Story of Buddy Glue

We flew as a crew on the Super Constellations shown below with the 7th Fleet as Early Warning Squadron during 1957 through 1960.

One only has to experience my topic today regarding Buddy Glue to understand what I mean.
I recently read a story in my March 2011 Readers Digest magazine entitled, “The Men He Left Behind” which was about a man named Carlos Santos-Silva and his Band of Brothers which he served with in Afghanistan. He was their Sergeant First Class and according to the article, he was a hands-on leader. Each platoon is led by an officer and he has a platoon sergeant who serves as his right-hand man in administration and logistics. Santos served as the platoon leader, and could have stayed behind at the outpost while his men patrolled, however he never did that. He truly led his men and was there with them in all they did. On that morning in March he occupied the front passenger seat in a hulking, mine-resistant truck driving down a dirt road which ran along a vineyard when they were about to cross a small bridge. It happened there! They hit a buried IED, improvised explosive device, which by now we know is the worst enemy of all of our brave warriors serving in the terrible war zone of the Middle East.
According to the article, the bomb was huge and it left the armored truck turned on its side with a scorched bottom and the rear tires blown completely away. Three miles away, another sergeant leading a foot patrol heard the explosion and indicated that “Our guys just hit an IED!” Sound according to the article takes about fifteen seconds to travel that far. The radio said “Four were responsive and one was unresponsive to the blast.” The next thing that happened was a group of soldiers weighted down with fifty pounds of armor, ammunition, radios and weapons running, without regard to their own safety, toward the blast location. Arriving panting, sweating with leg muscles and lungs on fire they looked at the deep crater in the dirt road. One of the men, Sergeant Dale Knollinger approached another man at the site and was told that Sergeant Santos was gone. He stood in the middle of the road and cried. That is Buddy Glue!
Great Friend, Jim Thomas, left, on Guam and in Hawaii over fifty years ago.

Having never experienced combat in my three plus years in the Navy, I had nothing to directly approach that same feeling, however I do know there is a Buddy Glue when you go from home into a military setting where other guys become your family. I still share e-mails and an occasional phone call with some men I served with over fifty years ago in the Navy. It is difficult to have that day to day companionship; however there will always be feelings and memories that will linger about that special part of our lives.
How strong was the glue of their friendship? One man had the opportunity to receive a promotion in grade and pay, but turned it down to stay with Sergeant Santos. It’s difficult to explain unless you have experienced it.
Please pray for our brave warriors.

Our World Changed in the Sixties

As the fabulous fifties eased out of our lives and etched themselves into our memories of the past, a much different decade rolled into our existence. It would bring with it music from the Mother country headed straight for fame and fortune. It would become known as Beatle mania. It would change an entire generation of music as we had known it. They were only the beginning salvo fired by the British invasion.
The sixties would bring us Camelot—gold and shiny—and snatch it away early in its infancy. Assassination would take away not only a President and a leader of the Civil Rights movement, but in addition a presidential candidate. Sooner rather than later, we would begin to wonder who would be the next target.
There would be new pioneers exploring a different horizon during the sixties, and before the decade was over, the United States who trailed the Soviet Republic through much of the earlier space exploration would break into the lead in spectacular fashion.


Two Americans, Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin would become the first men ever to set foot on the surface of the moon. It would be the last time the U.S. would ever trail the communist nation in space exploration.
In 1960, the election for the nation’s highest office would be a hotly contested race between two men in their forties. Richard Nixon, a veteran of WWII, and the Vice-president to Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower during his eight years as president, was the Republican nominee and another veteran of WWII, Senator John Kennedy would represent the Democratic Party.
The nation would watch debates on live television between the two candidates for the first time in history. When the dust settled, Kennedy won by a narrow margin in the Electoral College and an even smaller margin in the popular vote.
In Hawkinsville and Pulaski County, many people who went to school with this writer during the fifties were completing either a tour in the military or graduating from college. Some returned to their roots in the city by the muddy river while others plowed a path in other cities and other states. Those of us who returned home found that a part of the innocence we left behind had disappeared. Oh, it wasn’t totally sophisticated by any means, but the joyous, carefree days of our youth would never be the same again.

