Being grateful for the boot straps

I'm writing in response to Mr. Alfred Kirkland Jr.'s post of Sunday, June 7. In it he says he is convinced that "inside every rock-ribbed conservative who tells everyone else to pull themselves up by their own boot straps is a hand out, where's mine, big-government welfare recipient waiting to happen." Three years ago, I left my job of fifteen years and qualified for unemployment compensation. I refused to accept government money, and instead chose to sell my home and go to graduate school.

After twenty months of extremely hard work I got my Master's degree. Know what I did then? I got a second Master's degree. Now, I have been offered a job teaching at the college level and am pursuing a commission as an intelligence officer in the United States Navy.

All of this is to say that when somebody tells you to pull yourself up by the boot straps, that is not a heartless dismissal of your plight. It's an impassioned challenge that is embodied in the American spirit - to believe in yourself, carry your load, never quit, and be the best that you can be. I can't answer for Congressman Tancredo, Mr. Kirkland, but I can tell you that this rock-ribbed conservative is just grateful to have boots, so that I never have to ask Uncle Sam for a dime I didn't earn.

D. Davisson

Arlington Heights