LETTERS NASSAU AND SUFFOLK Edition

• Published in: Newsday
• Main Authors: Dantone, Gerry, Luisi, Kim, Rampone, Barbara, Luks, Jerome, Epstein, Eve, Carco, Linda
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Long Island, N.Y Newsday LLC 14.04.2003
• Edition: Combined editions

In "The Power of Prayer" [News, March 31] you quoted a soldier saying, "God has had his hand on us as we seek to do justice and righteousness." A battalion chaplain recounted "stories of God's unseen hand of protection on us." To an objective observer, the irony cannot be missed: These same sentiments could have been expressed by the enemy soldiers the battalion is trying to kill. How is it lost on so many that religious devotion to a supernatural deity is the driving force in the hatred directed toward our "infidel" U.S. troops by those they are seeking to "liberate"? I have a son serving in Iraq with the Marines, and one of Newsday's reporters is embedded in his unit. Imagine my stress when I read "Where's Saddam?" [News, April 9]. It displayed a lack of sensitivity to those of us who have loved ones in that unit. There was no need to say a Marine was decapitated, even if those were the company commander's words. No parent needs to live with that image of their son or daughter. Better to have said the Marine suffered a casualty in the conflict. As the wife of a patient infected by Dr. [Michael Hall] who has seen first-hand what contracting Hepatitis C has done to my husband, I find it very disturbing that Hall chooses not to follow the advice of both the State Health Department experts and the expert called in by North Shore Hospital not to do his own surgical closures. If North Shore Hospital and Hall truly were trying to protect the public, they would immediately follow all recommendations to protect patients. They would have Hall take every possible precaution to protect the public.