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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, OCTOBER 19, 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.
Remembering a
group of heroes
I met in Iraq
It seems like a
lifetime ago and
in some ways it
was. It has been
17 years this week
since I was in Iraq
with the men and
women of
Georgia’s 48th
Brigade Combat Team. Even today, it is an
experience seared in my brain.
How I ended up there was due to my
fried Bill Stewart of Brunswick. A former
chief of staff to Georgia’s U.S. Sen. Mack
Mattingly, Stewart suggested to a one-time
staff member of his that he should invite me
to Iraq for a visit. That staff member hap
pened to be the now-Brig. Gen. Stewart
Rodeheaver, commander of the 48th BCT.
Much to my surprise, I got an email from
Gen. Rodeheaver shortly thereafter and an
invitation to come over and see things for
myself. Sharing the invitation with some of
my media colleagues, I was advised to turn
it down. I was told that public information
staff would keep tight reins on me and I
would see only what they wanted me to see
within the Green Zone, a relatively safe
area (if there was such a thing) in that war-
torn region.
That prompted me to email the general
back and say in effect if that was the case, I
would pass on the opportunity. I did not
intend to hang around the pressroom all day
and pretend I had witnessed the war. I
received assurance from him that I was free
to go wherever I wished and without any
handlers. Gen. Rodeheaver was true to his
word, although I suspect had I pushed the
limit too far, he would have changed the
rales quickly. Generals can do that kind of
thing, you know.
I did see the war up-close and personal
and a bit too up-close for comfort. I wan
gled an invitation to join a convoy of
Humvees as they swept through the notori
ous Triangle of Death - so called because of
the terrorist activity in the area between the
cities of Mahmudiayah, Yusifiyah and
Lucafiyah - looking for IEDs. That is mili
tary jargon for Improvised Explosive
Devices or simply, bombs.
We found one. Right under the Humvee
in which I was riding. The IED detonated
on my side of the vehicle and just behind
me. Sparks, smoke and asphalt were every
where. Had we been going a few seconds
slower or had the bad guys been a little
faster on the draw, we might not be having
this conversation.
Viewing the scene upon our return from
the mission, it was amazing to see how
large a crater the bomb had made in the
road. I still have the photograph of the inci
dent to remind me that war is real and peo
ple do get killed. We were lucky that day
and may I never forget it.
The 48th Brigade Combat Team is a part
of the Georgia National Guard, a group of
citizen-soldiers from across the state who
leave jobs and families to serve their coun
try. In this case, in Iraq. Lt. Col. Tom
Carden gave me a succinct description of
their duties there. “What we do is find out
who are the good guys and who are the bad
guys,” he said, “and then we get rid of the
bad guys.” Today, Maj. Gen. Carden is
Adjutant General of the Georgia
Department of Defense.
At the same time they were fighting the
omnipresent terrorists, members of the 48th
BCT were employing their back-home
skills helping construct bridges, repairing
dams, installing power lines, running medi
cal clinics and showing the best of us to a
people who had known only the brutality of
a despicable dictator.
Today, I wonder what has become of this
special group of people. I do know that in
addition to Gen. Carden, Gen. Stewart
Rodeheaver is retired and living in
Eatonton. I still correspond with him on
occasion. Colonel and later Major General
John King is Georgia’s able Insurance
Commissioner, appointed by Gov. Brian
Kemp and currently running for a full term
in office.
But there are all the others with whom I
spent perilous days and nights that I don’t
know about. They hailed from across our
state: Places like Statesboro and
Montezuma, Palmetto and Gray, Dublin
and Brunswick. Back home they were
mechanics, firefighters, schoolteachers,
postal workers, doctors, nurses, correctional
officers, police officers and the like. Your
friends and neighbors.
But for my short stay in Iraq, they were
my Band of Brothers and Sisters. Seventeen
years later, they are still my heroes. I hope
they are well.
You can reach Dick Yarbrough atdick@dick-
yarbrough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta,
GA 31139; online at dickyarbrough.com or on
Facebook at www.facebook.com/dickyarb.
I was a newspaperman
— and always will be
Steaming mug shak
ing slightly in an already
over-caffeinated hand,
unfiltered Lucky Strike
dancing to word tunes as
he talked, the second
publisher for whom I ever
worked once told me that
since I neither drank cof
fee nor smoked cigarettes I needed to
get out of newspapers as I obviously
had no future in the business.
