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their country.” That is so true back then and is so true now. Let me say that our country owes much to these brave men and women. That being said let me ask all who read this to call a veteran you might know and say thank you for a job well done. May God bless these brave Americans and may God bless America on this day we call Veterans’ Day.

Fredrick R. Bedell Jr.
Glen Oaks Village

Anti-OWS Letters A Plant?

To The Editor:

I question the provenance of recent letters to The Gazette (and other media organs) taking issue with Occupy Wall Street (OWS). If these were simply “false flag” postings by the One Percenters’ pub- lic relations minions, I would actually find this reassuring, for this is how things work in the “reality-based community”, after all. Nor is it terribly difficult for a decent advertising copywriter to evoke the grammar, syntax and even regionalisms of fictitious middle-class blowhards at the diner.

No, more disturbing would be if, somehow, legitimate detractors of OWS somehow “independently” posit such absurdities as:

•The imputation of “envy” to those who openly oppose and disdain the “values” of the one percenters.

•Smirking references to protesters owning checking accounts (perhaps we are expected to carry rolled-up wads of bills in our socks?) and—haw haw haw—contemporary technology. (Obviously no one would ever invent anything absent a trickle down economy.)

•A rather bizarre equation of Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, AIG, Madoff and their ilk with mom and pop shopkeepers since, well, they’re all “capitalists”.

•Attempted linkage between Obama (!) and a movement which wants to bring him, and his corporate paymasters, down. Obviously this cannot be ascribed to naivete or ignorance; it is clearly the work of an “embedded” professional political operative. Knee-jerk Manichaeism doesn’t come naturally to regular folks. Never has.

I recall relatives of mine who were shocked (shocked!) to learn that the guys in the Bartles and Jaymes wine cooler commercials were rustic character actors rather than two “real” middle-aged men who fermented wine in a barn. I suggest approaching anti-OWS propaganda, even and maybe especially the dim and semiarticulate, with humor and skepticism.

Peter Kropotkin
via E-mail