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Letters: Veterans’ group supports enhanced vote-by mail and reader offers compromise on renaming schools

Florida Times-Union - 7/14/2020

Veterans for Common Sense asks

candidates to support policies

Florida Veterans for Common Sense Inc., is a 501 (c) (4) nonpartisan/nonprofit organization with about 200 members.

As veterans, we have a duty to help forge the future of our country. To that end, Florida Veterans for Common Sense will work to shape local and national policies. As veterans, we support the founding principles of the United States of America; liberty, equality, human rights and democracy.

In that regard, we will provide candidates for the Florida Legislature and United States Congress with our six positions for this election cycle and a followup questionnaire. We will use the candidates' answers to the questionnaire to grade them. Once graded, we will distribute the results to our members, other organizations, and the media.

Reverse global warming.Support enhanced vote by mail.Stop unneeded toll roads.Adopt ranked choice voting.Support "We the People Amendment'" to the U.S. Constitution.Increase funding for diplomacy.The positions can also be found on our website.

Gene Jones, president, Florida Veterans for Common Sense, Inc., Sarasota

Just change first names

of the six public schools

Mount Pickett in Washington state was just renamed Mount Pickett. Originally it was named for Confederate General George Pickett, scapegoated for the infamous unsuccessful charge at Gettysburg that will always bear his name.

In 1859, Pickett, then a captain in the United States Army, participated in the undeclared "Pig War" in the islands between Washington and British Canada. The British backed down and Pickett was memorialized, but not for his secessionist rebellion.

In June, Mount Pickett instead honors a Black cowboy, Bill Pickett (1870-1932).

This may be a partial answer to the dilemma of both the Defense Department and a multitude of school districts across the south.

Why can't Fort Lee and our own Lee High School simply be renamed for Revolutionary War hero and future United States Major General Henry Lee III, popularly known as "Light Horse Harry" Lee?

We should not hold it against him that Robert E. Lee was his son. Yes, Henry Lee III was, at times, a slaveholder; he was also once bankrupt and imprisoned for debt and later beaten and nearly lynched for being a Federalist. Unlike his son, Light Horse Harry never engaged in treason against the United States, which he helped create.

In Jacksonville, why not rename Edmund Kirby-Smith Middle School as Dr. Joseph Lee Kirby-Smith Middle School after the general's son and Jacksonville resident, a celebrated dermatologist? He died in 1939 at the age of 57 and is buried in our own Oaklawn Cemetery.

I suspect there are people with the last name of Confederate generals that are far worthier than their current namesakes.

John Winkler, attorney, Jacksonville

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