It’s taken me nearly half a century
to heed that heart-felt advice, but the
time has come to get out of the news
paper business. Or at least day-to-day
involvement in the news gathering and
publishing process.
That particular owner/publisher
was a short feisty firebrand with a
TNT temper who never dodged a
good political fight and frequently
made enemies faster than he made
friends, which didn’t help his attempts
at selling ads or keeping the business
open. On more than one occasion I
had to accompany him on collection
rounds so we could get paid that
week.
But he was a “newspaperman”
through and through, one of many
from both genders with whom I’ve
been fortunate enough to work in the
51 years since my first bylined story-
filled with typos and lousy writing-
graced the sports page of the local
paper and started a life-long fascina
tion with the inexact process of mix
ing events, words and readers.
How do you say goodbye to a love
affair with a career that started with a
naive teenager whose first editor came
to the high school in search of some
one to write sports stories, and ends
with a well-worn graybeard leaving
behind millions of words offered for
public consumption in multiple mar
kets across the state of Georgia?
A rotund, sleepy-eyed county com
mission chairman, upset over some
thing written about the South Georgia
government he headed, ended a
harangue about the story by saying to
me “I know you have to write the
truth, but do you have to
make it sound so damn
true?”
Among the millions
of words that have found
their way from keyboard
to the public, I hope a lot
of them have made things
so damn true their signifi
cance couldn’t be avoided. More
importantly, I hope I’ve helped others
to cultivate the same mindset along
the way.
I’ve been fortunate to have a career
that has spanned what likely are the
twilight years for the romanticized
notion of newspapering. The need for
information is always going to be
prevalent, but the delivery methods
are rapidly changing.
The idea that a printed newspaper
so “hot off the press” the ink will
smear is essential to the news stream
will soon become as quaint a notion
as those old IBM Selectrics, whose
rat-a-tat-tat pounding of type balls
once filled newsrooms with a back
ground sound most noticeable when it
was absent.
Whatever the process involved in
delivering news to the public, the
importance of the job will remain, and
a whole new generation of talented,
committed younger journalists stand
ready to do it.
Looking back, there are so many
memories of important stories, amaz
ing interviews, crazy coworkers (trust
me on that one), long hours, hard
work, and communities made better
by the fact they were served well by a
local newspaper.
It’s been a great career, one only
slightly marred by two lingering
regrets.
From the very beginning, in every
market in which I’ve worked, there
have been painful stories dealing with
racial conflict — inequality, bias,
prejudice, hatred, confrontations.
Having seen “white” and “colored”
water fountains and restrooms as a
child, I know full well how far we’ve
come. But I also know how far we
still must go. I had hoped that by the
time my career ended this particular
story line would be one with which a
new generation of reporters would
never have to deal. Unfortunately, that
isn’t the case.
The second major regret is that, as
a profession, we haven’t done a better
job of making the public understand
the importance of a free press, and
how vital its existence is to the future
of our nation as a functional republic.
That a certain former president
would refer to the press as an “enemy
of the people” makes obvious the lack
of understanding of the role played by
credible, professional reporting.
We’ve failed to explain that social
media platforms do not have reporters
and do not generate news content.
Rather, they steal from traditional
media companies, repackage stories
done by others, and feed them to the
masses based on satisfying personal
preferences rather than providing
unbiased information.
If you want credible local news to
continue to be available, you have to
invest in it. The way to do that is to
buy a subscription for a printed news
paper or a digital product produced by
a traditional media company. If those
companies fail, none of us are going
to be accurately informed about any
thing, and our future will be bleak
indeed.
As for myself, I’ll be joining the
ranks of the “semi-retired.” No longer
involved in the day-to-day operations
of any single newspaper for the first
time in five decades, but still working
a bit behind the scenes at the corpo
rate level, trying to help keep media
operations financially viable and sus
tainable.
And if, perhaps in some shady bar
or at a social event, someone happens
to ask what I once did for a living, I’ll
tell them I was a newspaperman. And
I’ll say it with such pride that they
will know for sure it is a claim that is
not just true, but damn true.
-30"
NORMAN BAGGS
General Manager
When Doodle barks, she means business
In the history of the little
pittie-mix. Doodle has only
barked about twice.
