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Letters to the editor on women submariners, Timbers apartments

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Don't mix women, men on submarines

Having served four years in the U.S. Navy submarine service, I feel entitled and compelled to oppose any plan to sexually integrate combat submarines. I do so not because of any qualms about the abilities of women to serve as submariners. My concern is safety and safety alone.

A submarine is not only the most complex vessel in the Navy, it is the most vulnerable. Outside its steel cocoon are countless trillions of gallons of implacable seawater at crushing pressures just waiting for a careless or distracted submariner to misread a gauge, flip the wrong switch or turn the wrong valve.

The selection and training of submarine sailors are the best defenses the Navy has against carelessness, but distraction is a hazard for which there is no protection. The only defense against distractions is to keep them to a minimum.

Placing sailors of both sexes inside a submarine for months at a time would be an extreme and unavoidable distraction. Anyone who thinks otherwise is too ignorant of human nature to warrant an opinion.

If the Navy thinks it is important to have female submariners, that is fine. Train all-women crews, officers and enlisted alike, and let them demonstrate their abilities. All of our submarines will be safer.

ALAN HURLBUT

Wichita

Happy at Timbers

I have lived for nearly 31 years at the Timbers apartment complex, owned by the Cerebral Palsy Research Foundation of Kansas and managed by Weigand-Omega. Many in town still think it's a nursing home. Now others think it's a badly run "compound" that stifles dissent ("Dispute to cost woman her apartment," Oct. 18 Eagle). Neither is true. Timbers is an apartment complex for the disabled and their families. It is compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act and has won awards from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Most people who live there are very happy. I know I am.

A large part of the success of Timbers is because of CPRF's president and CEO Patrick T. Jonas. Like his father, John F. Jonas Jr., who founded CPRF and Timbers, Pat is a commonsense businessman with a big, compassionate heart. I owe him very much and feel his leadership is a shining example of applied Christianity and humanity. I regard Timbers as my home and Pat Jonas as my friend. Nothing I have read in recent days has changed my mind on either subject.

DAVID RUNDLE

Wichita

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