YOUR VIEWS: Readers of the John O’Groat Journal and Caithness Courier share their opinions in our letters section
YOUR CAITHNESS: A busy Thurso Bay pictured by Shonagh McLennan.
NATO allies stand shoulder to shoulder
As an American veteran who served in two branches of the U.S. military and deployed multiple times – and who now spends part of the year living in Caithness – I was deeply troubled by Donald Trump’s recent remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos suggesting that America’s NATO allies failed to stand with the United States in Afghanistan and other conflicts.
That claim is simply false.
I served in support of allied troops from the United Kingdom, Canada, Denmark, Australia, and other partner nations during the first Gulf War. Over the past 20 years, I have closely followed later conflicts in which those same allies continued to stand shoulder to shoulder with American service members.
I saw them patrol the same dangerous roads, share the same risks, and suffer the same losses. They fought, bled, and died beside us. To dismiss their contributions is not just inaccurate – it is an insult to the memory of those who never came home.
This kind of rhetoric shows a profound misunderstanding of modern military history and of the alliances that have helped keep both the United States and Europe secure for generations. NATO is not a charity; it is a partnership built on shared sacrifice.
Our allies stepped up when asked, often at great political and human cost within their own countries.
From my time living in the north of Scotland, I know that service and commitment are not abstract ideas. They are personal. The casual denigration of NATO allies makes the United States appear small, unreliable, and ungrateful – and it does not reflect how most Americans feel.
Veterans know the truth from lived experience. We remember who stood with us.
Respectfully,
Gregg Sutherland
US military veteran
Part-time resident of Wick, Caithness, and Virginia, USA
Teachers face fresh challenges
I was extremely disappointed at your reporting of attainment results at a Thurso Primary School. As a former teacher I know how damaging and demoralising such reporting can be. This report is taken out of context and there are factors outwith teachers’ control that can affect attainment results.
It is extremely disappointing that if we are to believe the reporting of the Caithness committee meeting it would seem the committee has only referred to Highland Council supporting the nursery of the school in question following a “snap inspection” – which should have read a Care Inspectorate visit.
I would hope that following the Caithness committee meeting that Highland council would be supporting the whole school. Highland Council have people in paid posts to do such work and after reading your article I would hope that the whole school is being supported rather than being demoralised.
Today’s teachers are faced with classroom challenges in an education system that has undergone considerable change and is far removed from the system that many of today’s children’s parents experienced. Attainment results, to be meaningful, need to be put into context.
As a former teacher, I am aware that most primary and secondary schools face challenges today which are undoubtedly because of Scottish Government policies which are severely underfunded and lack forward planning by government and local authorities.
Policies such as smaller class sizes, lack of permanent contracts and budget planning for increases in teachers’ salaries which have risen to take into consideration teachers’ conditions of service.
Those people who are under the illusion that this is an easy job with great holidays should live with a teacher and see what a teacher’s working life is like.
Patricia Munro
Bettyhill
History repeating itself?
Living in such uncertain times creates its own sense of disaster. It’s difficult to consider the 1920s and 1930s followed by the nightmare of World War II without seeing similar social changes within our own times in the 2020s.
Politics moving to the right, leaders who could have been hewn out of solid wind by Walt Disney in Holywood and who all have direct lines to God almighty and, especially important, a bogeyman, the immigrant, with little or no power to fight back.
Those are some of the ingredients for an impending disaster, but without the assistance of the people those bunch of hoodwinkers and chancers would be nothing. They use our own power against us and there’s little we can do about it.
Jim Campbell
Thurso
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