Well, to put it bluntly: The new Stars and Stripes format really stinks.

I am stationed in Japan, and I couldn’t care less about a German bakery making American bread for the people over there (article, Nov. 5). It certainly wasn’t worth two whole pages.

Why don’t you put more articles for our region, the Pacific, in the paper? From Hawaii to the Philippines and from New Zealand to Alaska I am sure there are more interesting stories than bakeries in Germany.

The funnies [that remain in the paper after Stars and Stripes cut two pages daily Oct. 1] really are not funny anymore either. I look at “Dilbert” and skip the rest of the garbage you pass off as comics. The quality and quantity are just plain substandard. And no movie schedules [in Stripes] any more either?!

When my current paid subscription runs out, that is it. I am deeply saddened that a once-great paper that I enjoyed for more than 25 years has deteriorated to being nothing more than a substitute for cheap toilet paper. I am telling you how I and many of your readers feel, and I know this will never make the letters page, but I wanted to express my disappointment in Stripes anyway.

Ralph Marshall

Yokosuka, Japan

I’d pay more for better paper

I have been reading where many are not happy with the changes to Stars and Stripes. I agree with them wholeheartedly. I was under the impression that Stripes was the military’s newspaper. How come we were not asked if we wanted change?

If this is a matter of funding, then why not ask if we would mind paying a little more? I know Stripes is provided for free to our forward deployed men and women. I am more than willing to pay a higher price for the newspaper we had than what I am buying now.

If you want to eliminate something, how about all the useless travel tips? Most travel places get their reputation from those of us who have gone to them and recommended them to our friends. Why does “After Hours: (anywhere)” have to take up page after page?

Give us back the newspaper we want, not the one you think we like.

Master Gunnery Sgt. A.R. Nichols (retired)

Ginowan City, Okinawa

Cuts just left a Jumbled mess

I’ve enjoyed Jumble word games [such as the feature that appeared in Stars and Stripes every day until it was dropped Oct. 1] since I was a little kid. After so many, I can usually do them in my head, and figure out the ending without lifting a pen, much to the chagrin of my wife. It also tells me how my concentration is going.

Some days when I’m under pressure, the words don’t appear so easily, and it reminds me to take a break and chill.

Fewer people seem to like Jumble than before, and I’m sure the reduction in a need to be literate has never been so pronounced as it is now with apps and systems to convert your misspelled word to the right one on the fly.

Oh well, guess I’ll have to find them somewhere else. Color me DASNDEDE (SADDENED).

Chief Warrant Officer 2 James Greer (retired)

Camp Henry, South Korea

Migrated