To the Editor:

Welcome, servicemen. We are proud and grateful for your service to our country.

And we welcome your families and your dollars to our community. We really do support you — but just keep your facilities somewhere else.

The popular approach to the Navy’s need for an outlying landing field appears to be NIMBY — Not In My Back Yard. I can understand the concern, but I would like to ask: Whose back yard should this be in?

Should it be in Carolina back yards? Or maybe back yards in a different part of Virginia? Maybe anywhere but here? Or maybe if we cross our arms and close our eyes, will it just go away?

Other countries are run by the military, and citizens don’t get a say in what happens.

Our military protects our right to free speech, and we use that to tell them to go away.

If not here, then where?

Kim Kreider

Franklin