The Daily Brief

Around 0930 this morning a defendant in a rape case in Atlanta grabbed a deputy sherriff’s handgun and killed the judge, the court stenographer, and at least one deputy. One deputy is fighting for his life in Grady Hospital, and there may be more casualties.

The assailant gunned his way out of the courthouse and hijacked a car, and he is still at large at this hour. Much of Atlanta is locked down right now, however, there are three major interstate highways within two blocks of the shooting location, so the suspect could have gone in at least six directions.

More later.

UPDATE: 3/12/05-1300ET: The suspect, Bryan Nichols, is in custody. He was arrested at an apartment complex in Duluth, GA, about 20 miles from downtown Atlanta, where the original incidents took place. With an overwhelming police presence in place, surrounded by SWAT teams, Nichols apparently realized that he would emerge from the building in one of two ways: in a body bag or in custody. He initiated his surrender by waving a white t-shirt from the window of the first-floor unit where he was holed up.

In further developments, around 8 AM this morning, the body of an ICE (Immigration and Customs
Enforcement) agent was found in Gwinnett County, an area northeast of metro Atlanta. The officer’s weapon, badge, and pickup truck were all missing. At that point the focus of the manhunt for Nichols was moved to the Gwinnett County/Duluth area. later in the morning, the local 911 center received a 911 call from a woman who stated that she knew where the suspect was. Calmly and without any sense of panic, the caller revealed the details, and stated that she knew Nichols, who had arrived at her apartment during the night and took her hostage. When she was sure that he was asleep, she managed to quietly slip away and make the 911 call. As the case unfolds, it has been alleged now that Nichols probably killed the ICE agent and stole his truck, ID, and weapon.

Nichols was arrested peacefully and without incident. He was taken to Gwinnett County jail, and has been transferred to the Federal Detention Facility in Atlanta. Charges will be preferred, probably on Monday, and will include a number of death penalty allegations, the murders heading the list. Further updates will follow as the case develops.

Saturday afternoon, February 19, at around 1:30 PM CST, an ambulance belonging to Pafford Emergency Medical Services, of Hope, Arkansas, was struck by a train in Hempstead County Arkansas, just outside the small town of Fulton. Three medics on the ambulance were killed, two on scene, and one dying later in a Texarkana, Texas, hospital. The patient, a 69 year-old woman who was being transported to the hospital with a possible stroke, survived after being pulled from the wreckage by her family members who were following the ambulance. The fatalaties wiped out 25% of Pafford EMS’s staff.

It is unsure just what happened, but witnesses stated that it appeared the driver thought he had time to get across before the train would get to the crossing. The Arkansas State Police are investigating the accident.

This accident hits especially close to home for me. In my 20-odd years as a paramedic, I spent a lot of those years training other EMT’s and Paramedics, and I spent a great deal of that training focusing on safety. So many new medics drive much too fast when they get behind the wheel of an ambulance, and Nurse Jenny, during her days as a Paramedic, lost a former partner to an ambulance accident – due to driving too fast. Had we not transferred out several months earlier, Jenny would likely have been in the back of that ambulance, and the very thought makes my blood run cold.

There is some validity to the idea of driving in a hurry on the way to a scene, but NEVER any reason to drive too fast for conditions, and absolutely never, ever, any reason to try beating a train to a crossing. The few seconds or even minutes, spent waiting for a train will never mean the difference between life and death for a patient, but it certainly can make the difference between life and death for an ambulance crew! The reasoning for the patient is this: If your patient is in such bad condition that a few minutes’ delay while in the ambulance will mean that they die, then that patient would probably die anyway. And dead or injured medics can help no one. More reason for driving even slower once the patient is on board is that, once the lifesaving abilities of the medics are available, and the ambulance equipment is available, the situation is, or should be, under control. Now, I’ve been on a lot of calls where it seemed that everything that could go wrong was going wrong, but, in reality, the bedlam was just imagined. We really were in control! In a controlled situation, more harm than good can come from excess speed.

Our hearts go out to the families and co-workers of the members of Pafford EMS lost in this tragic accident. We so dearly hope that other EMS units across the country will learn from this, and that medics will step back, take a deep breath, and try to get their driving habits under control. Let’s try to save lives, and let the lessons learned in Arkansas this weekend do some good in the field. If we do that, then these three medics will not have died in vain, and some sense of meaning and peace can come out of great tragedy.

