Off the Editor’s Desk 5-22-24

Not on my tax dollar!

As I watched the coverage of all the protests on college campuses brought about over the attack on Israel last October by Hamas, I am shocked by the anti Jewish hate in this country. Horrified, would be a better word to use.

One of the things that bothers me is that these students, like those at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, are being educated using my and your tax dollars. So if they want to protest, let them spend their own money to get an education, and let them fund any damages that happened while they carry on their nonsense and destruction.

So, to our representatives at Madison. Stop giving the University my tax dollars to fund protests. I don’t have a problem using my tax dollars for education, but let those kids pay their own way if they want to make a mess of things.

During the heart of the Vietnam War, Madison was a leader in war protests. One of the chants during those years was: “Hey, Hey LBJ, how  many kids have you killed today.” LBJ referred to President Lyndon B. Johnson who finally gave up and did not run for another term as President, as there was no victory in Vietnam.

On August 14, 1970, four men made a homemade bomb and set it off on the UW-Madison campus in an attempt to destroy “Sterling Hall.” The blast from that bomb, that was stored in a stolen UW van, killed one and injured four. The four that conspired to bomb Sterling Hall were UW students Leo Burt, David Fine, and brothers Karl and Dwight Armstrong. They had chosen the early hours to set off the bomb, thinking that no one would be in the buildings at that time. But, when they heard that someone had been killed, the four fled to Canada.

Three of the four were captured and served some seven years in prison. But one (Leo Burt) has never been found. Seven years sounds like a very light term for talking a life.

More than 50 years have passed and last year the FBI released age-progressed photographs of Leo Frederick Burt who has thus far evaded law enforcement and been referred to as the “Wisconsin State ghost.” Below are a 1970 photo of Burt and an age-enhanced photo by the FBI.

The worst terrorist attack in the United States before 9-11 was the bombing on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. A rental truck loaded with fuel oil and fertilizer destroyed the building taking the lives of 168 people including 19 children and injuring about 650 people.

Timothy McVeigh, who was born in 1966, was convicted of the crime and was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001. His accomplice, Terry Nichols, was given a life sentence in prison.

I highly recommend that you visit the Oklahoma City memorial site where the Murrah Federal Building once stood, it is well worth spending a day there and memorialize the victims of that terrorist attack.

Thanks for reading!     ~Carlton