Thursday, June 30, 2011

A salute to Robert Gates and a diatribe against the U.S. Postal Service--and why the two are linked.

Kevin Ferris wrote a lovely piece about departing defense secretary Robert Gates (here), who has served honorably in his position, putting the troops' needs first.

And speaking of our troops, I was hoping to be able to send paperbacks to them via Operation Paperback, but our postal service decided to send them back to me instead.

I'm starting to wonder why we still have a United States Postal Service, when it's staffed by too many people with too little initiative.  Yes, there are many good workers at the USPS.  But there are also too many who don't seem to want to do a good job.  Is there a way to repurpose the USPS people who are good (maybe ask them to get the TSA's house in order?), and give up on the idea that we still need a government run postal service?

In any event, thank you, Dr. Gates, for watching over our troops so well, and thanks, Operation Paperback, for trying.

2 comments:

Jim Collins said...

Amen to that Nancy. While, as a political appointee, he has made decisions that I don't agree with, overall Gates has tried very hard to look after the troops first, and worry about the big guys second. In that respect, he has done a great job.

Unknown said...

Dr. Gates was a wonderful Texas A&M president, too: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4320401.html.