Letter to the Editor

Watertown Daily Times 2/1/14

Gov. Cuomo, I left New York state when I was 19 years old and ended up in a place called South Vietnam with the 3rd Marine Division carrying an M60 machine gun (that’s a real assault weapon).

But I came back just before my 21st birthday to St. Albans Naval Hospital on Long Island in a full body cast with shrapnel and bullet wounds. Eventually, I recovered and served as a NYS forest ranger carrying a gun for the people of New York state for nearly 26 years.

One of my daughters, Amanda Reif, was a NYS trooper who was shot on the job on her 29th birthday, wounds that effectively ended her career. Now you say there is no place for us in New York because we want to possess semi-automatic guns that have plastic cosmetic features you think makes them assault weapons?

There is no place for me here anymore because I believe in very limited situations where abortion should be allowed. Because I believe life begins at conception and that baby has a right to life, and cop killers don’t, I need to leave?

And the gay marriage issue. I guess I don’t care one way or the other. I have two friends who got married last summer. What I don’t understand is why you’re so adamant that gays marry but you won’t marry the woman you live with.

When I took the oath to uphold the Constitution, I didn’t say except for the First and Second amendments and anything else I might not like. Guess you took a different oath.

These are strange times in the kingdom, Andrew. Strange time in the kingdom.

Bob Barstow

Cranberry Lake

Link:

http://www.ogd.com/article/20140201/OPINION02/702019959