ROAD NEEDS ABOUND HERE

About 50 National Guardsmen from Southeast Missouri are in Panama building roads as a humanitarian project. This has been a long-term endeavor, and there is little doubt that the effort has been worthwhile and has produced positive results, both in providing much-needed infrastructure and in giving guardsmen valuable training.

But the plaint of a resident in rural Gale, Ill., cannot go unnoticed. Why, the resident wonders, can't the National Guard be deployed to this tiny town whose only road is in dire need of improvement?

As officials of the National Guard have explained before, there are policies in place that generally prevent involvement in such domestic projects. For one thing, these projects are within the purview of local governments, and paying for these improvements involve not only local taxes, but also private contractors who don't want to compete with government road-builders.

But there ought to be exceptions, particularly when local governments can't find the resources to complete much-needed projects. Wouldn't this be the perfect time for the National Guard to step in and help with a local project as well as going off to Panama?

And when the guardsmen get finished over in Gale, perhaps they could do something about raising the stretch of Highway 177 north of Cape Girardeau that is prone to flooding, thereby cutting off a key highway route. Something to think about.