RIOTS: Just one word — sad

I’m at a loss for words to describe how sad I am for our country that I spent 31 years defending. Those years included tours in Vietnam, Belgium, West Germany, West Berlin and Somalia.

Also included were shorter stops in Turkey, Italy, France, Spain, Holland, Denmark for training missions. Wherever my soldiers and I went we knew we had the greatest country in the world at our back. All we had to do was look around us at the places where we were assigned outside the USA to understand how fortunate we were.

Wednesday made me cry that we have so many of our fellow citizens who thought it appropriate to lay siege to our Capitol to change the state certified votes of our fellow citizens. Even some of our own Idaho legislators thought they should interfere in other states’ election processes.

I am sad that I don’t have an answer that fixes the problem. I am sad that our elected officials don’t have any answers. I am sad that we all can’t just get together to fix the problems!

I am sad that we cannot even come together about something so simple as wearing a mask to protect each other.

We are better than this. We have problems today that need fixing (taxes, education, infrastructure, etc). We need dynamic leadership from our elected officials that brings everyone to the table to solve our problems.

Kootenai County we need to lead the way to fix our problems. Instead of storming our state capitol, our health boards or election officials, our great Constitution provides us with the vehicle to solve our problems. All we need to do is work together for a better tomorrow for all.

SKIP JURU

Athol