I have to laugh — really — at all the letters to the editor, commentaries and editorials (“More Red Hill missteps by Navy,” Star-Advertiser, Our View, Jan. 6), moaning and groaning about the ongoing series of catastrophes at Red Hill. What a joke!

As if Red Hill were the only catastrophe caused by the military. How about the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian government aided by the American military, the confiscation of Hawaiian lands with the military still owning some 20% of Hawaii, the development of more than 100 military installations in Hawaii, the dumping of chemical warfare munitions in Pokai Bay, the long-term bombing of Kahoolawe, 100,000 acres of Pohakuloa turned into another bombing range, the fires and spent uranium at Makua Valley — the list of destruction of Hawaiian lands seems endless, along with the lies, obfuscation, gross incompetence and stupidity of the military. So why should we expect that the Red Hill disasters would be any different? Well, they are not.

I served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam era and I am a member of the American Legion. I am not anti-military. However, I also realize that the U.S. military never has kept its promises to remediate any of these disasters, no matter how many pleas for change we make.

The only solution to these problems is to petition the U.S. government for remediation funds for all these environmental disasters, turn the work over to Hawaii people, and, most obviously, get the damn military out of Hawaii!

Joel Fischer

Waialae

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