About Dawson County news. (Dawsonville, Georgia) 2015-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 3, 2018)
PAGE 9A Send a letter to the editor to P.O. Box 1600, Dawsonville, GA 30534; fax (706) 265-3276; or email to editor@dawsonnews.com. DawsonOpinion WEDNESDAY, October 3, 2018 This is a page of opinion — ours, yours and others. Signed columns and cartoons are the opinions of the writers and artists, and they may not reflect our views. Ga. National Guardsmen are true heroes You want to talk about heroes? They are not a bunch of irrelevant overpaid knee jerk professional athletes who don’t like their country and do little to improve it, just criti cize it. Twenty years from now, they will likely be jelly-brained from banging into each other and drooling their oatmeal. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving group of faux-gladia tors. No, the real heroes are the men and women of Georgia’s National Guard, 11,000 strong. As you read this, some 2,200 members of the Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team are making preparations to leave for one of the most dangerous pieces of real estate on Earth — Afghanistan. I know it may be asking too much but I wish they would take a couple of the knee jerks with them and leave them on the side of the road. Let’s see how long they would kneel. It was exactly at this time 11 years ago that I was embedded with a previous itera tion of the 48th BCT in another garden spot — Iraq. More specifically, an area south west of Baghdad, appropriately dubbed “The Triangle of Death.” That group was under the command of a Great American, Gen. Stewart Rodeheaver, now living in Putnam County. Bill Stewart, another Great American from Brunswick, had mentioned to the gen eral that it might be a good idea to invite me over to see first-hand what was going on there. Rodeheaver had once worked for Stewart who had been Georgia Sen. Mack Mattingly’s chief of staff. I was told by some veteran news people that it would not be worth my while to go. Handlers would be sure to keep me in the safe zones and away from the real action and feed me press releases. Being the naif I am, I emailed the general and told him that if that was the case, I wasn’t coming. He wrote me back immediately to say I was free to go wherever I wanted and talk to whomever I wanted. I took him up on his offer and because I insisted on riding with the troops one day in a caravan of Humvees on a search for IEDs (improvised explosive devices), I almost got myself blown up. No one to blame but me. When I showed up to request a ride, it was suggested I get in one of the back vehi cles because the first one was the most like ly to be a target of the bad guys. Uh-uh. I was going to ride in the first one because the general had said I could go wherever I wanted, blah, blah, blah. They really didn’t have time to listen to this puffed-up media maven, so they said get in and let’s go. Of course, we hit an IED 15 minutes into our trip. It was very close to being my first and last one. For the troops, it was just another day at the office. For me, it was a frightening experience. I have a photo of the bomb hole (about the size of a kitchen table) hanging in my home as proof that I should listen to those in the know and save the blah, blah, blah for poli ticians and bureaucrats. One of my prized possessions is the offi cial flag of the 48th Brigade Combat Team, presented to me when I returned. Those flags are not lightly given and I take it as a great honor that they considered me one of them, if only for a short while. I made one serious journalistic faux pas in a column describing members of the 48th Brigade as not being “professional sol diers.” Whoa. That was poorly written and poorly received, as it should have been. They are professional soldiers in every sense of the word. What I meant to say was that these brave souls are more than soldiers. When not put ting their lives on the line for us in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, and when not dealing with life-threatening natural disas ters back home, these Georgians are school teachers, track drivers, nurses and doctors, prison guards, mechanics, attorneys, police officers and the like. They are also selfless. They leave their homes and jobs and families throughout Georgia and go off to one of the most dan gerous parts of the world, trying to help bring a little stability to a region in bad need of it. Most of all, they are what the publicity seeking knee jerks are not. They are heroes. True American heroes. God bless them, one and all. DICKYARBROUGH Columnist You can reach Dick Yarbrough atdick@dickyar- brough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, GA 31139; online atdickyarbrough.