Free at Last

Monday, January 18, 2016, is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day -- it always brings back distant memories for me,

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In 1955, at age 26, Martin Luther King, Jr. was thrust into civil-rights leadership in Montgomery, Alabama, after Rosa Parks had made her courageous stand not to move to the back of the bus.

A group of blacks, formed by the community to lead a bus boycott, chose King as a compromise candidate to lead their moral crusade.

Immediately, King was besieged with threats. The Ku Klux Klan gave him three days to leave town. He spent a night in jail for driving 30 mph in a 25-mph zone. A bomb exploded on his front porch.

But it only made him stronger.

In April of 1966, I was drafted into the U.S. Army (Vietnam Era) and stationed at Ft. McPherson, Headquarters of the Third Army, in Atlanta, Georgia, whereupon I was one of a half dozen data processing analysts, working night shift, supervised by a civilian employee, coding documents to be processed by computer.

On April 3, 1968, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) was in Memphis, Tennessee, speaking to a capacity crowd of striking garbage workers and others at Mason Temple about the climate of racial hatred.

King’s final words in his last speech were… “I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

At 6:01 the following evening, King was struck in the face by a rifle bullet as he stood on the balcony outside of room 306 of the Lorraine Motel.

He was rushed to St. Joseph’s Hospital and pronounced dead at 7:05.

Martin Luther King believed in non-violent protest of racial injustice -- it cost him his life. He was 39 years old.

Racial riots broke out that night in over 100 cities, including Detroit, Chicago, Boston, New York, Newark, Baltimore, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Nashville, Kansas City, Oakland, Memphis, etc.

On April 5, 1968, President Lyndon Johnson called out 4,000 federal troops to quell the rioting in Washington DC -- plus, 20,000 Army and 34,000 National Guardsmen had been ordered to anti-riot duty elsewhere.

April 11, 1968, was my scheduled discharge date from the U.S. Army. However, King’s funeral was to be conducted on April 9 in Atlanta, just a few miles from Ft. McPherson.

My plans to become a civilian once again were temporarily put on hold. The entire world, including the Army, expected massive outbreaks of chaos during or shortly after the ceremony. Instead of packing to go home, I was in combat gear, practicing bayonet thrusts, wondering how much live ammo would be distributed for riot control.

Lester Maddox, an outspoken racist who once chased blacks out of his restaurant by passing out axe handles to his white patrons, was the Governor at the time. He was furious that flags at state buildings in the capitol of Atlanta, and elsewhere, were at half-mast the day of the funeral.

Surrounded by 200 armed state agents, he proceeded to personally hoist the two flags back up, but backed off when the major TV networks showed up to record the action. This added mayhem gave those of us standing by with bayonets an extra sense of anticipation.

The funeral service was held in Ebenezer Baptist Church.

King’s casket was placed on an old farm wagon, with steel-rim, wooden-spoke wheels. 30,000 marchers were sent ahead to start the procession. An estimated 200,000 mourners took part in the procession that eventually passed directly in front of the Capitol.

Governor Maddox, along with 160 helmeted troopers and 40 enforcement officers from other state agencies, remained inside the statehouse. There were eight armed men at each entrance.

Maddox had given them the following orders: “If they should go so far as to break through the locked doors, then start shooting and don’t stop until they are stacked so high above the threshold the followers would be unable to climb over them.”

The procession passed by solemnly and the funeral occurred without incident.

Two days later, I was discharged from the Army and returned home to Minneapolis, where I kissed the ground and embarked on a new life once again.

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Quote for the Day -- “A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Bret Burquest is the author of 11 books. He lives in the Ozark Mountains in the Land of Ark on Planet Earth -- where the human conscience is eternal and will never die.

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Return of the Ice Beast

A movie opened this weekend called "The Revenant" -- the true story of a mountain man named Hugh Glass. In 2009, I wrote the following piece, which included the Hugh Glass event of 1823, and became a chapter in one of my books, ORB OF WOUNDED SOULS.

