Last week we celebrated the fact that two sons of Wendover had volunteered for the United States Marine Corps.
But as our boys head out to serve our country we are getting very nervous about those who are sending them into harms way.
The presidents verbal legerdemain over this country’s involvement in bombing Libya should give us all pause.
It is hard enough being a soldier without the added doubt on whether the acts of war you are committing including killing people are legal.
While the rightness or the wrongness of a war can be debated ad nauseam in faculty lounges in colleges across this country, the fighter on the ground needs to know with every fiber of his being that he is doing the right thing.
Being commander in chief is not just a fancy title that comes with a fly baseball cap. While one can howl at the hypocrisy of those now in power doing things that they would be the first to condemn had they not won the election, ultimately this is not about politics. It is about common decency.
The common decency that assures our fighting men that they are not just pawns in a game that might or might not be illegal.
These are our boys we are talking about now. Our boys with mothers and fathers who love them, they deserve a president who respects them enough to follow the law, and who follows it in letter and spirit without any kind of ambiguity. Anything less is immoral.
In three short weeks West Wendover will celebrate its 20th birthday. It has not been an easy 20 years what with economic highs and lows worthy of roller coaster sometimes this town has been slapped silly and then slapped again.
We recall with fondness the wild west spirit and the can do attitude that accompanied West Wendover’s birth and with less affection the growing cumbersome regulation of bringing order to the chaos.
We hope it is not too late to be able to recapture the spirit that brought this city into being.
We hope that our city council will wake up to the fact that phrase controlled growth is an oxymoron.
Perhaps somewhere else where people are not used to living free the heavy hand of an intrusive and abusive government might be better tolerated. In the wild high desert however as our census numbers indicate the lesson is this: Tell someone what to do one too many times, they will pack up and leave.