Bad Time To Go Swimming

You know you're having a bad night when you get involved in an accident and are arrested by police for driving under the influence. You're having a really bad night when you fall into a swamp during the process.

Dennis Lemon of James Island, South Carolina was involved in an injury accident on Folly Road at Battery Island Drive late Tuesday night and, as the 65-year-old was speaking with officers at the rear of The Barrel restaurant, he staggered off the end of a parking ramp and into Secessionville Creek.

Lemon, who had refused to perform any field sobriety tests, was described by responding officers as "...extremely unsteady on his feet..." , an observation reinforced by the suspect's unexpected dip in the shallow tidal swamp. After 'rescuing' the intoxicated man, Lemon repeatedly insisted that he was on Maybank Highway when he caused the accident, a 4-lane roadway a little over five miles away.

He was arrested and jailed.

Memorial Day 2017

Memorial Day

For much of America, Memorial Day means an extra day off from their work week. It means the end of the school year and the official start of summer. It means cook-outs, picnics and trips to the beach and, for some, visits to the grave sites of lost loved ones, where they’ll lay wreaths or plant flowers in their memory.

The reality of this day, which became an official national holiday in 1971, is that we honor those who have lost their lives in military service to our country. Started shortly after the conclusion of the Civil War, it was formerly known as ‘Decoration Day’, a time when our nation’s patriot heroes were remembered by placing wreaths, flags and flowers at their resting places. It is to be a solemn, somber occasion during which this nation reflects on the sacrifices made by those who have kept us free. We are to honor America’s military combatants who paid the ultimate price, in all wars and conflicts, by shedding their blood so that we, today, can live free of the shackles of those who would enslave us and trample our Constitution.

We honor those who fell freeing us from British colonialism in places such as Bunker Hill, Boston and Valley Forge; from the North versus South Civil War, which was anything but civil, in places like Charleston, Fredericksburg, Manassas, Gettysburg and Antietam.

We honor those who sacrificed their lives during the Great War, often referred to as the ‘War to End All Wars’, at Belleau Wood, Chateau-Thierry and Cantigny; the Second World War in the hell that was Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Normandy and Bastogne.

We honor the brave men who fought in Korea, killed during combat action at Inchon, the Imjin River, the frozen Chosin Reservoir and Pork Chop Hill; those who died in the steamy jungles of Viet Nam in places such as Pleiku, Ia Drang, the A Shau Valley and Khe Sanh.

We honor those who have fought and died in America’s ongoing War on Terror in the heat and grit at Anbar Province, Fallujah, Mosul and Basra in Iraq, and Tora Bora, Kamdesh, Wanat and the Helmand and Kandahar Provinces in Afghanistan.

We honor men and women who gave their lives amidst the artillery barrages, the bayonet charges, withering automatic weapons fire, aircraft crashes; in the dark, flaming, smoke-filled compartments of torpedoed ships, inside the oven-like personnel carriers hit by rocket-propelled grenades or buried improvised explosive devices, in the trenches, fox holes and bunkers in every war the United States has fought, hot steel raining down from enemy bombers or shards of shrapnel from air burst artillery rounds.

We honor those who died protecting this nation; whether the conflict was deemed  just or unjust by the American public matters not. These patriot heroes answered the call to arms, protected us from all enemies foreign or domestic, in our own nation and on foreign shores. They left behind their wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, loved ones who will forever remember the souls laid bare upon the altar of freedom.

Much as the State of Israel pauses as one on Holocaust Remembrance Day to recall the millions of Jews whose lives were stilled by the Nazis during World War Two, we also MUST pause to honor those who gave their lives in defense of our United States of America.

God rest the souls of all our patriot heroes this, and every, Memorial Day.

Terror Attacks, Misinformation and Callous Responses

Yet again the spectre of multiple deaths and casualties due to an act of terrorism dominates the headlines and social media. This time, the attack targeted young people leaving a concert venue in Manchester, England.

Latest available information lists a single suicide bomber detonating an improvised explosive device in an area where concert-goers exited the arena into a train station; military operational planners call  a spot like this a 'choke point', an area where a lot of people will be in a confined space, offering a prime target to terrorists. Investigators believe the attacker maximized casualties by using nuts, bolts and nails as shrapnel in his device in order to inflict horrific, traumatic injuries on those who somehow survived the blast itself.