She’ll yelp when she
hurts herself, like if she
steps on a sharp rock.
She’ll scream when she
sees the treats left on the
counter and no one gives
her one.
But barking — actually trying to
warn someone she means puppy busi
ness — she’s only done a few times.
The first time was at my Mama.
She had seen Mama before, so her
protest at her presence was a surprise.
When she first met Mama, she was
terrified of her, namely because she
heard Mama snoring.
It wasn’t the first time Mama’s
snores had terrified a dog; Pepper used
to be quite alarmed by it. and that evil
beagle feared nothing.
I had fallen and broken my elbow -
an experience as delightful as it sounds
- and since I had never broken a bone
before, Mama and Bobby rushed up
here to check on me.
I assured them I was fine, but when
they arrived Bobby’s first concern was
that I couldn’t possibly cook so he had
Lamar and Cole take him to the grocery
store so he could buy every piece of
chicken the deli had fried.
My family thinks fried chicken cures
just about everything and can maybe
even heal broken bones.
Mama stayed with me.
When I left the room, Mama told me
Doodle barked at her.
“She did?” “She did!” Mama
exclaimed.
“She’s never barked at anyone. Are
you sure she barked and didn’t just
‘oooooo?’”
“It was a bark,” Mama insisted.
Doodle positioned herself by my
feet, squared up her squatty little body,
and let out a low but deep bark.
“See,” Mama stated.
“Well. Mama, you should feel spe
cial. Boo has never barked
at anyone.”
Mama took great offense
at this though. She couldn’t
understand why Doodle,
who had met her before,
would even bark at her.
“Maybe she thought I
was injured and she had to
be protective?” I wondered.
“But what is she protecting you
from? Me?”
“Who knows what goes through her
head,” I said. I sure didn’t.
Eventually though we gained some
clarity.
“You tell her I'm coming to get her,”
Mama said one day on the phone.
“Even if she does bark at me.” “Mama,
that’s it. Doodle thought you were
going to puppy-nap her!” I said.
“Why would that upset her? She
wouldn’t want to go home with me?”
“She knows she’s got it good here,” I
said. “She’s got her people and her
pack; she was scared you were going to
take her. That’s why she barked.”
It was a relief to get to the bottom of
this barking mystery.
The next time she barked was at a
utility worker who somehow walked up
in the yard one morning. Since he had
not pulled his truck down our driveway
- probably a smart move, given how
the terrain is a bit of an off-roading
adventure - Doodle let him know she
was aware of his presence with a bark
that sounded like it belonged to a much
larger dog.
“Was that Ava?” I asked Lamar.
“No. Doodle.”
“Well.” I commented. “She’s found
her voice.”
Those were the only times she
barked, at least until recently that is.
Until suddenly, she started barking
whenever Cole’s friends came over.
It was so odd because the rest of the
girls didn’t - Pumpkin was thrilled to
have someone new to love on her and
Mia thinks everyone is here to adore
her.
But Doodle started having a fit.
Cole’s friends tried giving her treats
to show they were not a threat; she
gobbled them up, softening the bark in
between bites.
“Doodle wants everyone to think
she’s the boss applesauce,” I said, try
ing to understand her puppy logic.
It seemed fitting. The girls didn’t
seem to care about pack dynamics of
who was alpha - but Doodle wanted
them to know if it came down to any
major serious stuff, she was in charge.
“You’d think she’d be used to them
by now,” Mama commented.
I agreed.
Then last week, she was more bois
terous than usual, barking like mad
when one of his friend’s came over.
Then it hit me.
“Where was Mia?” I asked. “I was
working her,” Lamar said.
“So she was outside of the fenced
area when Cole’s friend got here?”
Lamar nodded.
“She thinks someone may puppy-nap
Mia! Think about it - she didn’t bark at
Mama until Mama started saying she
was going to take her. She thinks when
ever someone comes over here, they
may have intentions to steal what she
thinks is her baby.”
Before we had Mia, Doodle would
normally be shy and sweet. Now she’s
trying to let people know she is protect
ing the German shepherd she considers
to be her baby.
It made perfect sense to me, and I bet
it made perfect sense to Doodle too.
Sudie Crouch is an award winning
humor columnist and author of "The
Dahlman Files: ATony Dahlman
Paranormal Mystery."
SUDIE CROUCH
Columnist
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