A mother’s thanks to the voters

A mother’s thanks to the voters

My son arrived home from Iraq a couple of weeks ago. This was his third year-long deployment in less than five years. He looks good. He is fit, and he is happy.

It is hard to explain the kind of stress the families go through. If you have a soldier, you know what I mean. You never quite relax, you just wait. Homecomings are probably the happiest moments you have, deployments are the toughest. You live for every e-mail, every phone call. E-mail saved my sanity, all three times. Looking at his laptop, I realized how much he has been through. There are keys missing from the keyboard, and the screen is cracked. It has been in three war zones, along with my son.

I would like to humbly thank all the taxpayers and voters for the Ohio Veterans Bonus Program. My son will use his bonus to purchase a new laptop, and a plane ticket home for the holidays. This will be the first time in three years that he will be stateside for Christmas.

We will always think back to the kindness of the voters of Ohio for not forgetting their soldiers. Each one has a family, and each one has a story. Thank you for letting me share ours.

Rosemarie McIlduff, Salem

Keep your dog on a short leash

There are many good, re- sponsible people who live here on the West Side. They take care of their property and they control their pets. But there obviously are some residents around here who feel that someone else should be cleaning up after their pets.

When my wife and I had a dog, we took care of her and kept her on our property and we cleaned up after her. If I still wanted to clean up dog messes, I would have gotten another dog after she died. It’s not that we don’t like dogs, but we have eight grandchildren who come to our house regularly and I don’t want to constantly be cleaning up my yard so our grandchildren can play outside without stepping in it and tracking it in my house.

So please consider this a friendly warning. If I find your dog running free in my yard, I will capture it and tie it up and call the dog warden. I will not harm your pet (although you obviously don’t care too much for it), but I will capture it. So if you can’t find your pet someday, call the dog warden and see if they have your pet. And be prepared to pay whatever fine they assess against you.

John M. Harrison, Youngstown

City pursues another money grab

I am writing to comment on the way this city is trying to get more money. The rental property fees are nothing more than that. Although “they” say it’s to protect the tenants, they are fooling absolutely no one.

Now they are going to send people to knock on doors for surprise inspections, which only invites more criminals to do the same. The stupidity of this is unbelievable. Last Christmas my door was smashed by someone trying to break in. Yes, I was here, and I can tell you absolutely no one will get into my home without police or landlord escort.

The government and officials who need to take the pay-cuts to balance the budget refuse to do so. They would rather pick on the already poor and threaten us by reducing the police force, putting us all in more danger. Sickening isn’t it?

Dana Olsen, Youngstown

Transplant medication is vital

At the age of 11, my son was diagnosed with MPGN, a kidney disease that results in end stage renal failure. Over the years, I watched him struggle through grade school, high school, and college as his kidney function gradually slowed and almost stopped.

In 2003, he and I were extremely fortunate to be found as a good match, and I donated my kidney to him. Now, seven years later, he is living his childhood dream, employed by a Columbus company that creates computer games. He works out several times a week, competes in fencing tournaments, and recently biked 180 miles from Columbus to Athens in honor of his friend, Adriane Blewett, to support Ohio State University’s cancer research program. More good news: his wife is expecting their first child in February. He’s in the best health of his life, thanks to the powerful anti-rejection drugs that he takes daily.

Unfortunately, the Senate failed to include lifetime immunosuppressive medicine coverage in the recent health-care reform bill. (It was included in earlier versions of the bill but was excluded in the final draft.) I can’t even imagine the effect on the thousands of transplant recipients. For people like my son, dialysis would be the only option. I’m sure that my son would not have had the energy to accomplish what he has done so far if he were on dialysis. Furthermore, kidney transplant recipients have a much higher survival rate-and better quality of life-than those who are on dialysis. And people who received transplants of organs other than kidneys don’t even have alternative treatment options.

Please write to our representatives — Sherrod Brown, George Voinovich, and Tim Ryan — asking them to ensure that organ transplant recipients have lifetime coverage for their anti-rejection drugs. Thank you from me, my son, and the 1,800 people in northeast Ohio alone who are waiting for organ transplants.

Chris Khumprakob, Youngstown