Just Sayin': Let's examine U.S. gun culture values
The F-14 Tomcat fighter jet on display at Grumman Memorial Park in Calverton in 2019. Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas
Let’s examine gun culture values in U.S.
Tedra Grant reflects on the shooting of Ralph Yarl in Kansas City, Missouri, offering her perspective on the realities of raising a Black son in an American culture that is complacent in addressing stories like Yarl’s “Thinking about my son’s safety,” LI Voices, April 22].
Grant describes parental advice she and her husband have given their son: Thinking twice before helping strangers and carefully choosing friends. Many of us received that same advice growing up, but the reasoning behind it is different for Grant’s son — the emphasis is on being perceived as a threat because of how he looks.
As a social work student at LIU Post planning to work with youth at high risk of exposure to gun violence, I believe we, as a country, need to reexamine our values. Not just on gun ownership and control, but the entire culture behind it. We live in a country where some well-meaning, productive youth are at a disproportionately high risk of being shot just because of their physical appearance.
— Matthew Fogarty, New Hyde Park
Take better care of Grumman aircraft
I write to you from the more than 700 miles that separate Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where I now live, and Grumman Memorial Park on Route 25 in Calverton, which is just outside a former Grumman aircraft manufacturing facility.
In that park are a Grumman F-14 Tomcat fighter jet and A-6 Intruder attack jet. They are on display as part of a tribute to the many former Grumman workers on Long Island (including myself for 37 years while living in Oakdale) and in the United States who worked hard making, assembling and testing them.
Both aircraft are on loan to the Town of Riverhead by the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida. The loan agreement spells out conditions for care and maintenance since they are displayed outside, subject to weather.
Recent Google Maps imagery from April and former Grumman employees and fans who have visited the site say both aircraft show signs of degradation and are not in museum condition. Shouldn’t they be taken care of?
Maybe it’s a sign of the times. Grumman merged with Northrop Corporation in 1994 and left Long Island two years later. Some might say who cares anymore?
— Lee Norberg, Myrtle Beach, S.C.
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