February 19 marked the sixtieth anniversary of the beginning of a horrific battle for the tiny island of Iwo Jima. The battle would ultimately last 36 days and take the lives of 6,825 brave American Marines and nearly 22,000 – virtually all – of the Japanese defending the island.

Iwo Jima, located in the western Pacific, at 24.3N/141.5E, is a small, uninhabited island in the Ogasawara, or Volcano, Islands chain. It is some 650 miles southeast of Tokyo, about halfway between the Mariannas (Guam, Tinian, and Saipan) Islands and the Japanese capital. The island chain was administered by Tokyo, was considered Japanese turf, and no foreign army had ever set foot on Japanese territory in the 5,000 year existence of the nation. In World War II, the location of Iwo Jima translated into a highly coveted prize for the US Forces on their drive toward the Japanese home islands. And the Japanese were just as determined that the United States would not capture the island.

Japanese General Kurabayashi, commander of the 21,000 + troops on the Island, is reported to have said to his wife, upon being notified of his posting to the command, that she should not expect his return. The historic attitude of the Japanese at the time was such that death, even by suicide, was much preferred over surrender or capture in battle. And Kurabayashi prepared his troops and his defenses brilliantly. During their preparation for the long-awaited American invasion, they dug some 1500 rooms out of the volcanic rock, connected by 16 miles of tunnels. About the only protuberances above the surface were the machine gun and mortar positions inside pillboxes constructed of reinforced concrete, up to one meter thick in places. They were ready – or so they thought – for the onslaught of the Gai-Genes (foreign devils).

On February 19, at 2 AM, a one-hour barrage of naval gunfire left the island a smoking hell-on-earth. This was followed by one hundred ten bombers, dumping maximum bomb loads on the small target. Nothing on the surface could have been left alive. And all of this had been preceeded by 72 hours of naval bombardment without letup. At 8:30 AM, the Marines received the order to begin landing on the island. One hundred ten thousand Marines in 880 ships, the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions, began heading for shore. For these men, who had sailed 40 days earlier from Hawaii, the moment of truth had come. The landing, on a scale hardly imaginable today, was the largest to date in the Pacific war.

The fighting was brutal. Carnage was everywhere. Men died before they could even get to shore. Mortar rounds, well-calibrated before arrival of the Americans, fell on the landing craft with deadly accuracy, leaving burning hulks on the shoals, sending men and equipment to the bottom between ship and shore. On shore, the Marines established their beachhead, but they were terribly exposed to heavy enemy fire, as the volcanic sand was too loose to allow for the digging of foxholes. The Japanese, fighting from their pillboxes and from caves, would come to the surface, fire, and retreat to their cover, while Americans had to treat their wounded, establish firelanes, and, it seemed, move heaven and earth to construct viable fighting positions with suitable cover. Historians have described the American attack as, “throwing human flesh against reinforced concrete.” It has also been noted that one-third of all Marines who died in WWII were killed on Iwo Jima.

Other statistics show that the total American casualties (dead and wounded) were 25,851, and that some 48,000 survived either unscathed or with minor injuries. This was a battle unique in history: 100,000 men fighting for possession of an island the size of Manhattan. The battle was won by the inch-by-inch tenacity and bravery of the foot soldier. Not technology, not anything else but by uncommon valor of United States Marines.

The one act most remembered today was the raising of our flag on Mt. Suribachi. Suribachi, or “Suribati-Yama” in Japanese, stands 548 feet high, and is an active volcano. Iwo Jima itself is a submarine caldera, historically with some 10 eruptions, all recorded in the 20th century, the last in 1982. The island’s name means, in Japanese, “Sulfur Island.” The task of capturing Mt. Suribachi fell to the men of the 28th Regiment of the 5th Marines. They reached the base in the afternoon of the 21st, and by nightfall of the next day they had surrounded the mountain. On the morning of the 23rd, men of “E” Company, 2nd Battalion, started trudging up the treacherous slopes of the volcano. At around 10:30 AM, men all over the island erupted in a cheer heard all the way up to the summit as the US flag was hoisted into the air. Later that same afternoon, a larger flag was raised, and it was during the hoisting of this flag that AP photographer Joe Rosenthal snapped the famous Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph which later was used in constructing the US Marine Corps Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The benefit realized by the US Forces in the capture of Iwo Jima was huge. Throughout the rest of the war, some 2400 B-29’s made emergency landings at Iwo, resulting in the saving of 27,000 American lives. With the three airfields on Iwo Jima active, fighter aircraft stationed there would be able to escort bombers on raids over Tokyo, protecting them from attack by Japanese fighters, resulting in untold lives saved. Was the battle for Iwo Jima worth the sacrifice of over 6,800 American servicemen’s lives? Just ask the survivors of the B-29’s that were saved by landing there, or the men who were protected by the fighter escorts, or their children, grandchildren, or their wives.

