THIS LETTER APPEARED IN MONDAY’S BOREGONIAN

Held captive by pilot
A funny thing happened to us on an American Airlines flight from Portland to Chicago this month.
After having welcomed us, the captain pronounced a political speech glorifying a couple of soldiers in the plane, their labor and their mission in Iraq.
By doing so, the captain acted as an ideological kidnapper. That was not his plane but American Airlines’ plane. And, we paid to be transported from Point A to Point B safely; we did not pay to hear about the political opinions of a pilot, nor the glorification of a re-re-redefined (more “re-” to come, that’s for sure) mission.
He had no right to do what he did. Keep politics off planes.
SEBASTIAN REYES GARCIA and FRIEDERIKE MACKENSEN, Southwest Portland