For one thing, many of our friends had “jumped the broom” and begun the life of adulthood. No longer were our “running around” friends available to go with us around and around the Dario-O. It was indeed a group of younger kids doing some of those same things which we had done throughout our youth. Mostly we were shut out through an age difference. No longer were we the boys who wore football jackets that were treasured by girls, rather a group of much younger boys had the desired garment. Little girls when we left home had become big girls and were not interested in old men in their early twenties.
Some of the innocence lingered in small towns versus what went on in bigger cities and university towns. At a time during our youth, we really had very little to tempt us in the ways of vice. The most we could find to do wrong was smoking on the sly or to go with a group of boys to the rear of Horne’s Drive-in to sneak a beer—which really tasted yuk, although we would not admit that it didn’t taste good.
The new youth for whatever the reasons had begun to experiment with a weed called marijuana. It would not be the last thing they would try in seeking new thrills. Their counterparts in colleges around the nation were getting into more and more drugs and though it would take some time before it reached small towns, it would nevertheless eventually come to tempt and ruin many lives in rural communities including our own.
Two of the most defining events during the 1960s that would re-shape the nation would be the Civil Rights movement and America’s full involvement in the Vietnam War. The Civil Rights movement came about as a result of attaining no results from the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in May, 1954. In Brown versus The Board of Education of Topeka, the court ruled that racial segregation in public schools is a violation of the 14th Amendment. It reversed an 1896 ruling that permitted racial segregation if the facilities which were provided each race were of equal quality.
Generally, the birth of the Civil Rights movement is attributed to a diminutive Negro woman named Rosa Parks who refused to move to the rear of a public bus in December, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama. She was subsequently arrested and placed in jail for her action. A massive protest and boycott of the Montgomery public transportation was led by a Negro minister named Martin Luther King and eventually, the Blacks won the right to sit anywhere on a public bus. Though this would be the first skirmish of the movement, by no means would it be the last.
The nation would see Freedom buses set ablaze, marchers pummeled, beaten and kicked. Dogs were set upon protestors, churches were blown up with dynamite, one of which killed four innocent children, and a leader of the movement, Medgar Evers was murdered in cold blood — shot in the back while leaving his car—gunned down in his own driveway. They would see the disappearance of three young men during the participation of voter registration. Eventually, they would be found dead, buried in a dam on a farm. White law enforcement officers in the state of Mississippi were eventually found guilty of complicity in their deaths.
After many times of having been jailed, Martin Luther King, the foremost leader of the Civil Rights movement would be shot dead as he stood on the balcony of a motel—the Lorraine where he was staying—while he was leading a protest in Memphis, Tennessee. His legacy lived on and the Blacks of America finally were granted equality.

I Want to Say This, Go Braves!

Last Fall in September, the Atlanta Braves were in first place in the National League Eastern Division. Hopes ran high that the Braves were going to once again bring a title home to the “Big A.”
All the time the ever dangerous Philadelphia Phillies were beginning to cut the Braves lead and it began to look like it would be a run to the last day of the season when the two teams would meet and they it happened. Greed! Mighty Fox Network began to fuss at Dish Network and demanded an increase from the satellite company. Dish bucked and the Braves fans were the real losers.
With three games left in Atlanta between the two teams, supposedly to be televised by Fox Sports Network or Sports South and brought into my home on Dish Network, the screen told it all when it said the broadcast would not be made until there was a settlement. October first through October third my television sat idle as I bemoaned the greed of the millionaires. To express my anger is an understatement!
I have been a baseball fan for over sixty years, and I’ve been an Atlanta Braves fan since they moved south from Milwaukee in the mid 1960s. I’ve seen good, bad and ugly teams in the city where the Atlanta Crackers minor league team formerly played. I’ve even seen great teams which went on to win fourteen straight Division titles and one World Series in 1995. There is no question of my fandom nor my loyalty. Hope springs eternal every March when the teams of the majors move to Florida for spring training.
When I was a young boy around ten, I invented my own baseball game, using a cardboard box, ice cream sticks and buttons borrowed from my mothers sewing materials. If I had known it could have been done, I would have been able to patent the game and today people might be comparing my wealth with that of Bill Gates, however suffice I to say the game gave me endless joy as I played for hours at a time entertaining myself and keeping statistics of how the games came out.

