To the editor:

Ms. Kieffer, in her letter of June 24, should be wary of making broad brush stroke comments such as, “the government does not have any sense or do anything humanitarian unless it is for another country, unfortunately.”

“The government” isn’t some mass floating out, in modern parlance, the cloud, but is comprised of people working daily in government at all levels. That said, that “the government” doesn’t do anything humanitarian unless it’s overseas is so inaccurate as to be shameful. Firefighters work for local government and they do humanitarian deeds on a pretty regular basis (or so my nephew, a firefighter in Tennessee tells me). The Kansas National Guard, an organization of the “state” (quotes added for emphasis) of Kansas, regularly gets called out to help Kansans (and on occasions in other states) after disasters. And, while not strictly humanitarian, what about teachers who work for USDs or at “state” universities and colleges?

That’s just at the state and local level. Employees in numerous federal agencies such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture (during droughts), Corps of Engineers (during floods); or FEMA (after disasters) and many others do humanitarian acts here in the U.S. of A. Even the Department of Defense has a role in disaster response in the U.S. if needed. In fact I’ll wager that the vast majority of government employees aren’t involved in any work overseas. I’ll leave the other half of her statement, that government doesn’t have any sense for someone else to address.