Reflections of An Uncommon Common Man

   While working at my security job in Nashville yesterday a man walked up to me and struck up a conversation. He spoke good English but with an accent. I asked what his country of origin was and he said Sudan. He asked if I had ever heard of the " Lost Boys Of Sudan". The only lost boys that I remembered were from the vampire movie of the 1980's starring Kiefer Sutherland. I told him no and he told me that he was one of the " Lost Boys of Sudan". He then began to tell me an incredible story that could easily be turned into a movie. When he was about six years old in 1987, I say about because he doesn't know exactly when he was born, the Northern Muslim Sudanese army m*rdered his parents. They destroyed his village and killed thousands of Christians in South Sudan. Over two million people di*d in that war. They k*lled people in some of the most hideous ways including burning people alive. This was part of the Second Sudan War which lasted from 1985 until 200...

I lost two of my favorite people in 2012. My Aunt Goldie Brown Evans who was not only my Aunt but my second mother who raised me after my parents died. She was my mother's last remaining sibling. Also my father's last remaining sibling who was my Aunt Freddie Segroves Davidson. Freddie told me sometime before she died that she met Goldie, who we called by her nickname "Didi", before my father ever met my mother. During World War II they both worked at Liggett's Drugstore which was at the corner of 6th and Church Street in Nashville. After Didi passed away last May I found these two pictures of Liggett's. Didi is in both pictures.

 Yesterday I Googled Charlie Kirk's name because I wanted to know what religious denomination, if any that he was affiliated with. I was immediately struck by Wikipedia's description of him as a right wing activist. It went on to say that " his more disputed positions included his criticism of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Martin Luther King Jr. as well as his promotion of COVID 19 misinformation, false claims of electoral fraud in 2020 and white genocide conspiracy theory." Kirk is also described as a Christian Nationalist as if that is a bad thing. I will deal with Wikipedia's truly despicable mischaracterization of Charlie Kirk later but first I want to address the term right wing. Wikipedia and the media in general nearly always describes people on the right as right wing, or far right. Out of curiosity I looked up Jane Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg, George Clooney, Joy Behar, Barbara Streisand  and Michael Moore to see how Wikipedia described them. Fonda, Goldber...

   What will be the historical legacy of Donald Trump.? Will he be the president who saved America or will he be the president that just bought us a little more time? We measure the greatness of Lincoln based on the fact that he saved the Union. Like Trump he was hated but today most Americans consider him to be one of our greatest presidents if not the greatest. Many call him the "Great Emancipator" but freeing the slaves was secondary to saving the Union. The slaves would not have seen their freedom if the Union had not first been saved. Lincoln took bold action during the war in order to save the Union. Such as suspending habeas corpus and imprisoning people that he considered dangerous to the survival of the Union. These actions are still controversial today but we generally give Lincoln a pass because of the historical outcome of his leadership. America was saved and slavery was abolished.   President Trump faces a far more dangerous Democrat party today than Lincoln...

 Sergeant Edward F. Younger was one of six military pallbearers chosen to select the first unknown soldier to be honored at Arlington National Cemetery. Originally the Army wanted a commissioned officer to make the selection until Major General Harry L. Rogers, the Army quartermaster general intervened. He wanted an enlisted soldier to have the honor. Sergeant Younger was chosen because of his heroic record in WW1. He was severely wounded twice and had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Like so many combat veterans he was very humble and always denied that this was the reason that he was chosen. He felt that he was just an average soldier, just like the unknown soldier doing his duty.  Younger walked into the city hall at Châlons-sur-Marne, France, and gazed upon the four identical caskets that lay before him. He felt “overwhelmed” as he selected the Unknown: “I took the flowers and advanced to the little temporary shrine through a line of French troops. I entered t...

 While I was stationed at Erhac Turkey most Security Policemen were getting orders for Ellsworth South Dakota, Malmstrom Montana, Minot and Grand Forks North Dakota. These were all SAC or (Strategic Air Command) bases. It was the Cold War and if you were an SP you were either going to hump B-52 bombers on the flight line or guard ICBM missile silo's. Winters in the Dakota's and Montana are brutal. Temperatures can go as low as twenty below and the wind chill factor even lower. At Lackland, Kingsley, and Erhac I was always given a (dream sheet). You were allowed to make three choices of bases that you would like to be stationed at and I would usually choose places where the weather was warm. Bases like Patrick AFB in Coco Beach Florida, or Hickam AFB in Honolulu Hawaii. I also picked Sewart in Smyrna Tennessee until I learned that the base was going to be closed in 1970. At Erhac my third choice was Peterson Field in Colorado Springs. This was because a friend had been stationed...