A Google search for Iwo Jima is worth the effort. A wealth of information, some of which was used in this article, can be found there. Another site, referenced earlier, is here. It is maintained by the family of John Bradley, one of the men who raised the flag that day sixty years ago. We today owe a great debt of gratitude to brave, courageous Marines who placed themselves in harm’s way to secure not only this island, but to win a war that was forced upon us, and to win it with unsurpassable honor.

What else can be said, but

Semper Fi!

UPDATE: Watch a program about Iwo Jima on the Military Channel at 8PM on Thursday, Feb. 24, 2005, entitled, “Return to Iwo Jima.”

If you want a good laugh, revisit my post from yesterday, look at comment #13 – it’s from my sweet, wonderful daughter. Then after her comment, I put it in perspective about her important lesson when she was learning to drive.

It’s a hoot, take a look!

Yesterday I was coming back from my monthly dr. appt in Macon, about 100 miles up the road. Weather was BAD, heavy rain, low ceilings, so I was in the old chevvy van instead of the Cherokee. I admit I was going too fast for those condx, but I was on autopilot – cruise control, so things seemed OK. Then all of a sudden I turned into a passenger instead of a driver! I was going down the highway one instant, and the next I was in the median, doing 80 mph, mud flying everywhere and absolutely no control.

I was surprisingly calm, no fear, just looking ahead and saying, “we’re gonna go over,” as the missile started to tilt to the left. I thought, “Darn, I took off my seatbelt because I had to pee so bad, this ain’t gonna be pretty. ” Then it started heading for the side with opposing traffic, I thought I had to stop that, so I was doing everything I could to steer back across. Then I got sideways, still sliding pretty fast. Again, I said “I’m going over”, and tried to brace for being thrown all over the place, but somehow the van careened back on the roadway. We’re not done yet. It kept on hydroplaning and then snatched up on pavement, shooting me BACK into the median, still somewhere around 60 mph. Here I was, sideways, and I could see a culvert coming up. “Uh-oh, this is it, I’m goin’ over for sure this time.” Nope, somehow I got it back in the left side breakdown lane, pointed the right way, and regained steering control. I eased it onto the road, went to the right lane, slowed to 45, got my thoughts under control, and snapped my seatbelt. Now I needed to do more than pee. I saw a sign for my exit, got off, and the rest is history. Wow, that happened so fast, but it seemed in slow motion, I was able to think and plan, even if it did no good. I just went out and looked, and there’s grass under my van from one end to the other. Man, that was some ride, and I don’t want to repeat it!

I guess my angel was there and not yet ready to take me home. Anyway, it ended well, I guess. I still want to know what Heaven looks like, guess I’ll have to wait…..

Peace, friends

Joe

I haven’t posted many blogs lately, what with lying all trussed up in ICU, and to top it all off, Nurse Jenny underwent surgery this past monday for a right shoulder rotator cup repair. I’m taking care of her at home this week, and she’s just a little limited in what she can do. But, thank God, she did well in the surgery and is doing just fine at home.

Timmer is just about to go under the knife on his legs, a really daunting procedure, and we wish him well and a very speedy recovery. Hang in there, Timmer, you have a family of bloggers out here who care about you, and we’re all on your side, pulling for your speedy and complete recovery. Your family out here is with you tonight.