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THE ICE BEAST

Life is like an unorthodox teacher -- you get the test first and the lesson comes later.

During the evening of January 26, 2009, my region of the country was having a severe ice storm. Ice was forming on trees, causing them to literally explode as large branches were falling, trees were splitting down the middle and some were toppling from the root.

Power lines in Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee and Kentucky were ravaged. My utility company reported 32,000 out of 37,000 households were without electricity. The four utility poles in the line across the road from my property had been destroyed. In northern Arkansas, over 6,000 utility poles had to be replaced.

My driveway was blocked by three large fallen trees and a large branch had collapsed on my van rendering it stationary. I was without electricity (my only source of heat) and running water, and my phone lines were dead (for the first few days).

The temperatures dipped into the low 20s and teens over the next several days. The temperature in my place dropped into the high 30s at night. I had plenty of food and water on hand, but no alternative heating source.

I spent the first three days trying to stay warn under some quilts by candle light in my smallest room. My dog threw off some body heat as well. It was a time for staring at walls and contemplating your existence.

Then on day four I started thinking about my grandfather and Hugh Glass.

My grandfather was a very rugged, independent guy who had a plaque on his wall that read, "I felt sorry for myself when I had no shoes until the day I saw a man with no feet."

It was obvious the electricity would not be restored soon, so I decided to stop waiting for help and do something about it. Since my chainsaw was electric, I started sawing by hand on the fallen trees in my driveway. The wood was green and wet, making hand-sawing nearly impossible because it kept pinching the blade. It took two full days to clear a path, thanks to a guy who lives down the road and drove by and helped me with the big pieces toward the end with his chain saw.

Then I had to clear the hanging branch from my van and move it out of there. Unfortunately, the only place I could move it was where it got stuck in some deep mud with no room for maneuvering. I couldn't get it out for many more days until the mud dried.

After 17 days of struggling and hunkering down, my electricity was restored on February 11. It took another two days to repair my running water system because of frozen pipes that had cracked.

Hugh Glass was my inspiration through much of the ordeal. He was a mountain man, fur trader and honorary Pawnee in the early 1800s.

In 1823, Glass was with an expedition party of 13 mountain men in the Dakotas whereupon he was off by himself scouting for game and was attacked by a Grizzly bear. He fought it with his knife and the bear was eventually killed with the help of his partners, Jim Bridger and John Fitzgerald.

Glass was badly injured. He had a broken leg, gashes on his back exposing his ribs and remained unconscious.

The expedition party determined Glass would soon die. Bridger and Fitzgerald volunteered to remain behind and bury Glass when he expired, as the party moved on toward the valley of the Yellowstone.

While Fitzgerald and Bridger were digging the grave, a band of hostile Arikara Indians appeared. Fitzgerald and Bridger grabbed Glass's rifle, knife and equipment, and high-tailed it out of there. When they caught up with the expedition party, they reported that Glass had died.

At some point, Glass regained consciousness. No weapons, no equipment, abandoned by his partners.

He set his broken leg. All of his deep gashes were festering, potentially turning to gangrene, so he laid his wounded back on a rotting log allowing maggots to eat the dead flesh.

The nearest settlement was Fort Kiowa on the Missouri River, some 200 miles away. Glass wrapped himself in a bear hide that was intended to be his burial shroud and began crawling toward the south.

Glass survived on wild berries and roots. On one occasion he drove two wolves away from a dead animal carcass and consumed some meat. In six weeks, he reached the Cheyenne River, where he fashioned a raft and floated down the river, eventually reaching Fort Kiowa.

After a long recuperation, Glass set out to have an unfriendly chat with Bridger and Fitzgerald.

He eventually encountered Bridger near the mouth of the Bighorn River on the Yellowstone. But Bridger was only 17 years old at the time of the incident, thus Glass  forgave him.

Later, he found Fitzgerald. But Fitzgerald had joined the U.S. Army, so Glass refrained from killing him. Killing a soldier would lead to a death sentence. However, he did retrieve his lost rifle from Fitzgerald.

