Increased chopper activity has neighbors on edge
Re: “Helicopter noise rattling Virginia neighborhoods,” July 25
Last night in the Pinewood Lake neighborhood of South Alexandria, a helicopter hovered over my house, rattling the windows and whipping the already storm-damaged trees with the prop wash of its blades. The copter first appeared around midnight and then again an hour later, waking me up both times.It appeared dangerously close to the house and yard, as if it were going to land or crash.
We are accustomed to police helicopters that from time to time fly over the neighborhood looking for escaping robbers running from a 7-Eleven or restaurant on Route 1. But in the last four months, we have noticed a quantum increase in mostly nonmilitary choppers hovering over our community and flying grids up and down the streets both in daylight and at night.
This new and seemingly organized activity is disturbing me and my family, as well as the neighbors. We haven’t seen so much helicopter activity since they closed Lorton Prison 10 years ago.Maybe this is a secret prelude to the new era of drones.
Dennis W. Calkin
Alexandria
Cure for cancer takes back seat to HIV cure
Re: “International AIDS Conference takes over downtown Washington,” July 24
After reviewing the data in the “Fighting diseases with dollars” graph presented alongside this article, one can’t help but imagine how quickly a cure for cancer could be found if this “randomly occurring” disease was given nearly as much high-profile attention — Hollywood celebrities, conferences with tens of thousands of delegates, parades, classification as an “epidemic,” etc. — charitable donations and annual government funding as a disease like AIDS/HIV, which is 100 percent preventable, with 90 percent of cases spread by personal choice.
True, countless efforts are being made to cure cancer — think St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Susan G. Komen to name a few.But if the amount spent was proportional to the known U.S. cases, there would be $79 billion more annually, which would significantly impact the drive to find a cure for cancer.
John Zimmermann
Quantico
Sequestration cuts dangerous for national defense
Re: “Sequestration: Compromise in Obama’s interest,” Local Editorial, July 7
Elected officials from President Obama on down would be wise to heed your warning about defense budget “sequestration.”These cuts are political poison SEmD and Congress needs to get working on a cure.
Top Democrats and Republicans on both congressional defense committees agree these cuts are just too dangerous to allow.Obama’s own defense secretary says they would gut our military, defunding critical programs like a modern stealth fighter to keep up with fifth generation aircraft rolling off Chinese and Russian lines.Because sequestration slices mindlessly across the board, nothing would be safe SEmD even critical capabilities like satellites and drones to track Iranian and North Korean nukes.Sequestration would also grind our economy to a halt, destroying more than a million American jobs and helping drag us over a “fiscal cliff” into another recession, according to Congress’s own nonpartisan budget analysts.
Worst of all, the bulk of the pain would be inflicted on small and midsized businesses that are the heart of our middle-class economy. These firms account for about two-thirds of all defense spending and three-quarters of all defense-related manufacturing jobs.
Replacing sequestration with a better approach to the budget might require some painful compromises SEmD the kind no politician likes to make.But that’s better than standing before the voters having abrogated the most basic responsibilities of government.
Adm. James A. Lyons Jr. (Retired U.S. Navy)
Warrenton