The President just finished his SOTU address, and as predicted, the dummocrats showed their a$$es with disrespect for the president, even booing him at some points. Ken Salazar from Colorado is calling the speech “divisive”, just what the dummocrats are expected by party line to express. I thought it was a fine speech, and there were some instances of emotion that I was unprepared for – such as the tribute to the Iraqi woman standing with Laura Bush. The tribute to the fallen Marine whose parents were there really got to me, as it obviously did to many more. I did tear up, and choked up as well, telling Nurse Jenny that I’d give anything to be young enough to go back on AD. She said that I’d done my part, but I just wish so deeply that I could do more. I guess that’s a common feeling among those of us who served in an earlier era.

Folks, I hope the American People get behind the President, and that we see a coming together of our people that hasn’t been seen for a lot of years. There’s a lot we can do t0 honor our fallen heroes, and to bring our society into a new direction and a track of hope and victory in the future to come. We here on sgtstryker can help get this underway, and I hope we continue to be a shining light in the desert of dissonance and protest.
Stand with us guys, let’s get it underway!

One of the most popular entertainers in the industry, Johnny Carson, has passed away at age 79, reportedly of emphysemia.

All of the late-night entertainers on television today can give credit to Johnny Carson. Perhaps many of us can credit him for giving us reason to lie awake in bed after 11 PM every week night for many years. I for one, am happy to salute him for so many absolutely funny jokes and skits over my young adult years.

Good night, Johnny, and thanks for so many memories!

Joe Comer

To all the good friends I have met at this site during 2004,

HAPPY NEW YEAR,

And may God in His goodness, bless you every one!

Joe Comer

and

Nurse Jenny

Twice before, I’ve attempted to make this post, and each time it has just disappeared into the ether without a trace when I hit the “post” button. This time I hope it works. After all, don’t they say that the third time is the charm?

I have been thinking a lot lately about social security – or insecurity, as it may be. In the nineteen thirties, FDR gave us this system that has been a lifesaver for many elderly people, and maybe a hindrance to many more, those who weren’t motivated to do some saving for old age on their own. The reason that social security is becoming more important to me these days is that I find myself on the long side of life, now 61, and Nurse Jenny is not terribly far behind.

The President was on TV today, speaking about his ideas for preserving the social security system, and after his remarks, several congressmen spoke, both pro and con. What bothers me is that some of those guys seem to have their heads in the sand. They are totally against doing anything to change the system we have, and they don’t seem to have any ideas about what we should do.

I saw the time coming when I wouldn’t be working any more, and did something about it several years ago, but a lot of people seem to be completely clueless when you ask them about what they will do when that day comes. Our little retirement check from the Air Force helps, and some other stuff will assure that we won’t be eating cat food. But what will happen to others younger than I am? Tell us, Mr. Congressman!

It is clear that congress must do something. Sitting on their hands while the coffers are drained is not the best option. President bush has demonstrated courage and leadership by even touching this “third rail” of politics. Most others would cringe and pull back when the subject comes up, but time is running out, and someone must take the bull by the horns and lead on this subject.

Personal saving accounts is a great idea whose time has come. Allowing people to put some of their earnings into such an account is a definite step toward a cure, and it may be that the time has come for congress to explore some possible remedies to the train wreck that is coming if nothing is done. What do you think?

I just finished watching History Channel’s piece on TWA Flight 800. I admit, it causes me to wonder about what REALLY happened. It is just a bit too hard for a pilot of many years to believe that a fuel tank went boom on that flight and no other, considering just how many 747’s are in the air. A little hard on the braincells, no?

I doubt, though, that we will ever see the truth in not only this, but a lot of other mysteries that the government conveniently made to just go away. I don’t really subscribe to most of these conspiracies going around, but some of them leave me scratching my head just a little bit. There were more than 200 witnesses to the TWA crash, and a whole lot of them saw traces going up toward the plane. After the CIA (Now, why them? ) released their “animation” of what the NTSB claims happened, the witnesses, almost unanimously, decried the explanation. It leaves a great big hole of doubt in my little pea-brain.

I doubt we’ll ever know.

20041203/1230ET

Reports are coming in that at least five bombs have gone off at gas stations in Madrid, Spain. No report of fatalities or injuries as yet, and the explosions are said to have been initiated by the separatist group ETA, a Basque organization that has been f0r years demanding a separate state for ther Basque population.

Sorry I’ve been absent this week. Been in the dumps because, for the first time in 37 years of flying, I had a bad ending to a flight Sunday night. I posted the story on my personal blog, http://patriotflyer.blogspot.com, and you can read it there. Yes, I’m alive, no I didn’t crash, but it was just as bad…..

