Editor,

This is in response to a letter by Mari Milanoski in your March 11 edition of the Whidbey News-Times.

Yep, there can be no doubt that the Newkirk family was here long before the Navy. So were the Barringtons and many more, long before the Japanese made it necessary for the Navy to move in. That act, in December 1941, led the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Army Air Corps to move into many places that weren’t used before by the military.

The events of Sept. 2, 1945, justified the expansion.

Long before the Newkirks, Barringtons and others settled on the lovely island of Whidbey, there were other settlers living here, the Native Americans. When the Barringtons, Newkirks, Fakkemas and others decided they had a better use for the land others had used for hundreds or thousands of years, the really early settlers had to move.

The white man believed they had better use for the land.

Treaties were signed allowing the Native Americans keep a small amount of land, while the newcomers took the choice areas.

Then, when the newcomers found the Native Americans still had choice land, they voided past agreements and again took the property.

That looks a lot like the events on Whidbey Island. The newcomers took over from the original residents. Now there is a new demand for some of the land. The group that took the land from the original residents is beginning to feel what it is like to have something that others want.

Some of my family fell victim to government needs of land. The dams on the Tennessee River flooded out some of their property. A section of the interstate highway went over some of each property, causing loss of grazing and farming land.

That loss of private land provided flood control and electric power to many.

The interstate made it easy and faster to travel in Eastern Tennessee.

But I don’t think the people that lost their land felt that way.

Robert D. Brown

Oak Harbor