Take the Human Side on Endangered Species

Re “Next: Targets on Tortoises,” editorial, Aug. 27: Ask anyone who has seen combat in defense of our country and made the luxury of the Endangered Species Act possible which principle is more important: suspending the act on the very small percentage of federal lands in question to ensure the best training possible for our sons and daughters who defend freedom around the world with their lives or blind enforcement of the Endangered Species Act no matter what the cost?

Just as outlawing guns to save one life in accidental shootings seems to be justified by your editorial board, if additional live combat-like training saves just one more U.S. soldier who is willing to make the supreme sacrifice for freedom . . . isn’t that worth it too?

The people who should be polled on this issue are those citizen-soldiers who have seen combat and know how hard it is to survive. They know: Train the way you want to fight and in combat you will fight the way you trained. What makes our military the best in the world is the training our men and women receive and their commitment to freedom.

Stephen Fredrick

Newport Beach

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Your editorial describes the tension between military training and the protection of endangered species on military land but missed one critical point. The secretary of Defense already has the authority to exempt the Department of Defense from the Endangered Species Act, though he has never chosen to do so.

The common presumption is that the so-called national security exemption would only be exercised in cases of national emergency, rather than for routine training. In arguing for the exemption, former Republican Sen. Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania asked his fellow senators to consider the dire consequences if an endangered bird on top of a missile silo prevented the U.S. from launching a retaliatory strike against the Soviet Union.

David Rubenson

Rand, Santa Monica