Robert Dean Stethem

“Terrorism Victim Is Remembered” (Nov. 22), on the U.S. Navy destroyer Stethem, provoked a memory. It also shows the U.S. government knows nothing about good publicity. Just think of the worldwide impact if our president had announced that the air attack on the Taliban had begun with a missile fired from the Stethem, named after Robert Dean Stethem, a victim of terrorism on June 14, 1985 [from an airplane hijacking].

I was on that airplane, TWA Flight 847, when Stethem was executed, and it would have meant a lot to me and most likely many other members of the passengers and crew, including his construction battalion buddies who did survive. I was also at the commissioning of the ship at the Port Hueneme Seabee base. It seems to me that even a low-level Madison Avenue type would see the value of such a deployment for the Stethem.

Thomas W. Murry

Newbury Park