Reflections of An Uncommon Common Man

      We went to see Unbroken - Path To Redemption today. I enjoyed this movie much better than the first movie Unbroken directed by Angelina Jolie. My son Rob turned me on to the book Unbroken by Laura Hildebrand about ten years ago. She also wrote the book Sea Biscuit. The book was incredible and I didn't want to put it down. I was disappointed by Jolie's movie because it stopped short of the most important part of the story. Zamperini's lifesaving transformation by Jesus Christ. He had survived air combat, a plane crash into the pacific ocean, 47 days adrift at sea in an an open life raft without food and water and capture by the Japanese. He spent two years in Japanese prison camps being used as a human guinea pig and brutally beaten by a sadistic guard named Matsuhiro Watanabe or "The Bird".  The first movie covered all of this but Zamparini's fight for survival was not over at the end of the movie. The book and movie was called Unbroken but if Zam

  I was stationed at North American Air Defense Command inside of Cheyenne mountain during the height of the Cold War. Not long after reporting for duty in June 1971 I was promoted to SSgt. Without a doubt N.O.R.A.D. was the most interesting place that I have ever worked. Upon arrival I would check out my weapon and ammunition from the armory. Then I would stand Guardmount where our Sergeant would pass on any relevant orders for the upcoming shift and our post assignments. Half of us would be assigned to posts outside of the mountain and the rest inside the mountain. We had permanent day shifts, swing shifts, and midnight shifts that ran in nine day cycles. Our shift was the relief shift. We started the cycle working 3 swings, 3 midnight shifts and finishing up with 3 day shifts. After a 72 hour break we would start the cycle all over again. I was in charge of those men posted inside the mountain. We would walk through a turnstile and exchange one restricted area badge for another.

 In the Fall of 1960 we hopped in our 1960 model Ford Falcon station wagon and drove down to South Pittsburg Tennessee. This was before interstate 24 was built. South Pittsburg had warehouses that sold fireworks at wholesale prices. Daddy wanted to set up a fireworks stand and bought about 300.00 dollars worth of fireworks of all kinds. Today 300.00 dollars might buy you a couple of hours of entertainment but in 1960 that was enough fireworks to last a mighty long time. It was rainy and we were on the road much of the day. We packed all the fireworks we could get into our station wagon. When we got home we filled up our den to the ceiling with fireworks. Daddy's goal was to set up a stand for the New Year but he procrastinated and never got it done. One day he came home and told us that the fireworks were ours. I was ecstatic. We told all of our friends in Charlotte Park subdivision. Soon we were dividing up in teams and having fireworks wars. We fired rockets at each other an