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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, JULY 13, 2022
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.
A real Top Gun
talks about the
movie,
I may be one
of the few people
on the planet that
has not seen
“Top Gun:
Maverick.” As
of this writing
the film, starring
Tom Cruise and
a sequel to the 1986 hit “Top Gun,” has
grossed over $1 billion at the box office and
shows no signs of landing anytime soon.
Someone who has seen the movie is a
former Top Gun himself, Hans Trupp, a
long-time friend and real estate executive
on St. Simons Island. I called him and
asked what it felt like to be sitting in a the
ater watching Maverick Mitchell (Cruise)
and his team in action.
“I can’t believe I did that,” he laughs after
watching all the action on the screen. But
he did. Trupp gives the movie generally
good marks for its depiction of carrier life
but sees a lot of things that would not have
happened in the real world of Navy avia
tion. “Aboard a carrier, it is all about disci
pline,” he says. After all, planes are being
launched every 30 seconds and recovered
every 45 seconds.
Trupp does concede that the egos in the
movie were real. “We were a very competi
tive bunch and thought we were all hot
shots,” he chuckles. “But we did have fun.”
As a pilot of an F4B Phantom, Hans
Trupp flew more than 200 combat missions
over North Vietnam off two different air
craft carriers: the USS Ranger and the USS
Constellation. For his service, he was
awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross, 12
Air medals, two Navy commendation med
als and two Navy achievement medals with
combat V and the South Vietnamese Cross
of Gallantry. He earned them all.
He got his Distinguished Flying Cross for
shooting down an enemy plane in
Haiphong Harbor attacking a PT boat trying
to smuggle spies into North Vietnam and he
did it at night.
On another occasion, he was flying wing
for another F4B when an enemy surface-to-
air missile hit the other fighter jet just 100
yards from Trupp who watched it go down
and never saw the parachute. “It was obvi
ous they didn’t make it,” he says.
Trupp was also flying over North
Vietnam when John McCain was shot
down. ‘I heard his Mayday call,” he says,
“but at the time I didn’t know it was
McCain.” It caused quite a stir since
McCain was the son and grandson of Navy
admirals.
Avoiding surface-to-air missiles (SAMs)
was an occupational hazard, Trupp says.
“When they locked on you, you quickly
went into a ‘Split-S’ maneuver. You invert
the aircraft and pull the nose down,” he
explains, “and then pull up headed in the
opposite direction at a lower altitude.” The
missiles couldn’t handle those twists and
turns.
Having survived the war and in the real
estate business, Hans Trupp was to find out
much of it had been in vain. Twenty years
later, he discovered John L. Piotrowski, a
retired United States Air Force four-star
general, had published a book, “Basic
Airman to General: The Secret War &
Other Conflicts.”
In the book, Piotrowski cites a television
interview in which former Secretary of
State Dean Rusk confessed the U.S. gov
ernment was tipping off the North
Vietnamese about its intended bombing tar
gets a day in advance.
Rusk said, “We didn’t want to harm the
North Vietnamese people so we passed the
targets to the Swiss embassy in Washington
with instructions to pass them to the (North
Vietnamese) government through their
embassy in Hanoi.” Rusk said the U.S.
wanted to show North Vietnam that we
“could strike targets at will but we didn’t
want to kill innocent people.”
An incredulous Trupp tracked down the
retired general after a month-long search
and discovered it was true. He and his fel
low fighter pilots were risking their lives
fighting an enemy who had been fore
warned, prepared and were shooting down
American aircraft, capturing and torturing
survivors. Trupp says it was an unforgivable
betrayal by the very country they were serv
ing. That is putting it mildly.
Today, Hans Trupp worries about the
future of our country. He believes we are
weaker militarily and that China, more than
Russia, represents our biggest threat. Of
even more concern is a generation that
seems less and less patriotic and less appre
ciative of the freedoms they have been
given and the sacrifices made for them. This
isn’t what he and his fellow aviators fought
for. But I am proud they did. We all should
be. Theirs was not a Top Gun movie. It was
the real thing.
You can reach Dick Yarbrough atdick@dick-
yarbrough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta,
GA 31139; online atdickyarbrough.com or on
Facebook at www.facebook.com/dickyarb.
more
DICKYARBROUGH
Columnist
The relativity of aging
Time is something
that just seems to catch
up with us sometimes.
“You’re how old?”
my son asked one day
when he caught the tell
end of a conversation.
“I’ll be 50 this year.”
I replied.
“Fifty?” he repeated.
SUDIE
CROUCH
Columnist
grown.
I blinked again and
my mother suddenly
became so much older
as well.
Her auburn hair has
now faded to silver and
somehow she’s shrunk.
“You are getting tall
er,” she told me recent-
“Fifty.”
Age is a funny thing when
you’re younger though.
When Cole was in first grade,
they had the kids make a picture
for Mother’s Day listing out dif
ferent ways they described their
mom. One was how old they
thought she was. Cole thought I
was 21.
To him, that was old then.
Whatever age my friends were
when I met them is what they
remain perpetually in my mind.
So when I see them posting
about grandchildren, I alway
think something must be off.
When I was younger, I
remember thinking that 30 was
old and 40 was ancient. Fifty -
well, 50 was just up there with
Methuselah.
But here I am, six months
away from 50 and I am realizing
that age - and time - is such a
trickster.
Somehow, I blinked and my
son went from being a toddler to
iy-
“No. I’m not. Mama,” I
replied gently. “You’re getting
shorter.”