To say that I was irritated at the greed of the billionaires who owned those two companies would not be sufficient. I was livid! I began searching other ways to watch the games, all to no avail. I could only strike back at them by cutting them off at the knees—reducing their service in my home to the barest level of channels—and hoping many others would do the same. My Dish bill went down to nearly half what it had previously been, and I hoped other Braves fans were doing likewise. Amazingly enough, we suffered only a small amount as we returned to watching programs like the Andy Griffith Show and All in the Family. Shoot! Remember some of my previous Cotton Patch columns where we used to get only one fuzzy station out of Macon when we first purchased this old house forty years ago, and if I wanted to try for one out of Albany, I had to take a pipe wrench outside the house and try to turn my antenna enough to get a very fuzzy program. Mess with me!
Well, without my support, the Braves lost all three games in October to the Phillies, but made the playoffs as a Wild Card team losing to eventual World Series winner San Francisco Giants. However, as I said previously Spring Training has begun and I am thinking again about baseball. First on my agenda was to contact Dish Network to find out if the argument had been settled with Fox. Yes, I was told and if I wanted to increase my coverage to include the stations which broadcast the Braves games, it would only cost me five dollars. “I’ll think about it,” I said as I secretly planned on calling a rival satellite company to see what their cost and coverage would amount to. Ain’t free enterprise wonderful?
So what will happen to the Braves this year? I think their chances of competing for the Division title against the Phillies are very good. It should be said that the Phillies made a couple of moves which give them four pitchers who may be unequaled in the majors this season, however our Braves have a pretty good staff as well. We’ll throw out Comeback player of the year, Tim Hudson, veteran Derek Lowe who has steadily improved each year of his contract, third year pitcher Tommy Hanson, and Jair Jurgenns who went down last year with some unexpected injuries. A couple of Rookies, Mike Minor and Brandon Beachy will compete for the fifth spot on the pitching roster.

Our home team acquired a home run hitting Dan Uggla from Florida over the winter and Chipper Jones is trying for a comeback after being injured at the end of last season. Last year’s all-round player, Martin Prado will move to the outfield and the minor league player Freddie Freeman will move into the lineup as first baseman to add hitting and fielding support to a team which was led last year by runner-up Rookie of the Year, Jason Heyward and perennial All-Star catcher Brian McCann in the power department.
The Atlanta Braves already are looking to be improved over last year’s team which won 91 games while finishing second to the Phillies in the Eastern Division.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that future Hall of Fame Manager, Bobby Cox hung up his uniform and retired with over 2000 wins in his career. He has managed the Braves for a long time, including every major league game future Hall of Fame player, Chipper Jones has been in the lineup. Not to worry, his longtime coach, Fredi Gonzalez was hired over the winter and I think he will step right in and continue the winning ways for the Braves organization.
We’ll have to put our murder shows—Dateline and 48 Hours—Andy and Barney and All in the Family on the back burner by the time the end of March when the call will once again go out to “Play Ball!”
Go Braves!