There will be ongoing news coverage throughout the day, no doubt; there will also be more misinformation disseminated via social media, intentionally or otherwise, by way of rumor and/or innuendo.

Before the dust had settled in Manchester yesterday the internet was afire; I saw several social media posts indicating multiple attackers had thrown gasoline-filled balloons inside the concert hall. No mention of anything of that nature occurring in media reports this morning, however. I also read entries making remarks such as, "It serves her right.", a reference to the performer's statement in a secuirty video last year in which she said she 'hates America' right after licking donuts on a display tray in a bakery.

While that particular incident angered me personally, we cannot gloss over or look past the tragic loss of life just to hit back at this far-left, self-centered alleged 'celebrity', one who champions the cause, indirectly, of those who would commit these heinous acts of terror.

We are better than that...or we should be.

We are told by mainstream media not to 'rush to judgement' and call this a  terrorist incident, even though this act was designed to spread death and fear among the British populace, no matter the actor's cause or religious affiliation. However, when someone detonates a bomb in a confined area packed with young people in order to kill as many of them as possible, it can be called nothing else.

Politically Correct Seattle Police and Washington State's Dept. of Corrections

Damarius Butts proved to be a violent criminal. Last month, while fleeing an armed robbery of a 7-11 store in downtown Seattle, Butts shot three Seattle police officers, who returned fire and killed him. Two of the officers went home that day, one being saved by her bullet-proof vest and the other having suffered a grazing wound to his hand. The third officer was shot in the face, with the projectile deflecting down into his chest. He underwent surgery and is expected to make a full recovery.

The incident well illustrates the hazards police officers face daily; in this case the officers survived a gun battle with a suspect who was trying to kill them. As in any officer-involved shooting, extensive interviews were conducted, the scene was processed by evidence technicians and mounds of paperwork was completed, including use-of-force reports.

The rub was in the paperwork. Seatttle police couldn't call the suspect a 'suspect'; they had to refer to the decedent as a 'community member'.

No, I'm not kidding.

Seattle Police Officer's Guild President Kevin Stuckey, speaking about the change, said "I don't think there's anything wrong with calling someone who is a victim a victim, or calling a suspect a suspect. 'Community member' is too vague."

The change came about in 2011, when a U.S. Department of Justice oversight committee urged the use of the term 'citizen' rather than 'suspect' or 'subject'. It's all about political correctness, you see.

In the fall of 2016 the State of Washington Department of Corrections stopped calling inmates 'offenders', instead referring to incarcerated persons as 'student', 'individual' or 'patient'.

DOC Secretary Dick Morgan said the term 'offender' has a negative impact. "Times change and so does our language."

And, apparently, so does the meaning of 'common sense'.

Norm Gerster: The Rest of the Story

As I was walking up to Norm Gerster’s front door his two companions, Tad and Talley, were barking my arrival; I didn’t even have to knock. The two canines are brother and sister, a mix of Labrador Retriever and Boxer both with tiger-striped brindle markings. Norm, the 87-year-old subject of my next interview, greeted me at the door, his full head of white hair just as brilliant as his smile. Norman Gerster could easily play the part of an old rancher in a Western, complete with the brushy mustache.

The dogs barked until Norm told them “hush!”, and they did immediately. “C’mon over and have a seat on the couch.” I did, and listened for the next ninety minutes to Norman Gerster’s tale of life in the U.S. Army…and all the rest that’s filled out his time on this Earth.

If you’ve read the article online at the News Journal’s website you already know about the 22-year-old Gerster being chosen to play for the 3^rd Armored Division’s traveling baseball team. Norm toured most of Free Europe (Germany was divided between east and west, thanks to Soviet expansionism) and played a lot of baseball, seeing places he never would have gotten to see if he had been sent to the Korean theater of war. That issue caused he and his teammates some problems.

“They had us eat with the officers, in the officer’s mess, wherever we went. The regular soldiers, I guess, didn’t like it because we played ball. They wouldn’t eat anywhere near us.”

After returning from the service, Gerster said he never played baseball…but did play a lot of softball. “They had leagues just about every night,” he said, “and I played when I could.”

Norm also had another passion, one he’s enjoyed as long as he can remember. “All told, I’ve probably owned at least twenty-five motorcycles. Me and my brother rode to Daytona plenty of times; three days down, three days back. I also rode to Yellowstone National Park, and out to Sturgis ( South Dakota ), too.”