See y’all next week.

Thanksgiving was a nice break from the routine, and I found much for which to be thankful. My heart went out to our Marines, soldiers, airmen, sailors, and all the others who had to spend this day away from home and family. All day long, my thoughts and prayers kept going back to those very special people.

Today I went back to Timmer’s post of 11/22, concerning the Constitution and the very difficult situation regarding the Marine who was taped by Kevin Sites last Saturday shooting the insurgent in Fallujah. As of this post, there were 44 comments on that thread, and it proved to be a really interesting subject with a broad variety of opinions.

Time has moved on and this is no longer the breaking front page story, but that doesn’t diminish the importance of the subject. Al Jazeera, of course, has jumped on the story, as has the anti-American UN. The ICRC is also wringing their hands over the possibility of civilian casualties, again accusing the US of war crimes while ignoring the enemy who saws heads off innocent civilians. Something here smells worse than a dead fish under the hood, just a little off kilter! Our fighting forces are in harm’s way in order to free civilians from the brutal regime that had taken root in Fallujah, and from all appearances, they have leaned over backwards to keep civilian casualties at a minimum. Yet, our guys are expected to be the “gentlemen” of this war, not just in Fallujah, but in all of this war. I refer you to the comments by LTCOL Willy Buhl, referenced in Kevin Sites’ letter to the Devil Dogs.

So, where do we go from here in this debate? Is it really about the Constitution and the First Amendment, or is it about OPSEC, or the need to get the enemy before he gets you, or just what? Go back and read Timmer’s post, and read all those comments, and let me know:

What do YOU think?

I have changed my profile to put my name on my blog posts, but wanted to explain how I got “herkybirdman” for the benefit of those who may not understand how I got it.

The last eight years in the AF were spent on C-130’s, known affectionately as “Herky Birds.” This airplane was and is really special to those of us who flew and worked on them, much unlike my previous birds, KC-135’s. I spent nearly eight years on those hogs, and was so disgusted with them I never wanted to see the inside of one again. There’s no comparison, I know the herky is slow, but it’s a really sweet flying machine, and ours at the 302nd AW were in the best shape, for a 30-year old airplane. Thus, my choice of a blogname was meant as a tribute to a fine piece of work.

Joe

A private jet that was chartered to fly former President George HW Bush to Ecuador crashed this morning on approach to Houston Hobby Airport, in dense fog. Three crew members on board were killed in the crash. A complete story can be found here.

In a post last month, I wrote concerning the crash of a Beech Baron in Atlanta. The NTSB has released the preliminary accident report, which reads in part:

“….The personal flight operated under 14CFR Part 91. Instrument meterological Conditions existed at the time of the accident and a flight plan was filed. The airplane was substantially damaged and the instrument rated pilot and passenger were fatally injured. The …flight departed DeKalb-Peachtree (PDK) Airport in Chamblee, GA, on Oct. 19, at 1045L.

According to the FAA, the pilot was issued departure information for a south departure to Venice, FL. About 7 miles south of PDK, the pilot reported that he was in trouble. The departure controller immediately issued the pilot radar vectors for an eastbound heading, but the pilot never responded to the radar vector information. Shortly afterward, radio and radar contact was lost. Witnesses in the vicinity of the accident site reported seeing the airplane spinning out of the clouds in a flat attitude. A review of weather data and witness reports reveals that low clouds, fog, heavy rain and thunderstorm activity were in the area at the time of the accident. Examination of the accident site revealed that the airplane wreckage was scattered over an area 40 feet long and 38 feet wide. The airplane wreckage was adjacent to an automotive repair shop with debris from the right wing resting on the roof. Both the airplane and the building sustained fire damage. The airplane rested in the upright position. The cockpit and cabin areas of the airframe were badly fire damaged.”

It appears possible that the pilot lost an engine shortly after takeoff, and with the plane in the clouds, became disoriented and failed to properly correct for the torque being produced by the operating engine. This is deduced from the witness report that the airplane was in a flat spin. Other factors, such as the presence of thunderstorms in the area, most likely contributed to the crash. Any pilot would heartily agree that one does not mess with thunderstorms. The pilot always loses, and the thunderstorm always wins. The entire truth of this accident will probably never be known, but this report should serve as a reminder to all of us who sit in the left seat of an aircraft that things can go wrong, and the whole situation can go to hell in a handbasket real fast. We pilots are behooved to read and learn, and always, as the Boy Scouts tell us, Be Prepared!