Hawkinsville Writer Profiles Pulaski People & History

Scott Echols Tragic Accident

In a fleeting moment a couple of weeks ago in Blakely, Georgia, Scott Echols of Bleckley County was involved in a traffic accident that could have snuffed out his life. As it is, he will be hospitalized for “months, not weeks” in an attempt to recover.
How tenuous life’s journey can be! On Sunday evening November 7th, Echols, a 51-year-old Broker in the Alaskan Fishing Industry, started out for Enterprise, Alabama to check on his uncle who was in the hospital in serious condition. His journey took him through a route to Blakely where he was t-boned in his small automobile by a much larger SUV leaving him in critical condition—fighting for his life—in the blink of an eye.
Scott, the husband of Cherie Thompson Echols and the father of a daughter, Morgan who is a sophomore at Middle Georgia College, and a son, Jacob who placed seventh in the state in pole vaulting on the track team and also plays on the Bleckley Royals football team as a place-kicker, finds himself in the biggest battle of his life.
After Echols graduated from college, he traveled to Alaska to become a commercial fisherman in the rough seas of the 49th state. He fell in love twice—once with the fishing industry—and secondly with Cherie Thompson of Cochran. As Scott moved around the world fishing on boats, his new wife followed him and they eventually had two additions to their family.
After years away from home in Cochran, the couple agreed to move back and settle down where they grew up, giving their two children the hometown stability they felt they needed, and as a result of the Internet, Scott could continue his brokerage of the Alaskan Fishing Industry.
Echols father-in-law, Ron Thompson said one of the EMT professionals told him that “Mister Echols was as strong as an ox,” as they worked with him to get him onto the stretcher and immobilize his arm for the purpose of giving him IV fluids. “He was striving hard to free himself from their grip as he clung to the desire to survive,” one of the medical specialists said.
As they began the journey from Blakely to Dothan, Alabama which was the nearest Trauma hospital, someone called his wife in Cochran to inform her that Scott had been in an accident and they were now en route to Dothan.
Immediately, Cherie Echols made plans to drive to lower Alabama, uncertain of the directions or the seriousness of her husband’s injuries. Stopped in her tracks by her father, Mrs. Echols was told that he would drive her to Dothan, an area with which he was familiar. When they were an hour from their destination, Echols received a cell call informing her that they were going to move her husband to Birmingham where there was a larger and better equipped Trauma unit. Nevertheless they continued onward and arrived before the move was made.
Upon the action to move Scott to Birmingham, the family members continued their trek northward through Alabama.
In serious accidents of life or death, there are many quick decisions to make—giving doctors and medical teams permission to operate and further examine the injured party, locating a place where the family can stay, and determining visiting hours, etc.—and Cherie Echols had plenty to make. Through the worst of times cool heads and blessings sometime take over. A member of a Birmingham church arrived after a couple of days and offered Echols the use of a church-owned apartment for up to three months. Doctors continued working on her husband to save his life. Scott has suffered both lungs collapsing, ribs broken, legs broken, a ruptured spleen and many more serious injuries that will take a long time from which to recover.
Of course, one of the most serious problems the family is facing is tremendous medical and doctor bills and a very long time with no family income while Scott is no longer able to work. Cherie is in nursing school and has no income. A fund has been opened at the State Bank in Cochran, 112 Beech Street, Cochran, GA 31014 and it is entitled the Scott Echols Fund for those who can and will donate funds to help a worthy family in time of great need. Donations can be made in your name so the family can acknowledge their thanks to you, or donations may be made anonymously.
Contact Crenshaw at samsam3125@yahoo.com

Pulaski Rivers Alive 2010

Lance Cpl. Christopher Blake Rodgers

Almost everyone can remember where they were and what they were doing on September 11, 2001, the day of the worst attack on American soil in history which took over 3000 lives. The day almost immediately became known as 9/11 which remains ingrained in the minds of Americans everywhere.
Blake Rodgers of Griffin, Georgia was ten years old (shown above) when he witnessed the giant planes crashing into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. He was so shocked that he cried. He also told his parents that he wanted to become a Marine, and he wanted to help fight against those who were involved in killing so many of his fellow Americans.
His father is Chris Rodgers, his mother is Jane, and his younger sister is Emily. Blake has a connection to the city by the muddy river. Many people will remember Mary Nell Barlow who, along with her brother Gene were raised by their aunt and uncle, Julia and Reeves Gilbert. Still others will remember C. W. “Chuck” Barlow who was raised by William “Bud” Barlow and who recently passed away after a long illness.
Perhaps not so well remembered would be their sister, Velma Barlow who was raised by her aunt and uncle, Estelle and G. W. Beeland in Griffin. The reason this family of children, all of whom are this writer’s first cousins, were raised by uncles and aunts was because their mother and father had separated and the father, Vance Barlow, (shown below right) at the age of 39 was later tragically killed in an electrical accident. The mother had disappeared. Three families who raised the children were aunts and uncles, children of William Right and Prezzie Wynne Barlow of Hartford, on the eastern side of the Ocmulgee River. The Barlow family—large, (shown below left) but no larger than many others in the turn of the Twentieth Century era—had twelve children of which ten survived to adulthood.
Velma Barlow Pierce shown above with her husband Paul are grandparents to Blake Rodgers.
As a child, Blake enjoyed building—anything his youthful imagination could conjure up — houses, buildings, ships, and planes. Blake built them with his Lego set. As he grew older, Blake played baseball on several youth league teams. He enjoyed camping, hunting, fishing, paintball, airsoft, shooting and just hanging out with his friends. He was a highly accomplished artist. Blake was also an authority on aircraft, a passion he indulged through reading, building models, drawing aircraft, visiting airports and attending air shows. It wouldn’t have been difficult to imagine him as a fighter pilot or aeronautical engineer.
On 9/11 all that changed! Blake, the 11-year-old, witnessed with horror and disbelief as airplanes were used as weapons to attack his people and his country. It was on that day Blake decided to be a Marine. Having made that decision, even at such an early age, Blake set out to make himself as knowledgeable about being a Marine as he had done with his beloved aircraft. He read, studied and played video game simulations in an attempt to glean information about weapons, strategy and tactics. He learned to shoot and became extremely proficient at it.

