Moved by funeral for firefighter

5:36 PM Saturday, February 6, 2010

Moved by funeral for firefighter

My husband and I were very good friends of Dave Edwards, who passed away in December.

He was a military veteran with multiple tours overseas and a devoted Springfield firefighter.

While I could go on for hours listing his many accomplishments and how wonderful a man he was, my purpose for writing this letter is to commend the Springfield Fire Division.

At the firefighter service, I was overwhelmed by the number of active and inactive firemen who came to honor one of their own. The support these men and women showed was overwhelming.

Many of these same men and women also attended the funeral. I have never been to a funeral where the deceased was a firefighter, but I can say I was overwhelmed by their actions.

It was emotional to see them as pallbearers, but the drive to the cemetery was even more moving. At side streets and intersections, fire trucks and ambulances were stopped and men and women were standing at attention outside their vehicles as we passed.

When we entered the cemetery, a fire truck was parked at the entrance with its ladder extended for Dave to pass under.

It is clear that these fine people care for and take care of their own, along with serving the city of Springfield. They should be commended for all they do and the danger they encounter on our behalf.

They represented themselves proudly, and I will never forget the love and honor that I saw in a very difficult time.

Dave would have been very proud to be a firefighter that day and I want to say thank you for honoring a very deserving man with so much grace and respect.

Mindy White

Springfield

These steps create better health care

Here is how to fix health care without increasing costs:

1. Let government negotiate drug prices for Medicare, Medicaid and government employees, just as it does for veterans to get a 48 percent discount.

2. Scrap the expensive, confusing, inefficient Part D prescription portion of the Medicare program.

3. Allow all health insurance companies to compete throughout the country.

4. Set reasonable top limits on doctors’ liability. I feel my life and limbs are priceless to me, but there is a reasonable amount that should be awarded.

5. Ban all advertising of prescription drugs, just as alcohol and tobacco ads are restricted now.

6. Make all contributions by health providers transparent. Income tax forms list these under cost of doing business. It might stop the million-dollar jobs retired congressmen get for looting the public.

By instituting the above suggestions, there would be no additional cost to the government or taxpayers. By scrapping Part D, there will be cost savings. The overall cost of medical care would be reduced.

Albert Kunst

Springfield

Rewards going  to wrong people

Corporate America is killing this country.

Whenever I look at the paper, a bank or company that is in trouble is giving its top employees bonuses. Tell me what they’ve done to deserve this? Jobs are being lost. Jobs that pay decent wages are leaving the country. Small businesses are folding. But it’s always the unions that are blamed for bringing everything down.

Let’s look at companies that don’t have unions. You’ve worked there for awhile and now that you’ve finally reached top pay and they have to cut back on employees, you’re the first to go.

And what about the people who don’t work hard, but always get the overtime or good jobs because they know someone in management?

If you have a very sick family member or you yourself are in bad shape, they want to completely delete you.

People like to blame unions, and maybe at one time, they did get too comfortable. But things have changed a lot. Unions are here to make workplaces accountable and to make things fair.

Companies need to realize that they should be held accountable and they need to take care of their workers and not just line their own pockets and give themselves bonuses when the economy is in trouble.

We have tent cities in the states now. It’s like they’ve forgotten the human part of the factor. Whatever happened to doing a good job and making decent money? We fight among ourselves while they sit back and just keep taking for themselves while the country goes to ruins.

Debbie Logan Deel

Springfield

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