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BARROW NEWS-JOURNAL
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2016
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ”
- Henry Ward Beecher ~
‘Hacksaw Ridge’ is
well worth seeing
Seventy-five years ago today, the world was torn
apart by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The surprise attack brought the U.S. into WWII
fighting on two fronts — in Europe against Nazi
Germany and its allies, and in the Pacific against
Japan.
Ironically, a current popular movie is a book-
end to Pearl Harbor and the war in the Pacific.
“Hacksaw Ridge” is a
Mel Gibson directed epic
about the real-life fighting
on Okinawa, which was
the last major battle in the
Pacific and in WWII.
The focus of Gibson’s
film revolves around one
man, Desmond Doss,
an army medic who is a
conscientious objector to
killing, but who believes
strongly in the rightness of
the U.S.
Doss refuses to handle
a gun during training and was harassed by both
fellow soldiers and his superior officers.
Eventually, however, Doss was granted permis
sion to be an army medic and was shipped to
the Pacific.
Much of the movie focuses on Doss in his
small hometown in Virginia before the war and
on the complex family relationships that sur
rounded him.
And the film goes into a lot of detail about how
Doss was treated during basic training before
being sent off to war.
The crux of the film, however, revolves around
what Doss did on Okinawa.
After his unit was devastated in battle, Doss
single-handedly evacuated some 75 wounded
soldiers from the battlefield (off an escarpment
that came to be known as Hacksaw Ridge) while
at the same time putting his own life in danger.
For that, Doss was the first conscientious
objector to be awarded the Congressional Medal
of Honor.
The movie is violent, as are many other of
Gibson’s epics.
Some of the violent scenes are necessary to
show just how bad the fighting was on Okinawa
with its pillbox caves from which Japanese sol
diers fought over every inch of ground.
In contrast to the violence, the movie also has
a heavy religious theme that is no less subtle
than the violence.
Doss grew up in a religious family and it was
his religious beliefs that kept him from carrying
a gun into battle. And in the rescue of those
wounded soldiers, Doss invokes a religious
mantra as he calls on God to give him strength
to save “just one more” life.
Doss is eventually wounded and the scene of
him being lifted off Hacksaw Ridge invokes a
strong religious iconography, just in case viewers
didn’t get the message Gibson is trying to tell in
the movie.
Beyond the great moviemaking, I have anoth
er, more personal interest in this film.
My father, Herman Buffington, was in combat
on Okinawa, too.
His unit, the 96th Infantry Division, fought at
Hacksaw Ridge in the days before Doss’ unit,
the 77th Infantry Division, came to relieve them.
There’s a scene in the movie that depicts the
ragged survivors of the 96th leaving the battle
as the 77th arrives to take their place in the front
lines.
By the time Doss had done his lifesaving
actions, the 96th Division was back on the front
lines just south of Hacksaw Ridge.
Dad didn’t witness Doss’ heroics, but later did
meet Doss at an Army event in Rome, Ga.
After the war, Doss relocated to a farm in
Northwest Georgia.
He was disabled from his wounds and report
edly lived a very simple life there. He later
moved to Alabama where he died in 2006.
It somehow seems appropriate that this movie
overlaps both the memory of the Pearl Harbor
attack and the Christmas season.
It is a weaving of both gruesome violence and
religious faith.
Hacksaw Ridge is a movie well worth your
time.
Mike Buffington is co-publisher of Mainstreet
Newspapers, Inc. He can be reached at mike@
mainstreetnews. com.
DOSS AND BUFFINGTON
Desmond Doss, left, and Herman
Buffington.
mike
buffington
WAIT-(6 THIS
THE CHINK
THKT MhKEs
MY TIES2
Tom Price is coming
after your insurance
Back when he was serving in the
Georgia Senate, Tom Price acquired a
nickname among the capital crowd:
Ned Flanders.
Price’s bushy moustache and high-
pitched manner of speaking did indeed
give him an amazing resem
blance to the cartoon character
from “The Simpsons.”
But after Price was elected to
the U.S. House of Representatives
in 2004, he decided to shave off
the moustache.
He may have lost his reason
for being compared to Ned
Flanders, but he never lost the
goals that have driven his entire
political career: to stop govern
ment involvement in medical
care and to keep low-income
families from getting health insur
ance.
Price is a University of Michigan-
educated orthopedic surgeon who
came to Atlanta to practice. He has been
a member of an extremist organiza
tion called the Association of American
Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) that
has some interesting ideas about med
icine.
The AAPS statement of principles
declares that it is “evil” and “immoral”
for physicians to participate in Medicare
and Medicaid. AAPS criticizes vaccina
tion programs in schools and mandato
ry influenza vaccinations for healthcare
professionals.
The AAPS journal once published
an article claiming that the children
of undocumented immigrants were
responsible for the spread of leprosy.
Another article posted on the AAPS
website speculated that Barack Obama
won the presidency because his speech
es hypnotized young people and Jews to
vote for him.
You would have to assume that Price
is on board with most, if not all, of this
group’s nutty ideas. People normally
don’t pay expensive professional dues
to belong to an organization that they
disagree with.
Price certainly lives up to the AAPS
principles of opposing Medicaid and
Medicare, and he really doesn’t like the
Affordable Care Act, known informally
as Obamacare.
He not only voted with his House
Republican colleagues numerous
times to repeal Obamacare, he draft
ed a lengthy bill that would replace
the Affordable Care Act once it was
repealed.
The Price plan would end the
Medicaid expansion that is funded
through Obamacare, which means that
an estimated 14 million people either
would lose Medicaid now or won’t be
able to get it in the future. His bill would
also eliminate the government subsidies
that enable millions of people to buy
health coverage through an insurance
exchange.