Osteoporosis has taken her
from previously being taller than
me and somewhat willowy, to
being much shorter than me, and
I’m5’2.
She claims to have a lot of
wrinkles but I don’t see them,
thinking she’s just being a bit
critical of herself.
It just happened all of a sud
den it seems, or maybe I didn’t
notice it until there was a long
stretch of time where we
couldn’t see each other due to
the pandemic. When I did see
her. she suddenly looked like she
was much older than she was
just not that long ago.
She doesn’t really feel old or
consider herself an elderly per
son though stubbornly com
plaining when I tell her to let me
do things for her.
“I can still do this,” she
demands. “I know, Mama,” I
say. “Let me take care of it for
you though.”
She doesn’t like it, insisting
she can carry in the heavy items
from the car, nor does she like
for me to tell her not to do
things.
But she’s not the she-dragon
Crazy Redhead I knew in my
youth, the woman who had the
perpetual Virginia Slim 120
perched by her flowing red tress
es, one hip cocked to the side as
she was telling me what I was
and wasn’t going to do - no huts,
no coconuts about it. The one
who’d go to the huge library
in Athens with me to do papers
in college and had no trouble
finding the resources I needed
online.
Now she’s a little older
woman wearing soft, cotton
clothing that’s comfortable and
fussing as she’s trying to figure
out her new smartphone.
It hit me.
As I was growing up and
moving forward with my life,
my mother was growing older
and I was somehow too busy to
catch it.
Just as our children grow up
so quickly and we wish time
would slow down so we could
freeze those moments, our par
ents - the ones who raised us -
are aging and those passages of
time that we’ll never get back
are slipping through our fingers
as well.
It’s made me distinctly aware
that one day, I’d be older too, as
Cole’s surprise at my age settled
into my thoughts. Maybe in
some way, he was thinking I was
still that age he wrote on the
Mother’s Day Mad Lib, the then
ripe old age of 21.
Maybe it made him start
thinking ahead about how one
day. I’d be so much older and
maybe not quite the feral version
of a mother I am now. Or maybe
he’s just thought about how his
other grandmother went home
from work one night and had a
stroke and has been in a wheel
chair ever since. He’s a lot more
aware of things than I was at his
age, and a bit more forward
thinking than I was.
As he’s been growing up and
creating his own way in the
world, I’ve been growing older
alongside him.
If anything, it’s making me
very aware of how time’s pass
ing right before our eyes, too fast
for us to really realize.
Somehow. I’ve got to make it
slow down just a little bit, at least
until I can catch up.
Sudie Crouch is an award win
ning humor columnist and author
of the recently e-published novel,
"The Dahlman Files: A Tony
Dahlman Paranormal Mystery."
Flu cases low,
By Dr. Larry Anderson
Anderson Family Medicine
Good news. Flu cases
remain minimal. People are
getting their vaccines. It
does not appear to be a
threat to the general popula
tion, but the high risk folks
are always with us. They are
the main reason we do
things to stop the spread of
flu. We need to keep them
but COVID up
around a lot longer.
Bad news. Covid cases in
our county continue to rise.
We need to get the boosters.
Wear your mask when it is
appropriate. Stay away from
sick people. Tell other peo
ple when you are sick so you
can stay away from them.
Not sure news.
Monkeypox cases in Georgia
continue to increase. We
have over 30 cases so far.
Anyone can diagnosis
Monkeypox when a full
blown presentation of symp
toms and blisters appear. The
skill of the physician is to
make the diagnosis with the
most minimal of signs or
symptoms. The biggest aid
we have now is access to lab
testing. Labcorp which is a
commercial lab has begun to
offer testing. This will help a
lot. We (Anderson Family
Medicine) has started testing
rashes with blisters even
when the level of suspicion
is very low. When dealing
with an unknown it is better
to over test then to miss a
diagnosis. Dr. Greg Morgan
who recently joined us has
worked with the Dawson
County Health Department
and the state virology lab in
submitting our first test spec
imen. Suspicion is very low
but this is like a box of choc
olates, you never know what
you are going to get. Thanks
for reading.
LETTERTOTHE EDITOR
The nasty F-word
Have you noticed that in the last few
years just about all our ruling classes
have begun to use nasty fighting
words in their everyday language. The
F-word is used everywhere now, even
on signs in our county. Both sides of
the political divide use it about as
much as young people begin every
statement with “like”. Even the mov
ies use it. Netflix gets the most use
prize.
I think words matter because they
often convey an intent on the part of
the person using them. If a man says
to me ,”I am going to whip you” I go
to reaching for some sort of defense. If
someone says in seriousness, “I intend
to kill you,” preparations need to be
made and right now.
The F-word can connote consensual
intercourse but that is not how people
use it. It is a word usually uttered in
anger and suggests violence of the
worst kind that can be visited upon a
human. Rape.
That kind of violence is reserved for
an enemy that is not only going to be
destroyed but tortured with utter
humiliation and shame. Men and
women that use it should be shunned.
They have declared themselves as
beasts and are consumed with evil
intent. We should not tolerate them.
Walk away and shut them out.Their
plainly stated intent will always find
an outlet in action.
We should all watch what we say.
Evil sayings may start a chain of
events which end in un-speakable acts
of violence.
Gary Pichon
Marble Hill
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Mail letters to the Dawson County
News, RO. Box 1600, Dawsonville,
GA 30534, hand deliver to 30 Shoal
Creek Road, fax to (706) 265-3276 or
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