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Our View
Tread lightly on park road closure
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Guest Editorials
Hire our vets By Don C. Brunell The good news is America is bringing its troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. However, that presents a challenge because a large number of those troops will leave the military upon their return. That shift, along with significant cuts in military spending, means tens of thousands of veterans will be looking for work. Unfortunately, those veterans have a higher rate of unemployment than the general population — 10.1 percent, compared to 7.2 percent for the general population. Many of these brave citizens, who put their lives on the line for us, are returning with wounds, both physical and emotional. They must make a difficult transition from the military to civilian life, and the need to find a job in our slow economy makes that transition more difficult. They need our help and understanding. Many organizations, including the Association of Washington Business and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have launched programs to encourage employers to hire veterans. Nationally, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is spearheading an effort to hire 500,000 veterans and military spouses by the end of 2014. Last Memorial Day, Walmart announced it will hire more than 100,000 veterans over the next five years. In addition, Walmart’s Military Family Promise program guarantees a
By Lee Mun Wah
job at the nearest store when military personnel and spouses employed by Walmart and Sam’s Club are transferred to a different part of the country. The program also guarantees that, if employees called to active duty earn less in military pay, the company will make up the difference. Just this past week, two Washington state companies announced plans to hire veterans and active-duty spouses. Microsoft has launched a new pilot program at Saint Martin’s University’s Joint Base Lewis-McChord campus to train active-duty service members transitioning out of service. The company will then place them in entry-level jobs as software testers. And Starbucks announced it will hire 10,000 veterans and military spouses over the next five years. CEO Howard Schultz says his company also plans to open five stores on or near military bases that will share their profits with the local communities. These efforts will be needed because the downsizing of our military forces will be felt heavily in our state. JBLM is currently home to 33,645 active duty soldiers. Including Air Force and reservists, the total military population is close to 40,000. An Army study released early this year suggested that a reduction of 8,000 soldiers from JBLM would cause more than 20,100 military family members to leave the area. The News Tribune reported that a major
downsizing like that could also mean the loss of more than 10,000 military contract and private sector jobs. While cuts of that magnitude may not happen, the Army announced last summer that it will deactivate the 4th Stryker Brigade at JBLM, which has about 4,000 soldiers. JBLM is one of 10 bases in the United States losing brigades in a reorganization that will reduce troop strength in the Army from 570,000 to 490,000 by 2017. The military downsizing will have a significant impact on our economy, but for the soldiers and their families transitioning out of the service, the impact is immediate: They need jobs. The good thing about this deactivation compared to the Vietnam era is that Americans are more appreciative of our military and willing to support our troops and their families. Today’s employers recognize the qualities veterans bring to the workplace. They are trained to show up early, leave late, know how to work in teams, how to manage people and materials, and they can adapt to ever-changing environments under demanding pressures. Hiring veterans and military spouses isn’t just the right thing to do — it’s the smart thing to do. Don Brunell is president of the Association of Washington Business. For more about AWB, visit www.awb. org.
Embracing our differences
Recently, at a training I was facilitating, a young white man adamantly shared that he didn’t see differences in people and thought that my talking about our differences only added to our feelings of separation. He then asked me if I hated white people because I continually brought up the issue of racism. For a moment, I was stunned, not just because of his question, but rather what was beneath his inquiry: a questioning of my motives. Ah, how familiar this all seemed. I have had this scenario play out a hundred times in almost every imaginable setting, be it at a university, corporation, government or social agency or place of worship. I remember once a reporter asked me to speak about inclusion and I replied, “Not unless you are willing to also have me talk about exclusion.� In many ways, the reporter’s question was a microcosm of a much larger argument facing this country – a continual need to move on and a deep desire to always appear “together�
and as “one.� The underlying fear is that somehow any discussion of how divided and unequal we are will only serve to divide us. It is my feeling that it is our silence and our indifference that divides us and makes our relationships unsafe. It is our continuous need to avoid the “hard discussions� and “staying in the process� that makes us always searching for quick solutions with once-a-year diversity trainings and celebrations. It has been my experience of over 20 years as a diversity trainer that we are afraid to talk about our differences because we continually see it as a “negative� experience. That somehow if we were to talk about our differences we would leave wounded and even further divided. The truth be told: We are already divided. Not because of our differences, but because of our indifference to truly “seeing and appreciating each other.� We are divided because we blindly see “the other� through our own lens, instead of being curious about another’s experiences and perspectives. Anais
Nin once wrote, “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.â€? And so, what if we did see “color?â€? What would that mean? Who taught us that not seeing color was what people of color wanted or needed? And if we “didn’t see colorâ€? then why are we so divided by color? Unless, of course, someone is peeking‌ So here is an exercise I created, entitled “Differences Exercise.â€? “When did you first notice you were ‘different?’ How did that affect you and how does it affect you today?â€? As Virginia Wolfe once said, “We are all different. What divides us is the value we place on those differences.â€? Lee Mun Wah is an internationally renowned Chinese American documentary filmmaker (“The Color of Fearâ€?), author, poet, Asian folkteller, educator, community therapist and master diversity trainer at Stir Fry Seminars & Consulting, www.stirfryseminars.com. Phone (510) 204-8840.
