Reflections of An Uncommon Common Man

I was irritated at my mother the morning of Wednesday January 16, 1963 over something very minor. So minor that I can't remember what I was mad about today. My mother was lying in the little bed that I normally slept in next to the dining room door. of my grandparents house at 1300 Mckennie Avenue in East Nashville. She looked up and told me goodbye as I walked by the foot of the bed. I never failed to kiss her when I left for school but I didn't kiss her that morning. This was something that would haunt me for a long time. I try to tell my wife and kids that I love them on a frequent basis. We are not guaranteed anything and life can end in an instant. Daddy, my cousins Roy and Alton and my brother Mark were already waiting in the car when I walked out the front door. The front passenger seat next to daddy was empty as I hopped into our white Ford Falcon station wagon. Daddy was quiet as we drove the few blocks to Bailey Shool on Greenwood Avenue. Roy remembered him absentmind...

 Lt. Colonel Peyton Manning was a Confederate Ordinance officer belonging to General James Longstreet's 1st Corps in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. He fought at Antietam, Gettysburg and was wounded at Chickamauga. The most amazing fact to me is that he fought at the battle of Ft. Sanders, which is located on the campus of the University of Tennessee. He was born in Alabama in 1837, lived in Mississippi and died there in 1868. The Manning family claims that they are not related and this is backed up by genealogy experts. I even asked Archie Manning about this on a sports talk show once and he said his family was not related. Personally I see a lot of resemblance. The Peyton Manning of football fame had a great-grandfather, Richard Elam Manning who is believed to have served for the 36th Mississippi Infantry of the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Regardless, I think it is very ironic that a man named Peyton Manning fought a battle on the same campus that Peyton Manning p...

 There has been a question that has been pondered by historians for many years. What if the South had won the Civil War? To say that the war was a North verses South struggle has been convenient for leftist historians when it was actually a war between the Democrat party and Republican party. The Republican's won on the battlefield but lost the peace. The peace was the Reconstruction period after the Civil War. Usually the victor of a war writes the accepted version of history. The Democrat party, however: is responsible for two of the biggest myths of American history. The "Lost Cause Myth" and The Big Switch Myth".  The "Big Switch Myth" says that after the reforms of the 1960's regarding civil rights a big switch occurred. The Democrat party was no longer the party of racism and oppression. All of the racist Democrats left their party and became Republican. The former racist Democrat voters switched allegiance to the Republican party. These two lies ...

In my 75 years I have seen a lot of important people come and go. I remember the assassination of John Kennedy and the crazy four days that we were all glued to the television set. Television stations went off the air around 11:00 PM at night back then but Friday, Saturday and Sunday up until the funeral on Monday there was 24 hour news coverage. Malcolm X died in a hail of gunfire two years later in 1965.  Then there was that crazy year of 1968 when both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. George Wallace survived an assassination atempt in 1972 that left him a paraplegic. President Ford survived two assassination attempts within a month of each other in 1975. John Lennon was murdered in December 1980. Ronald Reagan was nearly killed in 1981. Then there was the near assassination of President Trump in July 2024 and the assassination of Charlie Kirk in 2025.  In all of these situations with the exception of maybe President Ford or John Lennon, I either hear...

Jasmine Crockett opened her Texas Senate campaign yesterday in what some Conservatives are calling an odd way. In my view it would be a toss-up between who is the dumbest, AOC or Crockett. Having said that I think the announcement ad for her Senate campaign was brilliant. I don't know who is handling her campaign but I think the ad has the potential to be very effective. In the ad she doesn't say anything. She is just sitting there in her best hair and makeup while Trump's voice is playing in the background. Trump is pretty much belittling her intelligence and character in the harshest terms. I agree with what Trump is saying. In my view she is an attractive woman but she is a moron and not up to being a dog catcher much less a U.S. Senator. Trump's tone, however; does not play well with many women. I have noticed this with conservitive women like my wife and others. They know at election time that Trump, or the Republican on the ballot is their only logical choice to v...

 A group called The Legal Clarity Team explains the Posse Comitatus Act this way. The Posse Comitatus Act, codified as18 U.S.C. 1385 is a federal law that limits the use of the U.S. military in civilian law enforcement. Enacted in 1878, it was designed to prevent military involvement in domestic affairs without explicit authorization from Congress or the Constitution. The statute states that anyone who “willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws” is in violation. While it does not explicitly mention the Navy or Marine Corps, Department of Defense regulations extend similar restrictions on these branches, ensuring the prohibition applies broadly. Several legal exceptions allow military involvement in domestic law enforcement. The most notable is the Insurrection Act, which grants the president authority to deploy federal troops to suppress insurrections, domestic violence, or unlawful obstructions of federal law when lo...

