Helping Young People

Re “A Bridge So Close” (July 17).

Give Eddie Frey credit for wanting to help the young people of today. But who will gently break the news to him that all the opportunities that opened to him--the armed forces, professional photography, aerospace--are closed to virtually all the kids he talks to? Doesn’t he know that the kind of job being offered where a “Help Wanted” sign is posted is not even remotely comparable to being trained as an aircraft mechanic in the Marines in the past?

And his success stories are glaringly incomplete. It’s nice that one of his youths got an accounting degree and one got a heavy-equipment operator’s license, but we all know of educated, trained people who are out of work. Unless you tell us that these people are now making $35,000 or at least $20,000 a year, we cannot see any signs for hope in their stories.

ROGER SKUTT, Granada Hills