"I would be willing to

bet that every hour in your flight log was paid for by taxpayers of the

customers of Delta."

Now recall your footnote of

April 4. "As an aside, the great debates about adopting the U.S.

Constitution featured many 'anonymous' letter writers, who also happened

to be some of the leading patriots of the Revolutionary era."

Many of you will recognize

the words of Thomas Paine from "Common Sense" and "The

American Crisis," and the words of Alexander Hamilton as Publius

from Federalist One. And since you obviously read The Citizen, you probably

recognize the cowardly attack on Russ Switzer in particular, and military

and Delta pilots in general by someone who refuses to divulge their identity.

Last week, another of these

brave individuals wrote in, telling us he is a retired flight instructor,

and then giving some strange explanation about the degradation of hand-flying

skills, with of course no hard data to back it up, and the assertion that

85 percent of us would stay on the job, even though 97 percent of us voted

to authorize a strike. Is this guy an Eastern scab? What's his agenda?

Is he even a pilot?

I'm sorry, I just don't get

it. Thomas Paine fought with Washington's army all the way across Long

Island, the loss of Fort Washington, and the retreat across New Jersey.

Alexander Hamilton was almost reckless in battle, and lost his life in

a duel in which he may very well have deliberately fired his weapon into

the ground. Both assumed anonymity to expound a political discourse that

was to affect the nation and the world. Their purpose was to take personality

out of the discussion and concentrate on the ideas.

How can this paper mention

them in the same breath as the gutless wonders who send their opinion

to this paper, but want anonymity from the public?

Timothy J. Parker

[email protected]

A Delta pilot