To the Editor:
Re “West Level Is Presupposed to Educate, Not Indoctrinate,” by Graham Parsons (Opinion visitor essay, Might 12):
Dr. Parsons’ rebuke of the Trump administration’s chokehold on educational freedom and its assault on “broad-based, critical-minded, nonpartisan schooling” at West Level attests to a uncommon character trait: braveness.
I’m a former Air Power captain skilled beneath the Reserve Officers’ Coaching Corps within the Nineteen Eighties. My fellow cadets and I have been uncovered to each sort of scholarship and viewpoint that our civilian college needed to provide. Many people availed ourselves of various programs through which we may hearken to the opinions of our professors and different college students and check their theories and concepts in opposition to our personal viewpoints and ideologies.
I consider that these classes, skilled in live performance with our navy coaching, made us higher knowledgeable, extra critically pondering Air Power officers when it got here time to steer and comply with our oaths to our Structure whereas in uniform and past.
The truth that the Trump administration believes that hobbling the minds of our future officers is in our nationwide curiosity betrays the president’s insecurity within the women and men in uniform who have to be consultants in management, historical past, ethics, democracy and our Structure, warts and all. Might we’ve got the braveness to defend their proper to data.
Wilder J. Leavitt
Bethesda, Md.
To the Editor:
On June 8, 1966, 579 younger males graduated from West Level. I used to be amongst them. Some 30 of us have been killed in Vietnam, and lots of others have been wounded.
However our class continued to serve, empowered by our schooling and devoted to the oath to the Structure we took that day. Over the following years of my service (within the Military, the State Division, the Senate workers and the C.I.A.), I watched with satisfaction as West Level and the opposite service academies grew into world-class educational establishments.
I used to be subsequently heartsick to learn Graham Parsons’ essay describing the craven response of West Level to the know-nothing dictates of the administration.
A few of at the moment’s cadets and midshipmen will sit within the State of affairs Room advising a future president about safety challenges that we can not think about. When that day comes, they have to be geared up to supply sensible counsel, drawing not solely on their expertise from having commanded massive forces in fight but in addition from a deep understanding of the world and the nation they serve.
They won’t have acquired this information nor the boldness to precise it if, as President Trump and Secretary of Protection Pete Hegseth demand, they need to stick their heads within the sand throughout their days on the academies.
I subsequently salute Professor Parsons and hope that when these harmful instances go, West Level will return to the core values and rules which have served this nation so properly for therefore many a long time.
Jeffrey H. Smith
Washington
To the Editor:
Concerning Graham Parsons’ wonderful and chilling description of the adjustments on the U.S. Army Academy:
My father graduated from West Level in 1945. Though he resigned from the Military in 1954, he proudly wore his West Level ring for the remainder of his life, maintained his affiliation with the varsity and, most necessary, taught his youngsters by phrase and instance to dwell by West Level’s motto, “Responsibility, Honor, Nation.”
As a lot as I miss him, I’m glad my father will not be alive to witness the degradation of the establishment he so revered.
Sydney Ladensohn Stern
New York
That Aircraft From Qatar Would Belong to Us, To not Trump
To the Editor:
Re “Qatar Is Mentioned to Give Trump Official Aircraft” (entrance web page, Might 12):
Our president might not obtain a present from a international ruler or from a international state with out approval from Congress. The present of a airplane turns into property of america. It is going to particularly be the property of the U.S. when it’s fitted for presidential service.
It won’t be the ex-president’s non-public airplane to make use of as he needs when he leaves workplace.
The airplane will belong to “we the folks.”
Thomas V. Koehler
Two Harbors, Minn.
To the Editor:
The present, as described, is a clear-cut violation of the Emoluments Clause of our Structure, whether or not or not Donald Trump goes to have the ability to proceed to make use of it after his time period in workplace. Don’t let anybody attempt to inform you in any other case.
Additional, it’s an outrageous instance of how this presidency is on the market. Mr. Trump and his administration reek of corruption. Take into account, as one other instance, the big crypto scams.
This needs to be unacceptable to all People thinking about sincere authorities.
William Titelman
Athens
The author is a U.S. citizen and a retired lawyer.
