Pushing an agenda

With all transparency, I am fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and await my opportunity to get my booster shot too. However, when I read that Gen. Colin Powell died from the coronavirus, I found it a bit of a stretch (“Nation Pays Tribute to a Warrior, Diplomat,” Boston Herald, Oct. 19).

Powell was fully vaccinated but also had been treated for multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that limits the body’s immune system. Shortly after his reported death, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul warned the anti-vaxxers not to hijack his death. However, she then asserts that Powell died because someone unvaxxed gave it to him. She can’t say that without proof but proof hasn’t stopped Democrats from saying all sorts of things. According to the CDC website, which Hochul should have read before speaking, both vaxxed and unvaxxed folks can both catch and spread the virus to both the vaxxed and unvaxxed around them.

We don’t need elected officials spreading panic news to the general public. Gen. Powell was a great military and public servant who was national security adviser under President Reagan, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H.W. Bush and finally Secretary of State under President George W. Bush.

I do not want to see Democrats, Republicans, anti-vaxxers or disciples of Faucism using the death of this great American hero to push a political agenda.

He lived to be 84 years old, accomplished much in the time God gave him and always did the best he could. That’s the only thing we need to remember about his life. — Sal Giarratani, East Boston