Joe Comer

When we left our narrative before, I was on my tricycle poised to go out and conquer the world – or at the very least, to go into Lumber City, some seven miles from our old clapboard farm house in Wheeler County. The road in 1944 was a very primitive dirt road, and in fact the truck we had was a Ford Model A pickup. I used to love that old truck, especially the jiggledy-jiggledy sound the motor made. Today, the road is a nice paved road, our old house is long gone, forests have grown up there, but the beginning of the lane to where the house used to be is still visible.

I remember that I left the front yard through the gate, went down the lane and out onto the sandy dirt road, headed in the direction of town. The sand there was deep, and pedaling was hard, but I made it about a quarter mile down the road to a bridge across a little creek. The creek is pretty much dry today, but there is a culvert there, and it is still recognizable as the place where the wooden bridge was. The bridge was one of those very simple types, without side rails, just timbers crosslaid, with runners over them; we had many of those kind of bridges, even as I grew up and started driving myself. But they’re all gone today (sigh) progress……but I digress……I got to the bridge and trundled across it, and when I got to the other side I saw a car coming. Somehow, in my little brain, I knew to get out of the way, so I pulled my tricycle off to the side at the end of the bridge, a little way down the embankment.

I guess I thought the car would go on by, and maybe I’m lucky that it didn’t. As they approached, the driver slammed on brakes, and some neighbors of ours jumped out, grabbed me and my trusty ride, asked me, I believe, something like where did I think I was going, and promptly delivered me back home to my mom. Her hair stood on end, I guess, as they told her where they had found me, and I definitely remember the punishment that followed: She had this hairbrush, you see, and it had a flat back surface. That surface was applied to my little bottom forcefully a number of times, while she alternately yelled and cried. It seems she was frightened out of her gourd! One thing for sure: I never left that yard again without anyone with me. The story of this episode was legendary in my family, as were quite a few of my hare-brained schemes when I was a kid.

Oh, yes. In part one I mentioned a huge rattlesnake. Just days after my adventure, Daddy came to the house, got us in the truck, and took us down to the bridge where I had stopped for the neighbors’ car. There, right where I had pulled off the embankment, lay a dead snake. A really BIG dead snake! It was something over 6 feet long; not the biggest I’ve seen around there – that one was around 8 feet. But big enough that it made a serious impression on all of us. It sends shivers down my spine to think what would have happened had that thing been there when I was off on my little adventure! Rattlesnakes are territorial, too, and that was most likely his back yard. Yikes, it still raises the hair on my neck!

Oh, and the alligator? He probably wasn’t around right then, but a few hundred yards past the bridge was a place in the road that was prone to developing a really big mudhole when it rained much. The mudhole was so big and so deep that people had forged trails through the woods to get around it, and many are the times I remember us going out and around that spot. Naturally, it’s gone today, but I can still point out just where it was. One day sone time after the road trip, Daddy took me with him, took his rifle, and we went down to the mudhole. There, in the road, or in the water over the road, was a big alligator. Daddy went over and climbed a tree with his rifle and shot the gator. This was, mind you, a long time ago, and I don’t believe there were such restrictions on killing them as there are today. I don’t remember how many times he shot it, but it was more than once. I do know that he showed me the gator when we got there, and warned me to stay in the truck. This time I did as I was told!

As I remember, he took me back to the house before he disposed of the alligator, so I don’t know what became of it. I regret never asking him about it; there are so many things I wish he had told me, but he had a stroke in 1987, and never regained his speech. He lived in California the last 20 or so years of his life, and I was able, thanks to an Air Force TDY that took me to NAS Miramar for six weeks, to go and visit with him at his home in Newark, California, just out of San Francisco, over a weekend soon after his stroke. I called him many times after that, where I did the talking and Dad just grunted, but was never able to get back out to see him. Dad passed away in 1997, having survived lung cancer some 20 years before, and having lived for 10 years after suffering the stroke. I loved my Daddy, he was ten feet tall in my eyes. He made his mistakes of course, but he was my Daddy. He and mom were divorced years later, and he went to California then.

