Editor, Gazette-Journal:

A Mathews gentleman recently quoted Alexander the Great that heroes die once and cowards many times (“Concerned by security measures,” Aug. 4 Readers Write), implying our local officials, for protecting public safety with metal detectors, are lesser men than an ancient Greek butcher and terrorist warlord.

“Fear should not be the reaction of a free people.” I beg to differ. We have airport security because we fear terrorists. We wisely fear non-police guns or cell phones in courtrooms. We have the Pentagon. And law enforcement—because we fear folks getting away with harming us. Congress was targeted on Jan. 6, 2021 by an army of domestic terrorist militias.

Gen. George Marshall understood rational fear. He studied Hitler’s fearsome army—its defeat of France could lead to Britain’s fall. He persuaded FDR and a divided isolationist Congress in 1940 by a single vote to enlarge our armed forces—just in the nick of time, before Pearl Harbor yanked us into g...