A Vietnam vet: ‘I am not willing to die so President Trump can suppress the vote.’

Restore USPS funding

I am a Vietnam-era Marine Corps veteran. Diabetes is one of several of my health challenges. Because of the willful slowdown of the U.S. Postal Service initiated by the executive branch and the postmaster general, I was out of a crucial medication for 10 days. My blood sugar reached catastrophic levels. I am not willing to die so President Trump can suppress the vote. I ask Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis to please restore the funding and equipment to the USPS without delay.

Bill Rowan, Sanford

Mail-in ballots

Having President Trump and the postmaster general take steps to speed up delivery in October and November to get ballots counted on time is not the answer. Using the resources it has, the U.S. Postal Service should give priority to mail-in ballots and give lower priority to the cheap, bulk, political ad mailings that nobody wants anyway. Nonprofit bulk mail is supposed to be delivered “as a lower priority, as resources permit.” Giving priority to mail-in ballots would be efficient and effective.

Jerry Barker, Raleigh

Border wall money

Now if Congress could just transfer some of that border wall money to shore up the post office, we could feel confident in a timely and efficient election that will include lots of mail-in ballots.

Bob Williams, Fuquay-Varina

UNC students

Regarding “UNC-Chapel Hill moves all classes online after 130 more students infected with COVID-19,” (Aug. 18):

Three students evicted from the dorm for failure to comply with safe practices and 279 positive for COVID-19, all at UNC-Chapel Hill. Clearly, the virus is moving faster than emergency meetings, warnings and evictions can. Now, with all classes online, why keep the students on campus?

Deborah Brogden, Raleigh

A wake-up call

The impact of the COVID-19 virus on the world is devastating, causing much suffering and impacting people in physical and mental ways that will stay with us long after a vaccine is available. However, there may be a silver lining to the toll this is taking.

Our president has often said “nobody saw this coming,” but in fact many people who have dedicated their lives to studying viruses warned us for some time that something like this was inevitable.

Just like warnings about the impact of climate change, these warnings have mostly fallen on deaf ears. There has been talk about getting ready but the effort and funds required to do so have not materialized.

What we are going through now should wake us up to the reality that some day in the future another virus, possibly more potent than this one, will be at the world’s doorstep. Hopefully, we will be wise enough to put the kind of money and effort behind developing technologies that will allow quick responses to future attacks.

Richard Halkowich, Raleigh

Senate Republicans

President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence will do anything to survive their re-election. They will try to disregard our Constitution and sabotage our democracy. We cannot let them do that. We can no longer stand by and witness this insidious destruction while hoping that Congress will act responsibly. But they won’t; they won’t even try, so long as we have spineless Republicans controlling our Senate. No, we must vote all of them out of office before it is too late.

Joe Lyons, Burlington

Dan Forest

Lt. Governor Dan Forest has been making a lot of noise about how important it is for public school children to return to in-person classes during the coronavirus pandemic.

That’s a funny thing since Forest and his wife home-schooled their four children all the way through high school. You’d think he would be as big a proponent for homeschooling as he was in the 2015 when interviewed for the 2015 EDNC article “Why families choose homeschooling.”

Instead of partisan posturing about reopening schools, he should be encouraging families to consider home-schooling in these difficult times.

We too are a dedicated home-school family, and I wish I had home-schooled all five of my children instead of only the youngest. Forest should be ashamed of himself for not speaking up about the wonderful experience homeschooling can be.

Liz Jones, Clayton

Today’s politicians

When we were all kids and played school sports we were all taught “it’s not whether you win or lose but how you play the game.” It seems that our politicians have forgotten that lesson and now it’s “win no matter what you have to do.”

Perhaps our politicians need to go back to school and our kids need to run for political office. We certainly would have more honest representation.

Barry Burr, Apex