There are a lot of stories I remember from that house in the woods of south Georgia, like the time a bird nest fell to the bottom of a chimney, the fireplace being covered for the summer, and the sound the baby birds made was just like a rattlesnake. It scared the bejesus out of everybody, we evacuated the house pretty quick, and Daddy went back in with his gun to kill the “snake”, only to come out a few minutes later grinning sheepishly as he carried out a bird nest full of baby birds!

We had no electricity, but we had running water, if you count the water as running while you hand pump it. The pump was at the edge of the back porch, and they kept a bucket there with a dipper in it to drink out of. Mama cooked on a big old wood stove, and I have never tasted food so good since then! Man alive, those biscuits! We had an outhouse, too. It was out back, past the garden, and I was always scared to go out there. Oh. You’ve heard the tales of using the Sears & Roebuck catalog? True. Yep, absolutely true! Those slick pages don’t work too well. Moving along swiftly, now…..We never knew we were poor; to tell the truth, I don’t believe for a moment that we WERE poor! Life was good, especially for a kid. No electricity? No problem. Didn’t need it. We had kerosene lamps, and Daddy had a battery radio that we listened to Grand Ole Opry on every Saturday night. No need for a refrigerator. All the food was either in the garden or running around on the hoof. We had a smokehouse where meat was smoked for preservation, so nothing was lost there. It’s sad, to me, in a way, that I’m of the last generation to experience life like that in America. It still exists in some parts of the world, but it’s not likely that our children or grandchildren will ever know what that life was like.

The lights did go on in Georgia, around 1950, when we gave up the farm and moved to Lumber City. We were city folks now. Electricity, indoor bathroom, and eventually a phone. We still didn’t have TV, though, not even when I joined the Air Force in 1961. It was somewhere around 1964, the year that Nurse Jen and I got married, that Mama bought a TV for Daddy. Even though we moved to town Daddy didn’t stop farming. He had garden plots all over town, and guess who had to do hoeing, plowing, and harvesting? You got it, me. The kid. Or all us kids, really. Daddy got something when we moved to town that he never had when we lived in the country. A tractor. A garden tractor, that is. I’ll never forget it. A David Bradley walk-behind from Sears!

The house we bought was an old general store with a house attached. I remember that there were old hand pumped gas pumps out front, and there was one of those old insulated rooms where they stored ice that they sold. The gas pumps were removed, and later on, Daddy made a bedroom for him and Mama out of the old ice house. Mama opened a boarding house and later a restaurant. She could have made a killing, but she never charged what the food was worth. She gave most of it away, anyhow. It was just her big heart and generous spirit. No one ever went away hungry, money or not.

So, the lights went on in Georgia, at least in my little world, in 1950, and they DID go off again some years later – when I went out in the country to live for a time with my Aunt Lollie. She was old and needed someone to stay with her and help her with chores…..but that’s another story!

All day I have wanted to login so I could get folks looking out for some strange goings-on in DPRK (North Korea.) There are rumors going around that pictures of Kim Jong Il have been removed from their normal place next to Kim Il Sung’s pix. I googled this and it seems to be true. Speculation abounds as to the reason, ranging from death of Kim, to a coup, to simply his request to remove the pictures. Now, this seems strange to us, but it is required that pictures of both Kims be displayed in every room of every home, every office, school, hotel, etc. The literally worship KIS and KJI as gods, calling KIS “Great Leader”, and KJI “Dear Leader.”

Another thing noticed lately is that the TV and Radio ministries (State owned, of course, ) are now just calling KJI, “president,” instead of “dear Leader”.

If you have a chance to watch Discovery Times channel, there are two very worthwhile programs that they air about N.K. One is “Children of the Secret State,” very heart-rending, and the other is “Access to Evil,” which is pretty eye-opening as well.

Ever since I stood at PanMunJom in 1962 and looked out over that mysterious land, I’ve wanted to go there and see for myself just what it is like, and if their current state were to crumble, I might get that chance. Maybe I should get my language texts out, and bone up on my vocabulary, just in case. The most use I get out of Korean lately is an occasional visit to our favorite Korean restaurant where Nurse Jen and I have been going for years, where we get to practice our language skills in conversation with the staff.

