Your Opinion: Response to Salcedo

Nelson Otto

Jefferson City

Dear Editor:

Mr. Salcedo's letter of Oct. 12 was very enlightening. The facts changed my whole prospective on the situation with the NFL and the flag protests. The fact that the United States government paid the NFL for the patriotic displays changes everything. The government basically had a contract with the NFL to promote or advertise in order to increase military recruitment. That means that the employees, the NFL players that protested the patriotic activities created a negative image of the U.S. government and the military therefore creating a breach of contract. A similar event would be if the DNC would hire an advertising firm to promote Hillary Clinton for president. The actor who is to show up at DNC events decides he wants to protest Hillary's private email server so he comes wearing a MAGA hat and a "lock her up" T-shirt. How would everyone react? Would they say the actor has a right to free speech or would the advertising firm fire the actor and apologize for the display, would attorney's from the DNC sue the advertising agency for breach of contract. Of course they would.

Mr. Salcedo's numbers for the Vietnam war are way off. 88.4 percent were Caucasian, 10.6 percent were black and 1 percent was listed as other. Of those that died 86 percent were Caucasian. Hispanics can be of any race, and during the Vietnam war their numbers weren't tracked. However an estimate places the numbers at somewhere around 5 percent you can find these numbers at www.americanwarlibrary.com/vietnam/vwc10.htm. I also tried to find anything supporting Mr. Salcedo's assertion that after WWII Mexican-Americans were declined entry in to veteran organizations. I found several websites that showed the history of Mexican-Americans and when they get to the 1940s a distinct change and acceptance. They speak of cooperative ventures between Anglo and Mexican-American communities. Unions opened their membership rolls and Luisa Moreno because the first Latina to hold a national union office.

As far as veterans being racist for supporting Trump for what he said: Seriously, Trump's comments are always taken out of context or twisted to fit a narrative. As far as not voting for someone who got out of serving in the Vietnam War, I guess Mr. Salcedo won't be voting for Mr. Biden or Bernie Sanders as they too received draft deferments.