Editor,

Way to hit the nail on the head on the Independence Day weekend!

Mari Anderson’s letter to the editor, “Believes NAS Whidbey should go back on list,” was so wide off the mark that an analogy of her letter would be, “Titanic had successful maiden voyage.”

If you’re going to bash the military you should at least get the premise right.

The statement she made, “Why is military preference still in place, there is no longer a draft?”

Clearly missed the mark of why the military has incentives today.

If you had a draft there is actually no reason to give incentives as anyone refusing conscription gets sent to jail or has to flee the country.

An incentive in an all-volunteer military is the only way you get somebody to sign up for a job in which you may be subject to getting killed or maimed as a part of your job description.

And that is clearly the job description in this volatile world in which the United States continually finds itself in some sort of conflict.

Speaking from personal experience, I signed up for ROTC in college in the early 1980s when it was not popular to be in the military, much less wear any kind of a uniform on a college campus.

Why did I sign up for the job? Incentives, Mari, incentives. All those things you decry that military gets that you say they shouldn’t get, because private citizens don’t get them.

But, hey, why not just get rid of all those incentives and watch the volunteer pool dry up?

It will force the legislature to reinstitute the draft and force you to hope that your kids, grandkids or friends don’t get a low draft number.

Thomas Kosloske

Oak Harbor