Tonight’s “War Stories” is about the Korean War. It wasn’t too long after that when I first went there, and the country was still in pretty much disarray. A whole different story today, though!

We’ll keep an eye on this one.

The year was 1944. War raged over Europe, and Americans were fighting not only that devastating conflict, but also a bloody Island-hopping campaign in the Pacific. It was a struggle to the death, and no one was sure at first that we would win; our way of life, our very civilization, was on the line. And there were no lights, or other modern conveniences in our house, just some 20 miles from where I now sit. But I knew nothing of all this. My world was rather small, as was I. In late 1944, I was still only around 18 months old, and my joys were primarily such things as pulling my puppy around in the bright red little wagon I had received for my birthday. One other happy pursuit was to sit in Mama’s kitchen and lick the spoon that she had used moments before to whip up a cake. Now, Mama made lots of cakes. We were a farming family and everyone worked hard, burning more calories in a day than most people burn in a week today. And everyone but me and Mama would be out in the fields during the day – with the exception of Junior, who, at the age of 16, had gotten Daddy to sign for him to join the Navy. He might could have gotten in without Daddy’s signature, he was a strapping, big farmboy who had muscles hardened by years of hauling around a plow behind a cantankerous old mule named Fred.

On Christmas day of that year, I received a present that was wonderful beyond my wildest dreams. A shiny new red tricycle! Now, for anyone in families like ours, the arrival of a new tricycle was a momentous event. We were, you see, sharecroppers. At least Daddy was. We would usually recieve only one present – that is, if we got ANY! The house we lived in was not ours, but the landlord’s, however we could live there as long as Daddy made crops and provided income for the man who owned our farm land. And Daddy was a good, no, a prodigious farmer. I never, as long as he lived, saw him fail to have a good harvest. Of course, sometimes we thanked God for a great crop, and then again, sometimes it was a battle against nature all the way. But we lived, we got by somehow, and here it was Christmas and I had a shiny new tricycle!

Tricycles are not meant to be stared at, so of course I learned right away how to ride the thing, and soon I had mastered all the secrets of advanced tricycle riding. By late spring of 1945, I was convinced that I was the all-time champ of pulling my little red wagon behind that tricycle, all around the neatly-swept fenced-in yard that encircled our big, old, unpainted house. Junior had been home on leave – they called it “furlough” in those days – and he had left again after only a couple of weeks, back to his mysterious Navy duties. I was outside playing as hard as I knew how, when the idea of the century struck me. I had, among other neat treasures in my pocket, three pennies, and all that money was burning a hole in that pocket. It needed to be spent, and I was just the fellow to do that! I knew then what I HAD to do. I would go to town and buy some candy for all those folks out in the fields! Moving quickly to set off on my journey, I untied the hapless wagon, it would have to stay behind for this trip: town was about 7 miles away, and I wanted to be home before dark.

This is how it came about that I left the safety and security of the yard, to go into the big city of Lumber City, a trip down a dangerous dirt road that would bring me nearly face-to-face with a huge rattlesnake, within only yards of a monstrous mudhole in the road where an old alligator had taken up residence, and thankfully, rescued by shocked neighbors who returned me home to a horrified mother. That part of the story will be continued later, in part 2 of “The Night The Lights Went ON in Georgia.”

Never will we be able to do enough to compensate our soldiers who have been wounded in the line of duty. Every American owes these guys the highest respect for their bravery and courage in battle. I have found and checked out two sites, this one and the other founded by General Paul Vallely to honor his son, Scott who lost his life in a training accident. It is worth our time to visit these sites and to do what we can to help those who have given dearly in our interest. Thanks, guys (girls included…)

Hurricane Charley gave my good old flag a bad tear, which was finished a few days later by hurricane Jeanne. It has been folded on the dinner table since that day in July. I sorely missed putting out my flag, and today I could not take it any longer. I went out and purchased a new one today and raised it with a private salute – and a few tears as I thought of those fine young Americans who have not and will not come home from Iraq. So horribly sad for them to die on such faraway battlefields, but such is the bravery and certitude of those who serve, putting country and honor above love of life. My heart goes out to their loved ones this Veteran’s Day, and my salute is to them – to the lives they lived and the honor they forever bring to all of us.

Joe Comer