Letters to the Editor

Reconsider this

With as many active duty military personnel as we have in Tennessee, by what he said on the Senate Floor June 9, state Senator Jim Kyle — who is "moving in the direction" of a campaign for Governor — should reconsider.

A bill Kyle opposed permitted active duty military parents (merely) to petition a court to allow them while they are away on active duty, if they're under a court order to assign their parenting time (for their own child) over to a close relative or individual, if that person is included as part of the petition and is deemed by the Court to be in the child's best interest. But Jim Kyle's position, as stated on the Senate floor was, “these people need to learn to work out their own problems.”

This past month, Fort Campbell staged a general troop stand-down to investigate why active duty military personnel are experiencing abnormally high rates of suicide. Men already experience a death by suicide rate four times greater than women in Tennessee.

Despite his offensive diatribe, the bill passed the Senate but Sen. Kyle has failed to demonstrate that he has sufficient understanding of military morale to lead us when he dismissed the needs of those men and women risking their lives to protect our freedom.

Tony Gottlieb, 37202