A recent Denver Post letter to the editor maligned U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman as “a shill for the U.S. Army.” The source of the letter-writer’s ire was an entirely reasonable and balanced guest column written by Coffman on the dispute over the proposed expansion of Fort Carson’s Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site in southeastern Colorado.
Coffman even acknowledged that “the Army did a miserable job, initially, in working with the ranchers in the affected areas.” He also explained the Army’s need for an expanded training site and discussed the damage to the Colorado economy if Fort Carson, the state’s second-largest employer at $1.8 billion a year, were to relocate to a state, like Texas, more accommodating to its needs.
Opposition to the expansion includes a number of bedfellows with different agendas. First are landowners in proximity to the Piñon Canyon site, who might otherwise be solid supporters of the military but, in this case, are driven by NIMBYism. This is wholly understandable, given the prospect of live-fire exercises in someone’s backyard.
Then you have principled libertarians who are ever-sensitive to encroachment on individual property rights whenever government invokes eminent domain to acquire private property. (The Army has since scaled back its acreage requirements by 75 percent and dropped any plans to invoke eminent domain, pledging to acquire land only from willing sellers.) The state legislature and Gov. Bill Ritter have also been less than cooperative, directing the Colorado State Land Board to deny the sale of any state-owned property to the Army. Throw in assorted peaceniks, enviros and animal rights activists and you have a powerful oppositional coalition.
There are valid arguments on both sides of the Piñon Canyon debate, but what particularly disturbed me about the letter-writer’s anti-Coffman diatribe was his myopic ignorance of basic civics and the role of those we elect to serve in Congress. He attacked Coffman for getting involved in an issue outside the physical boundaries of his 6th Congressional District (Fort Carson is in the 5th); accused the congressman of putting false words into the mouths of all of Colorado’s citizens; and berated Coffman for being distracted from more important issues like the local economy, crumbling infrastructure and the rising cost of health care and higher education.
Here’s a newsflash for the letter-writer. Rep. Coffman sits on the House Armed Services Committee, an appropriate assignment for a man who has served in the Army and the Marine Corps, including combat duty during the Persian Gulf War in 1990 and recent duty in Iraq — which, incidentally, is also outside of his congressional district. As such, he’s charged with the responsibility of dealing with matters of national defense, arguably the most essential task of our federal government. Members of Congress have to address myriad issues of varying degrees of importance that go beyond just local, parochial concerns. I wish there were more of them who would rise above Chicago-style ward healing and the competition for delivering pork to their respective districts, to consider what’s best for the nation.
The letter-writer also apparently misunderstood the headline — “The Army is not wanted in Colorado” — that appeared above Coffman’s guest column in The Post. It’s certainly not the view Coffman expressed in the column or the view of all Coloradans. It referred only to opponents of Fort Carson expansion.
No, Mike Coffman is not a “shill” for the U.S. Army any more than are our troops currently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan or the soldiers at Fort Carson who will soon be replacing them. He’s a patriotic American who’s put his life on the line for his country. He deserves better than a gratuitous backhand from an ungrateful letter-writer.
Mike Rosen’s radio show airs weekdays from 9 a.m. to noon on 850-KOA.