In the winter of 1833, Hugh Glass and two other mountain men were killed by Arikara Indians on the Yellowstone River. A few months later, some fur trappers recognized Hugh Glass's rifle in the hands of an Arikara Indian who was trying to pass himself off as a friendly Minitaris Indian, whereupon he was swiftly dispatched to the Happy Hunting Ground in the Sky.

So I figured if Hugh Glass could travel 200 miles by crawling overland wrapped in a bear skin for 6 weeks with a broken leg, building a raft and floating down a river that I could survive without electricity and running water for 17 days.

The glory of existence is not what happens to you, it's what you do when it happens.

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Quote for the Day – "When you're going through hell, keep going." Winston Churchill

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Bret Burquest is the author of 11 books. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a few dogs and where electricity is a very handy item.

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1956 -- Birth of Rock-N-Roll

The new year, 2016, is upon us.

Sixty years ago, in 1956, I was 12 years old -- too old for childish things and too young for wayward women.

It was a year when a former truck driver named Elvis Presley burst upon the American scene and helped to create a new musical movement called "rock-n-roll." And the world has been rocking and rolling ever since.

January 5 -- Elvis Presley recorded his first record, "Heartbreak Hotel," for RCA. It would become the first of 45 records by Elvis to sell over a million copies.

January 19 – The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to censure Israel for attacking Syria.

January 30 – Elvis Presley recorded "Blue Suede Shoes."

March 5 – The U.S. Supreme Court banned segregation in public school (Brown vs. Board of Education).

March 13 – RCA released Elvis Presley's first record album.

March 31 – The Federal minimum wage was set at one dollar an hour.

April 25 – "Heartbreak Hotel," recorded by Elvis Presley, became the #1 hit on the charts. 

April 28 – The last of the French occupying troops left Vietnam, leading to American intervention.

May 21 – The USA dropped a thermonuclear (hydrogen) bomb from a plane onto Bikini Atoll.

June 8 – Air Force Sergeant Richard B Fitzgibbon, Jr. became the first American military serviceman on record to die in Vietnam. His son, Richard B Fitzgibbon III, was killed in Vietnam in 1965.

June 29 – Actress Marilyn Monroe and playwright Arthur Miller were married in London.

July 1 – Elvis Presley appeared on the Steve Allen Show wearing a tuxedo.

July 24 – Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, the country's most popular comedy team, performed together for the last time at the Copacabana Club in New York City.

July 30 – The U.S. motto "In God We Trust" was authorized by Congress.

August 4 – RCA released Elvis Presley's recording of "Hound Dog."

August 11 – RCA released Elvis Presley's recording of "Don't Be Cruel."

August 16 – Adlai E. Stevenson was nominated for president by the Democratic Convention in Chicago.

August 18 – "Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel," recorded by Elvis Presley, reached #1 on the music charts.

August 22 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Vice President Richard M. Nixon were nominated for second terms by the Republican Convention in San Francisco.

September 9 – Elvis Presley made his first of three appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. Due to viewer outrage of his gyrations, Elvis was televised only from the waist up in the final appearance. 

September 28 – RCA reported that Elvis Presley had sold over 10 million records so far.

October 8 – Don Larson, pitcher for the New York Yankees, pitched the only perfect game in World Series history. The Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 2-0, and won the series four games to three.

October 24 – Soviet troops invaded Hungary and installed a communist regime shortly thereafter.

October 31 – Great Britain and France bombed Egyptian airfields in an attempt to take over the Suez Canal.

November 2 – Israel captured Gaza.

November 6 – Dwight Eisenhower was reelected president. The Democrats won both houses of Congress.

November 16 – "Love Me Tender," the first film by Elvis Presley, premiered in New York City.

December 2 – Fidel Castro led a small band of rebels in an uprising that would eventually liberate Cuba from a corrupt dictator named Batista, and replace him with another corrupt dictator named Fidel Castro.

All in all, 1956 was a typical year of global strife. Unfortunately, sixty years later, power struggles continue, forcing the human race to squander resources and endure ceaseless change.