“I had three Harleys and didn’t like any of them, too much trouble, but that was in the late 50s”, he remarked. “Ducatis, Moto Guzzis and BMWs, That’s mainly what I rode. I plan on riding around the track during Vintage Bike Days at Mid Ohio this year, too.”

Gerster also had the privilege of traveling to Washington, D.C. in April, aboard an ‘Honor Flight’, an air transport trip that enables America’s veterans to visit the memorials honoring their respective wars and service to this nation. Honor Flight is a non-profit organization that, in 2016, took over 18,200 veterans from across the country to Washington cost-free.

“I’ll tell you what, I’m tickled to death I went. A woman at the V.F.W. in Crestline informed my daughter about it, so my daughter got a form, I filled it out and took it back to her”, he recalled. “They didn’t have any flights left when I dropped the papers off ( last September ) but they called me around the first of April and asked if I still wanted to go. I told her I did and she said ‘OK, the fifteenth of April’. I got a hotel room at Columbus airport the night before the trip because we had to leave at 5:30 in the morning. They shuttled us to the aircraft and we got on…83 of us…and not a one that I knew.”

“We got into Baltimore, and then they put us on a bus…it took about an hour and fifteen minutes to get to Washington. We visited all the monuments; the Korean War one impressed me the most. Nineteen bronze soldiers stationed all around this big area. Each of us had a host, someone that took care of everything we needed. Hell, they wouldn’t even let me open a bottle of water! Everywhere we went, they were with us. Then, when we got back to Columbus…around 9:30 at night…there were all these people there, family and friends….to welcome us back.”

 Norman Gerster had tears in his eyes, his voice strained; it was evident that the welcoming crowd at the end of his Honor Flight provided quite an emotional experience for this very grateful, old farmer-turned-soldier-turned ballplayer-turned motorcyclist.

You can find Norman Gerster most mornings at the McDonald’s in Crestline, and I plan on going to see him there very soon.

A Severed Foot Inside a Tennis Shoe = Mystery

On Monday, May 1st, a tennis shoe, which had been sitting on a dock at the Charleston City Marina for six days, was discovered to still contain a human foot.

Workers had been cleaning debris, brought to the surface by a storm the week before, from the marina waters when the shoe was initially found floating near docks J20 and J22. One of the workers tossed the shoe onto the decking, where it remained until a boater noticed a bone sticking up out of the shoe early Monday afternoon.

The shoe, a teal Adidas Samoa men's size 9, was sent to the Charleston County Coroner's Office, where a forensic anthropologist positively identified the foot, still encased in a black sock, as human; however, the right foot and shoe had been in the water for so long that examiners were unable to determine the sex or race of its previous owner. Coroner Rae Wooten stated that the foot could have surfaced after last week's severe weather, which churned debris from the bottom. "We can't even determine how long the foot has been severed."

Investigators are checking regional missing persons reports but, so far, have come up empty. Additionally, the state's Department of Natural Resources officials are unaware of any boating accidents within the last year in which a foot was traumatically amputated.

Another 'What Were They Thinking?' The 'Due Diligence' Edition

Teachers, just like us cops, nurses, doctors and a bevy of other occupations, are held to a higher standard due to being in a position of trust.

Apparently no one told Megan Sloan.

According to several area news outlets, the 27-year-old Sapulpa, Oklahoma elementary teacher was arrested and booked into the Creek County jail on Monday on charges of possessing a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school, embezzlement and possession of drug paraphernalia. Here's how events unfolded:

Sloan, who taught at Holmes Park elementary school, had been using a school computer and was messaging another person on her Facebook account. For reasons unknown, she then walked away from the session, leaving her social media account open; another educator, needing to use the computer later on, found Sloan's open social media account, discovering that she had been having an online conversation with another person about buying/selling heroin and pawning two of the school's iPads to support her drug habit. The second teacher reported what she'd found to school district administrators and law enforcement responded to the scene.

During an interview, Sloan admitted to being an addict. A cursory search of her purse turned up Xanax and several uncapped syringes, two of which were loaded with heroin and cocaine, as well as nearly a half gram of methamphetamine. Sloan was then arrested and charged.

Looking at her book-in photo, how could the school's administrators NOT know one of their teachers was drug-dependent? Someone, it would seem, hadn't conducted any due diligence.

Megan Sloan