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dickyarb. "Say, I think I recognize you! Aren't you running for Governor?" The legend of my sons Piggie “What do you mean, you don’t eat bacon?” I am asked this quite fre quently. No bacon, no barbeque, no pork products of any kind. People don’t get it. “Did you have a pig as a pet or something?” Well, kind of. We did have pigs when I was growing up. I thought they were our pets but had a harsh reality one morning. That was enough to make me not eat sausage or ham for a while. But the real reason we don’t eat bacon is because of one plush little pig. Piggie. Piggie Two should get some credit as well, but it was Piggie Prime who started the absolute non-pork stance. “A toy pig, and not a real pig?” is the next question. He may be a toy pig, but he was a big part of my child’s younger years and is still Crouch canon. I had to explain how Piggie came into our life. We had ventured to the gro cery store one Friday evening, along with scores of other people. While I shopped and tried to decide what we would want to eat over the coming week, I realized Lamar had taken Cole to another aisle to entertain him. This was a common occur rence. I go into the trenches of the store while my husband and child wander off like two beagles on the scent of some thing. After a solid thirty minutes of wading through dozens of middle-of-the-aisle talkers, holding prayer meetings and high school reunions between SUDIE CROUCH Columnist the Fruity Pebbles and Raisin Bran, I had managed to make my way to the checkout line. As I tossed my items on the belt, the wails of a small child rose over the normal noise of the store. “Did you find everything OK?” the cashier asked. I nodded, hearing the screams grow louder. Was this child being beaten? “Paper or plastic?” the cashier asked. “Plastic,” I answered, hear ing the wails intensify. The cashier didn’t seem to pay it any attention; of course, working in any type of retail can numb you to certain things. “Do you hear that?” I asked. She nodded, punching in the code for my tomatoes. “Yeah, kids hate being dragged in here on Fridays when their mamas get off work.” “That poor child,” I began. “They sound miserable! What kind of parent does that to a child ? They are horrible, terri ble people for putting that baby through that.” The screams grew closer as it sounded like the child was nearing the front of the store. I turned to see who the offend ing parent was and shut my mouth. There went my husband, toting my red-in-the-face, wailing child under his arm like a football out the door. Of course, since I had brought the whole scene to the cashier’s attention, she was watching too. “That father’s got his hands full with that one,” she said. I instantly felt a need to defend my child, who normal ly was so well-behaved and never pitched a fit. “I have a feeling it was the father’s fault,” I began. “But some people! My word!” I had mustered all the righ teous indignation I could and paid for my groceries and hur ried out the door to the car. I got in the front seat and turned to look at my child, his face red and covered in tears as he tried to catch his breath. “What in the world is wrong?” I asked. Cole couldn’t even speak, he was crying so hard. I looked at his father for answers. “He wanted some toy and had this meltdown over it,” was his response. “A toy?” Cole was not the type of child to have a meltdown over a toy. He did beg for celery once in the store, which I have yet to figure out, but he was not one to pitch a fit over a toy. Lamar nodded. “I am not paying $10 for a stupid stuffed animal.” “It - wasn’t - a - stupid - stuffed - amiminal,” I heard Cole say from the back seat, his voice catching with every word. “It - was - a - pig!” “A pig?” I asked gently. Cole nodded, sucking on his bottom lip. “A pig,” he repeat ed slowly, his breath finally regaining normalcy. “And Mama, I need it. Please. I asked Daddy for it and he threw it down the aisle!” At the thought of this, the sobs returned. I glanced at Lamar. “You threw the toy down the aisle?” “He was grabbing at it and it was too much. I am not pay ing that much for a toy! That’s crazy!” Cole wailed. “Mama - I - need - that - pig! I - don’t - know - why - but -1 - do!” I knew two things. Once upon a time, a little girl fell in love with a lavender plush bunny on sight at the five and dime store and she turned down a pair of shoes for them. The bunny somehow spoke to her heart more than those glit ter jelly sandals with the ankle strap and she loved that bunny for decades. She still missed that bunny and wondered what happened to it when she grew up, hoping like the Velveteen bunny, her love had made it real. The second, and the most important thing, was my child never acted like this. So, something must be special about this pig. “You need that pig?” I asked. He nodded. “Then let’s go get it.” He did end up needing that pig. In many ways and on many occasions. Piggie has been his faithful friend, and a part of the family now for well over a decade. And for me, he is a loving reminder of when my son, now a teenager, was small and a plush pig was the grandest thing in the world. “You still have the Pigs, right?” he asked one day, knowing I am now the Keeper of the Piggies. I affirmed that I did. I still have the pigs. And always, always will. Sudie Crouch is an award winning humor col umnist and author of the recently e-published novel, "The Dahlman Files: ATony Dahlman Paranormal Mystery."