But rock-n-roll is here to stay.

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Quote for the Day -- “I've come too far, and I don't know how to get back.” Elvis

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Bret Burquest is the author of 11 books. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a few dogs and the ghost of Bo Diddley.

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High-Level Blunders

I wrote the following piece as a newspaper column in March of 2003 -- about 18 months after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and during George W. Bush's incursion into Iraq.

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Due to a series of high-level blunders, the world has become increasingly divided over the Iraq situation.

BLUNDER #1 – Ultimatum to friendly nations.

Shortly after the 9/11 tragedy, President George Bush made a speech where he announced to the world that “you’re either for us or against us.” This gross error of judgement caused a great deal of resentment. No nation wants to be put into a position where they are required to either join someone else’s battle or automatically become associated with the opposing forces. There are, and always have been, nations that prefer to remain neutral whenever other countries go to war. Individual nations should be allowed to have their own viewpoint without being coerced.

BLUNDER #2 – Guilt by association.

Simply because a couple dozen crazed zealots rammed a few airplanes into our buildings doesn’t mean that the country of Iraq was responsible for the attack. No credible evidence has been presented to indicate Saddam Hussein had anything to do with it. To the rest of the world, it looks like the USA is taking out its 9/11 frustration on the wrong party.

BLUNDER #3 – Lack of proper focus.

Much of the bad publicity against Iraq has come in TV briefings by government officials claiming Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, cleverly hidden, which he intends to use on innocent people. They insist they know for certain that the weapons exist but aren’t willing to say how they know or point out where they may be hidden because of national security. If we truly know where some of these weapons are located, reveal the whereabouts and let’s get on with it. And to keep harping that Saddam Hussein has evil intentions is meaningless unless you can explain how you can read his mind.

BLUNDER #4 – The time lag.

The Gulf War ended in 1991 with Iraq agreeing to disarm itself of certain types of weapons. UN inspectors were to oversee the disarmament. Eventually, Iraq failed to cooperate and expelled the inspectors in 1996. The Clinton Administration (1992-2000), more concerned with Lewinsky matters, failed to react properly at the time, allowing Iraq to flaunt UN mandates. Twelve years have now passed. Many people no longer perceive Iraq to be an imminent threat and question the urgency for a preemptive attack.

BLUNDER #5 – Historical misconceptions.

Many people blame the whole problem on George Bush Sr. for not marching into Baghdad during the 1991 Iraqi War and capturing Saddam Hussein. Basically, he had no choice. The UN mandate was to remove the Iraqi Army from Kuwait. The only way certain Middle Eastern countries, such as Saudi Arabia, would agree to allow US Armed Forces to use their countries as staging areas was if the USA agreed not to march on Baghdad.

BLUNDER #6 – The trade factor.

There was a business trade show in Baghdad last year. Representatives from 81 French companies attended, seeking business connections with Iraq. France currently supplies spare military parts and other goods to Iraq. Turkey allows Iraqi oil across its border in violation of UN sanctions. Hussein has promised vast quantities of oil to France, Russia and China when the oil embargo is lifted. The fact that France, Turkey, Russia and China are resistant to a war with Iraq is primarily motivated by greed.

BLUNDER #7 – Global perceptions.

Iraq is in clear violation of UN sanctions. But too much time has passed and second thoughts are creeping in. If the USA invades Iraq without UN approval, the USA will be perceived as a global bully instead of a freedom fighter -- we will win a war and lose our prestige. The whole thing is now a colossal mess, a no-win situation, with too many potential adverse consequences.

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In retrospect, many people now believe the USA make a major blunder by initiating a war against Iraq shortly after the events of September 11, 2001. But once we entered into armed conflict in the Middle East, those in power had made too many blunders to turn back.

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Quote for the Day -- “When you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill

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Bret Burquest is the author of 11 books. He lives in the Ozark Mountains with a few dogs and where tomorrow is a new day with no blunders in it yet.

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