Price has some other big ideas about
medical policy. He would like to convert
Medicaid into what is known as a “block
grant program” for the states. Instead of
paying two-thirds the cost of treating all
Write a Letter to the Editor:
Let us know your thoughts: Send
Letters to Editor, The Barrow
News-Journal, 77 E. May Street,
Winder, Ga. 30680. Letters can also
be emailed to sthompson@main-
streetnews.com. Please put “Letter to
the Editor” in the subject line. Please
include the city of the writer.
people who qualify for Medicaid, the
federal government would simply give a
wad of money to the states to spend as
they see fit on Medicaid services.
Under a block grant program, the
more conservative states like Georgia
would have the ability to
reduce Medicaid spend
ing by cutting back on
benefits and reducing the
number of people eligible
for coverage. Fewer peo
ple would get Medicaid
coverage and the pro
gram would pay for fewer
services than it now does.
As for Medicare, Price
is right in line with House
Speaker Paul Ryan’s
long-standing proposal to
wind down the program
that provides medical care for the elder
ly and replace it with some form of
private insurance vouchers.
Price is now in an ideal position to
achieve his long-sought goals in the
medical policy arena. After ascend
ing to the chairmanship of the House
Budget Committee earlier this year, he
has been nominated by the incoming
president to be the next secretary of the
U.S. Department of Health & Human
Services.
Once Price is confirmed by the
Senate, he will essentially be the point
man on all administration efforts to get
rid of Obamacare and put Medicaid and
Medicare on the skids.
The irony here is that many residents
of rural counties and communities that
voted for Donald Trump stand to lose
their health coverage, either through
the abolition of Obamacare’s health
insurance exchanges or the shrinking of
Medicaid benefits.
If you don’t believe the government
should have any role in providing health
care, then you’ll be ecstatic about Price’s
initiatives.
If you’re one of the millions of people
who will be stripped of their medical
insurance, you may not have such a rosy
view of it.
Either way, Price is going to be a happy
guy - happier even than Ned Flanders.
Tom Crawford is editor of The Georgia
Report, an internet news service at gare-
port.com that reports on state govern
ment and politics. He can be reached at
tcrawford@gareport. com.
The Barrow News-Journal
Winder, Barrow County, Ga.
www.BarrowJoumal.com
Mike Buffington
Scott Buffington
Co-Publisher
Co-Publisher
Scott Thompson
Editor
Jessica Brown
Photographer
Susan Treadwell
Advertising
Sharon Hogan
Office & Reporter
Also covering beats is Alex Pace.
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Letters to
the Editor
In response to
Jimmy Terrell’s column
from Nov. 30
Dear Editor:
In last week’s paper, I laughed out loud
reading Jimmy Terrell’s statement in his
column, “We are seeing a change and a
hatred in politics that I don’t recall see
ing.”
Go back and read the majority of what
he has written!
His column has continuously spread the
message of obstruction and hate toward
anyone that does not have his views.
Unfortunately, the previous Barrow
County News and now the current news
paper have continued to allow him to
present information not based on facts
or truth.
He should name his source for his
statements you made about the Obamas
and also the “left” mourning the death of
Castro for I cannot find one that backs up
your claims.
Was he dismayed when Republican can
didates G. W. Bush, McCain, Gingrich and
Christie didn’t wear American flag lapel
pins and when Republican Speaker of the
House John Beohner didn’t during the
2012 State of the Union?
If so, did he note the occurrences in his
column?
Jimmy’s silence or at best lukewarm
comments toward Trump publicly making
fun of a disabled person, besmirching a
war hero’s record, boasting of grabbing
women’s genitals and other equally nau
seating comments speaks volumes about
his mindset.
Since he has bashed First Lady Obama
repeatedly, will you now bash Mrs. Trump,
future First Lady for her photos in GQ
magazine wearing no more than a thong,
bra and knee high boots?
Let us read him encouraging the IRS
to release Trump’s tax returns, push for
Trump to reveal and divest all his business
dealings in the U.S. and other countries,
call him out when he lies and for the love
of our country, for him to stop tweeting
before he causes a war here or abroad.
That’s what we Barrow Countians want
from Jimmy Terrell, the voice of the right.
Sincerely,
Peggy Perkins
Winder
Ken Young had
it wrong in his letter
Dear Editor:
Ken Young whined to the Barrow News-
Journal about in his opinion unfair policy
of placing a paid for ad in the paper with
out a name.
There were also other ads, but the one
that caught his attention appeared oppo
site his ad.
How dare our local paper advertise a
different opinion from his and not bury it
in the bowels of the BNJ\
The local Freedom Party has tang
enjoyed a most favored status when it
comes to our local media.
He also implies that the “Democrat”
could be ISIS.
Oh, please!
That is just too ignorant to respond to.
Ken also said that George Soros could
have placed the ad.
I’ve heard that name in the news and
knowing basically nothing about the man,
I googled his name and here is what I
found.
Soros was born in Budapest in 1930,
survived the Nazi occupation during WWII
and fled communist-dominated Hungary
in 1947 for England, where he graduated
from the London School of Economics.
He then settled in the U.S., where he accu
mulated a large fortune and today is one of
the 30 richest people in the world.
Soros is wealthy, Jewish, and not a sup
porter of Communist Putin Russia.
I wonder which one of those disturbs
the local chairman of the Freedom Party
the most?
Even though Ken says he puts his name
on every ad so we know who paid for
the advertisement, do we really know for
sure that funding from white supremacists
groups (politically correct term Alt-Right)
or Putin aren’t used?
Sincerely,
Jamie MacKenzie
Winder
Letters continue on Page 5A