Letters to the Editor - The Lakeville Journal - 5-25-23

Thank you, local EMS providers

In recognition of National Emergency Medical Services Week (May 21 – 27), I would like to celebrate the work carried out by our team of dedicated EMS practitioners and the crucial services they provide each day within our region.

In my role as EMS Coordinator at Sharon Hospital, I interact regularly with the EMS providers in the hospital’s service area. Many members of our local EMS Rescue Squads and Fire Department Ambulance Corps, volunteer their time and skills for the sake of others and to serve as a pillar of support in our community.

We thank them for everything they do to provide highest quality of prehospital care for patients, helping them reach Sharon Hospital and our neighboring healthcare facilities safely and quickly. Working together with our hospital-based staff, particularly those in the Emergency Department, our EMS teams and the Sharon Hospital staff provide life-saving care to patients in the Northwest Corner.

As a paramedic myself, I am proud to work alongside this team of professionals that each dedicate themselves to caring for others. Our EMS practitioners are often called upon during high-stress situations and are required to manage the care needs of the patients, while also ensuring families, loved ones, or witnesses are tended to as well.

This EMS Week, I kindly ask the members of our community to join me in honoring members of the EMS community who regularly go above and beyond the call of duty and treat each patient like family. As our frontline workers deliver these lifesaving services and care during a patients’ and families’ ultimate time of need, and often go unrecognized. Thank you for all that you do for our community!

David Jensen,

EMT-Paramedic

EMS Coordinator,
Sharon Hospital

Sharon

 

Making a return to the classroom at HVRHS — 69 years later

How does an older, white haired gentleman, whose career has taken him to many countries — how does he get intimidated at this stage of life? Not difficult — just walk into a Housatonic Valley Regional High School classroom for the first time in 69 years, where 30 sophomore world history students are waiting for you — and you have an hour to keep their interest and attention in a topic, perhaps of vague interst to their being, namely “contemporary geo-politics of Southeast Asia.”

I started off by telling them that in my long ago history class, we, and our world, found ourselves pre-occupied with the Soviet Union’s takeover of Eastern Europe, imposing harsh communist government on so many nations, and, in Asia, the communist invasion of South Korea, the defeat of the French army in Vietnam and the total defeat of our ally, Chiang Kai-shek  by the communist army under Mao Zedong.

I told the students that, ironically, Russian and East Asian communism are  still the Number One international concern that they will be faced with in their lifetime.  Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Korea’s Kim Jong Un are ruthless dictators, run strict, authoritarian regimes,  tightly control their media, their school curriculums, tolerate no dissention, and despise democratic governments.

So, with that ominous thought given to the students, I went on to discuss the purpose of my talk, namely  the past seven historical decades in  East Asia.  The origins of the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the history of the Philippine Islands, Taiwan as a “hot spot,” and Hong Kong’s lost freedoms.  Fortunately I had a white board and could draw a map to illustrate the geographical aspects of the involved areas.

The talk concluded with questions and, to my delight, it actually seemed that I had sparked a bit of interest in Southeast Asia.

In closing, I impressed upon the students that the experiences, academic and otherwise, that they have at Housatonic will provide an excellent foundation for their future endeavors, just as my Housatonic AFS journey was responsible for my international career.

Peter Smith ’54
Taconic

 

The Trade of the Poet

Our job is to speak to you

About that certain part of you

That you do not know about

 

That part of you that’s potent to deceive

With which fear for yourself you will receive

That by iniquity you’ll feel cajoled

 

It’s that amount of the irrational that needs to be nurtured

That inevitable incoherence that needs to be heard

The peak of your vulnerability comes in times of idleness,
     when

Your essence dwells completely in the mind, and hence

It is in fear of fear — that you are held in mental anguish’s
     bind

Tim Lacy

Cornwall

 

Correction on quote

We are so thankful for the support that you and Ms. Hawken have provided for this event (Troutbeck Symposium 2023). We feel extremely grateful for our community.

The coverage was amazingly comprehensive, I only have one correction. The quote that begins with “This work is not academic” and ends with “you will see that it reshapes the trajectory of our nation” should be attributed to Prof. Hasan Kwame Jeffries of The Ohio State University, not to me. Although I agree, I could not have expressed it so eloquently.

Rhonan Mokriski

History Teacher

Coloring Our Past

Salisbury School

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