 There is a scene in the movie Lone Survivor where a Navy SEAL team runs into a group of Afghan goat herders. The SEAL team tries to avoid detection but are discovered. The goat herders are captured and the SEAL team is faced with a moral dilemma. This movie is based on the real life Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan. It's goal was to disrupt the operations of Taliban militias in the area. It took place in the Summer of 2005. Upon capturing these Afghan locals the four SEAL team members begin arguing over what to do with them. Since they are isolated and so close to the enemy they basically had three options. Kill them, tie them up and gag them or let them go. They know that if they let them go it will only be a matter of time before they are confronted with overwhelming odds but they they decide  that choosing this option would keep them out of trouble with the political left and the mainstream media. They let them go and predictably the goat herders ran back to their villag...

 President Trump has encouraged the Republican Senate to end the filibuster. After much thought I agree with him. For years I was strongly opposed to ending the filibuster because if the Democrats ever regain control over the executive and both legislative branches America will be finished. They will vote to end the filibuster and simple majority votes will transform this country into a Communist hell hole. The Supreme Court will be packed with Communists, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico will become states. The electoral college will be abolished. Their political enemies will be jailed and murdered. That includes average American patriots who resist. Believe them when they tell you that they want us dead. This is not hyperbole. We are one election away from tyranny and believe me that they will definitely end the filibuster if they regain power.  Trump makes a good point about the filibuster. We have a golden opportunity here. If Republicans can muster the backbone they have a...

   My great great grandfather Goodman Seagraves fought for the Confederacy. He was a private in the 4th Regiment Tennessee Cavalry (Mclemore's). He was born in 1829 in Wake County North Carolina near Raleigh. Goodman died in 1904 in Cherry Hill, Polk County western Arkansas which is near the infamous town of Mena. I am not sure when he enlisted but the unit was formed in May 1862 at Camp Robertson and I am assuming that he fought with the unit until it was surrendered to William T. Sherman in Durham North Carolina. It was assigned to Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry and fought at Parkers Crossroads, Chickamauga, the Atlanta campaign and the battle of Franklin. The men in the unit came from Wilson, Marshall, Bedford, Rutherford, Smith, Marion, Coffee and Franklin counties.  Goodman was married twice. A family story says that his first wife, and my great grandmother Narcissa Ellen Turner supposedly heard that he had been killed in battle. Thinking that she was a widow she ...

 No one but the Communist left is angry over the arrest and deportations of thousands of violent illegal aliens, sexual predators and D.U.I. offenders but some among the more right leaning patriots of the country get a little jelly legged at the prospect of rounding up illegals whose only sin was crossing the border illegally. They are seen as virtuous hard working people who are simply victims of circumstances trying to escape grinding poverty and oppression for a shot at the "American Dream". Is this really an accurate depiction?  How many of these people are committing fraud by working on stolen social security numbers? How many of them are driving without a valid drivers license and insurance? How many leave the scene of an accident because they don't have these things? These things drive up our insurance costs. How many are voting illegally canceling out the vote of legal American citizens? How many are being paid in cash under the table avoiding the payment of incom...

 This 100 year old WW2 veteran was weeping because America has gone to hell. He questioned whether his sacrifice and the sacrifice of others in that war was worth it. On our Veterans Day, which is Remembrance Day in in the UK a 100 year old British WW2 veteran was nearly in tears when he also questioned his sacrifice and the sacrifice of others. One of the hosts asked him why he would say something like that. If someone has to ask that question in Britain after that country has been invaded by multitudes who hate the country and want to destroy it. Also that British people are being jailed for exercising their right to free speech that simply proves the old veterans point. I have noticed that this video has already been removed by YouTube.  I think about this a lot. If I had a time machine and could tell those soldiers preparing to storm the beaches of Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, North Africa, Sicily, Anzio or Normandy how America would be just eighty years later. W...

  Kind reader, right here my pen, and courage, and ability fail me. I shrink from butchery. Would to God I could tear the page from these memoirs and from my own memory. It is the blackest page in the history of the war of the Lost Cause. It was the bloodiest battle of modern times in any war. It was the finishing stroke to the independence of the Southern Confederacy. I was there. I saw it. My flesh trembles, and creeps, and crawls when I think of it today. My heart almost ceases to beat at the horrid recollection. Would to God that I had never witnessed such a scene!  I cannot describe it. It beggars description. I will not attempt to describe it. I could not. The death-angel was there to gather its last harvest. It was the grand coronation of d*ath. Would that I could turn the page. But I feel, though I did so, that page would still be there, teeming with its scenes of horror and blood. I can only tell of what I saw. Our regiment was resting in the gap of a range of hills i...

   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 murdered his parents. They destroyed his village and killed thousands of Christians in South Sudan. Over two million people died in that war. They ki8lled 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 20...