After graduation, Blake (shown here with sister, Emily and Mother) enlisted in the Marine Corps in July. In October 2008, he left home for the first time, en route to The Marine Recruit Depot at Parris Island, S.C., and Marine boot camp. Almost immediately, Blake began to excel, culminating with his selection as his recruit platoon’s distinguished high scoring marksman. As one might imagine, in a branch of the military service wherein all Marines are riflemen first and anything else secondarily, earning the Expert Rifleman Badge is an accomplishment truly worthy of praise. Blake wore his with pride. (Blake Rodgers achieved his goal of becoming a Marine)

His acknowledged marksmanship prowess notwithstanding, no one, no matter how fit, how smart or how gifted with a rifle, ever becomes a United States Marine without first having endured a 54 hour marathon of fatigue, sleep deprivation and limited rations designed to push recruits far beyond their personal limits of performance and thereby expose the true “don’t quit, never give up” attitude and Marine spirit within them. Coupled with the running, forced road marches with heavy packs, constant barrage of simulated attacks, field problem solving and team and leadership building exercises are put to the test. It is there, in those seemingly unending hours of hell on earth, that the recruit proves, not so much to the instructors, but much more importantly, to himself, that he is worthy of being a United States Marine. That vital self affirmation was memorialized in the small, desert camouflage New Testament that Blake carried during boot camp; where the quote, “I will never give up, never give in, take it as it comes and grow stronger,” was written in his hand, on its inside front cover. The meaning and the rewards that phrase portended were forever etched into Blake’s mind when, on a cold Saturday morning in January 2009, he heard from his drill instructor the words, “Congratulations, Marine.”
At that moment in time, Christopher Blake Rodgers had achieved his goal, a goal he had harbored and single-mindedly pursued since that fateful day in 2001 — he had become a United States Marine.
Upon graduating from boot camp on January 16, 2009, with the rank of private first class, Blake moved on to the School of Infantry at Camp Geiger, N.C. While there, he was recognized for his use of novel strategies and tactics in leading his assault team in overtaking a position held by members of the instructor cadre. Upon being overrun by Blake’s team, the surprised and dumbfounded instructors asked where he had learned those techniques. Blake’s reply was that he had devised them during his days of playing paintball and “Navy Squeals,” a takeoff on the movie “Navy SEALS,” with his cousins and friends. So impressed with his methods were the staff that Blake’s techniques are now taught to other

Marines as part of the curriculum there. (shown below left are some of the thousands who lined the highways to show their gratitude to the fallen Marine, and shown right are the Marine Pall Bearers)

Marine Lance Cpl. Christopher Blake Rodgers died doing what he loved, for those he loved, with those he loved as brothers at his side, in harm’s way, in a land far away. We can never and will never forget his sacrifice.
Blake Rodgers was killed in action Wednesday September 1, 2010 in the Helmand Providence of Afghanistan, hardly a worthy place to claim the life of such a warrior. Helmand is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan.

(Below is the presentation of the United States Flag to Blake's Mother who is accompanied by his sister and father)

It is in the southwest of the country. Helmand is the world's largest opium-producing region, responsible for 42% of the world's total production. He was laid to rest Saturday, Sept. 11, 2010, a date chosen to commemorate that seminal moment in history wherein the course of our nation was forever changed in the blink of an eye, a date that so affected an eleven-year-old boy from Griffin, Ga., that he dedicated his young life to service and to righting that horrific wrong, a date that irrevocably altered his life, our lives and through his sacrifice, the lives of people he never knew.

Semper Fi Marine