Family connections saved Navy veteran John McCain (letter to editor)

[Omaha Steve]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008039903_weblets9.html

About 1/2 way down.

Family connections saved Navy veteran

As a young Navy pilot in 1944, I crashed into Pensacola Bay and went before a U.S.N. Accident Review Board. I was informed that any other such incident would result in grounding and loss of pilot status.

Obviously, McCain's family connections saved him from loosing his wings after not one but three crashes on his record. In fact, one might wonder how the 874th-ranked midshipman even got a chance to go to the highly competitive flight-training program at Pensacola.

— Jackson D. Willis, Bellingham


Also Colombia's unions need help

While the Colombian government should be commended for its recent hostage rescue, such an accomplishment should not be used as a pretext for dismissing charges of state-sanctioned human-rights violations against Colombian labor unions <"Hostages freed by America's friend," Times, editorial, July 6>.

If such claims are "overblown political rhetoric in the United States," as you refer to them, why does the International Labor Organization in a June 2008 report call on Colombia to take further steps "to ensure that the trade union movement might finally develop and flourish in a culture free from violence"?

Yes, Colombia's Uribe government has dedicated time and resources toward improving the safety of Colombian union members. Nonetheless, judicial impunity concerning violence against union leaders remains largely in place — a March 2008 ILO report found that since 2001 only 73 out of 1,262 high-profile murders of Colombian union members have resulted in any convictions.

Additionally, based on the Colombian government's own statistics, 22 union members have been killed through April of this year, a more than 50 percent increase since this same time last year.

Friend or foe, we owe it to ourselves and the Colombian people to accurately report on the events affecting their lives.

— Sean Power, Seattle

[benddem]

1. McCain

wouldn't have gotten into the Academy or graduated without his family connections.