It seems that the pilot program to close the outer reaches of Point Defiance Park’s Five-Mile Drive to cars and trucks during morning hours has strong support. MetroParks’ online survey is trending about three to one in favor of barring motorized vehicles from the roadway until 11 a.m. on weekdays. The road has been closed on Saturdays and Sundays during that time for years now. The survey will be collecting comments and votes through the winter, but the trend isn’t likely to change dramatically enough to swing the results. The parks board will then decide about the issue next spring. Maybe the weekday closure of the roadway is the best solution. It is manageable by park staff. It has strong support with walkers, joggers and cyclists who would like to loop around the scenic roadway without fear of being hit by speeding cars zipping around blind corners. But the closure of a public roadway out of fear of potential pedestrian-versus-car accidents doesn’t hold up. It is a solution in search of a problem. There has not been a rash of accidents or even nearaccidents on the roadway. In fact, the opposite is apparently true. Of the 80 calls for service in Point Defiance during the last two years, Tacoma Fire Department officials found only one accident of note. Even that was a single-car crash involving a group of drunken teens that wrecked a car during an afternoon drive in April. It left one passenger dead and the driver in handcuffs, but no pedestrians were involved. So, statistically speaking, closing the roadway to avoid pedestrian accidents is a non-starter. Five Mile Drive is already one of the safest roadways for pedestrians in the city. Banning cars from the would avoid the potential for pedestrian accidents, but doing that would be like preventing drowning deaths by banning swimming. The expanded closure plan for vehicles also cuts off the use of a section of the park to people who perhaps can’t get there any other way – the elderly and the disabled. While many people can venture on foot or peddle to the outer reaches of the park’s roadway to see Puget Sound in the early morning hours or to set up picnic activities before outdoor parties start, some people don’t have that luxury. Motorized vehicles are their lifeline to nature and the outside world. The closure means they will never see the morning colors of Puget Sound from the Dalco Passage Viewpoint, for example, because walkers and cyclists are more organized with their survey efforts. Sure, everyone would like to have a park just for themselves. Just ask the off-leash dog park users. But Point Defiance is something special. Its 700 acres include some of the last old growth forests in Western Washington, and offer wonderful views of Puget Sound. It is bad policy to restrict access for one group of users to benefit another group, all based on some irrational fear of accidents that reports show don’t really happen. Even with the road closure limited to the outer reach of the Five-Mile Drive loop, and therefore, not affecting cars driving to Fort Nisqually or the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium, the closure will deter people from enjoying the park’s other offerings without any reason other than survey results and beliefs that run counter to reality. Voice your thoughts by filling out a survey at www.metroparkstacoma.org. The above opinion represents the view of Tacoma Weekly’s editorial board.
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Letter to the Editor Dear Editor, The press has done a very good job of reporting about the challenges our veterans face. We all have read or seen stories about our wounded warriors. About traumatic brain injury. About veterans suffering from depression and other serious mental health issues. About those who have lost limbs or endure other physical hardships. These are serious issues that deserve our attention, especially on Veterans Day. What also deserves our attention, but which gets much less press, is the fact that military veterans are twice as likely to develop – and die from – Lou Gehrig’s Disease as those who have not served in the military. Yes, studies show that the disease that took the life of baseball legend Lou Gehrig is striking our military heroes at an alarming rate. It doesn’t matter when or where they served in the military; home or abroad, peace or war, from World War
I to Afghanistan. Those who served are at greater risk. ALS is horrific. Worse than your worst nightmare. It robs people of the ability to move, trapping them inside a body they no longer can control. People describe it as being buried alive. There is no treatment. No cure. Only death in an average of two to five years. So as the press calls attention to our military heroes on Veterans Day, I hope they remember those heroes who are fighting for their lives against ALS. I encourage your readers to visit the Wall of Honor at www.alsa.org. There they will see the faces and read the stories of the military heroes who are fighting ALS and those who have been lost to the disease. Their stories of courage are worth your attention on Veterans Day. Susan James Fircrest
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