2/11/2021
My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,
How was yesterday’s visit to the African American Corridor at the Pentagon? Had you heard of Harlem Hell Fighter, Private Henry Johnson? Did you know he was awarded the Croix de Guerre for fending off a German raiding party near the Argonne Forest during WW1? Several parts of his story were troubling including the fact that he was fighting under the French, because white US soldiers refused to be in the same trench with a Black soldier. When he came back to the states & went on a speaking tour, he finally spoke up about this treatment & didn’t get any more engagements & died in poverty. How can it be that someone who suffered 20 wounds & showed “conspicuous gallantry & intrepidity,” has to fend for himself? He didn’t get a chance to “be all that he could be” & I’m afraid that’s still the case for most of the folks who serve.
Did you & Xi Jinping talk about Maynmar yesterday? Is he on board with your idea of sanctions against the military? Did you discuss the South China Sea? I understand that you have asked the Pentagon to do a study of the Chinese threat. I don’t think we have to worry about conventional war with them. They may outnumber us in terms of personnel, but we dominate in terms of hardware. We’ve got twice as many planes, 71 nuclear subs, to their 40 plain old subs & all kinds missiles. We spend 4 times as much as they do. We should be concerned about the cyber threat & I think our response to that is to do a better job educating our kids so we have more tech savy grownups ready to code.
Please get busy fixing the infrastructure. Today’s Guardian story about the folks in Centreville, IL, who have to deal with sewage in their yards, was deeply disturbing. Perhaps you could find a place in your administration for Catherine Flowers who has written THE book about such things. She’s got some great ideas on how to address this particular form of environmental injustice.
Say hi to Pete Buttigieg for me.
PBWY,
