NOTES from the BIG CHAIR

If you read nothing else this Easter morning, please take a moment to read what Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor had to say in London's THE DAILY TELEGRAPH.

"Without the Resurrection, human society would not have known the one, singular, astonishing thing that underpins the best of our laws and our traditions: that God gave himself to the world in Jesus Christ, was rejected by the world, and became a victim. Without the Resurrection, Jesus would have remained an unknown victim - trampled on, and forgotten; and human society would be none the wiser. But God raised Jesus up, demonstrated His power over death, and gave those who witnessed it the knowledge that the bloodied victim abandoned on Golgotha was, after all, His beloved son."

Read the entire piece here.

WTSjr

FOR THE RECORD: I don't care what any ex-wives or future wives may say, I WANT TO LIVE... no matter what it takes and no matter how terrible my life may be deemed by others.
Here's why (and it has nothing to do with selfishness or wanting to be a burden on others).
I want to live because God may be teaching me something while I am still alive - or I may be learning something - about myself and suffering, or the people around me, or humanity overall, or the triumph of the spirit in the darkest moments, or who knows what.
And since God has given me life - and given physicians the means to preserve life - I don't think it is my right or place to take that life away... or to allow that life to dissolve simply because it might be an escape from that which is not what I or others might have wanted in the first place.
As long as my heart is beating, it is because God has willed it.
And who am I to second guess His will?

WTSjr


My friend, author-poet Kay Day, e-mails me from Jacksonville:

"...If I'm living, I'll be certain your wishes are followed. I feel the same way. I've expressed my feelings to my family and written them into my will.
What the medical establishment and Schaivo's estranged husband are doing is murder.
I cannot reconcile the fact they are removing her feeding tube. But to withhold water from a dying woman is barbaric. If she were from a foreign country, the popular press would be up in arms.
In my opinion, her husband has abandoned her, having fathered children by another woman. He should have done the honorable thing and divorced her long ago. He is, in a moral sense, a bigamist.
I do not believe the polls accurate. I have found only one person, of many with whom I've spoken, who believes Terry Schiavo should be euthanized. That's what the establishment is doing.
It speaks to the heart of a judicial system that lacks compassion, except for the very wealthy."

The following press release is making the rounds, regarding my new column, Beyond the DropZone, at MilitaryWeek.com. I could tell you more about it, but I'll let the release speak for itself:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Author-journalist W. Thomas Smith Jr. will write a bi-weekly column, BEYOND THE DROPZONE, for MilitaryWeek.com beginning March 31.
A former U.S. Marine and paratrooper, Smith will offer an insider’s look at ground combat forces, paramilitary and special forces; past, present, and future.
"MilitaryWeek.com is very pleased to announce that W. Thomas Smith, Jr. is joining us in our ongoing efforts to explore the roots of military conflict and provide our readers with easy access to on-line, conflict-related articles from throughout the world," says Leroy Woodson, publisher of MilitaryWeek.com and a former editor and war correspondent for National Geographic magazine and The Washington Post. "Mr. Smith will be providing us with his unique insights in his own column, 'Beyond the DropZone'."
Other columnists at MilitaryWeek.com include Lt. Col Karen Kwiatkowski (U.S. Air Force, ret.) and Janine di Giovanni, a war correspondent and contributing editor to Vanity Fair.
W. Thomas Smith Jr. has written four books, edited two, and penned hundreds of pieces for a variety of publications including USA TODAY, George, U.S. News & World Report, BusinessWeek, The New York Post, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. His work appears frequently in NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE.
Smith is a graduate of the University of South Carolina (USC). He served in the U.S. Marine Corps as an infantry leader, paratrooper, and shipboard counter-terrorist instructor. Following his service in the Corps, he served on a special weapons and tactics (SWAT) team in the nuclear industry.
As a journalist, Smith has reported from combat zones in the Balkans and the Middle East, as well as covering the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks from ground zero in New York. He is an adjunct professor of journalism at USC and a military technical advisor for FactChasers, an international research service.

I just got back from Elloree, South Carolina where I was covering a story for Sandlapper magazine, and I must say it was one of the most pleasant morning excursions I've made in quite some time.
In fact, I think I need more of these escapes back to things I remember and so-cherished before the advent of computers, cell phones, seven-day-work-weeks and out-of-town jaunts that almost always mean business trips to huge metropoli like D.C. and the "Apple."
Don't get me wrong, I love those cities and the energy I'm always infused with when visiting them. But there was something almost magical about my visit to the self-proclaimed "Charmingly Southern" town west of Lake Marion, between Columbia and Charleston, in eastern Orangeburg County. It was a step back in time (if you'll pardon the cliché), but with all the modern conveniences we so-often take for granted. And indeed it is "Charmingly Southern:" Inhabited by incredibly warm and friendly people - only 740 of them - living and working in a beautiful little antiques buyers and dealers destination, Elloree boasts some of the region's most interesting specialty shops, excellent restaurants, and fascinating historical sites. In fact, its museum is as fine a repository, exhibition hall, and art-gallery as I've ever visited... and I've toured many of the world's finest.
Not to mention the drive: A gorgeous, sunny, 70-degree morning along smooth, vehicle-less highways passing old homes and farmhouses, vast corn and cotton fields, and old-growth hardwoods and pines. Even the railroad crossing between Elloree and St. Matthews, where I had to stop for a few minutes of fast-rolling freight cars, was pleasant.
Point being, folks, when you're passing through our great state, please take a moment to stop in our small towns. That's where you'll discover so much more about who we - as Southerners - really are.
Oh, and visit Elloree on the web here.

WTSjr

My friend, Capt. Lou Colbus (U.S. Navy, ret.), emails me a copy of a letter sent to several flag and general officers (and others) by Coast Guard veteran Marvin Perrett that attempts to redress a number of oversights that must not continue. The letter published in its unedited entirety below speaks for itself.
Mr. Perrett, a former combat coxswain whose heroics in action during several of the most celebrated albeit hellish amphibious assaults of World War II, is the subject of a fascinating feature that was published in the January 2005 issue of COAST GUARD magazine.
We owe these guys so much more than any of us can ever repay. And slights like what you are about to see are simply unacceptable!
Mr. Perrett's letter follows:

TO:
The Honorable Francis J. Harvey, U.S. Army
Admiral Vernon E. Clark, U.S. Navy
General John P. Jumper, U.S. Air Force
General Michael Hagee, U.S. Marine Corps
Honorable David Vitter, Congressman

I have just returned from a 60th Anniversary visit to Iwo Jima. I was the sole D-Day Iwo Jima U.S. Coast Guardsman on tour with about 60 contemporary U.S. Marines. I departed this emotional and memorable ceremony misty eyed. The impressive and elite U. S. Marine Corps Band, failed to include the Coast Guard Marching Song “Semper Paratus!” in their musical Services salute! With Mt. Suribachi in the background, this slight was difficult to embrace.
History “101”
Just for the record, I was “Coxswain” of a HIGGINS boat (LCVP/PA33-21) stationed aboard the U.S.S. BAYFIELD (APA33) a U.S. Coast Guard manned Navy Assault troop transport, Atlantic and Pacific.
At D-Day Normandy, our dedicated and decorated Captain Lyndon Spencer, U.S.C.G., Combat Citation/Normandy; Croix de Guerre/with Gold Star, hosted RADM Don Pardee Moon, U.S.N., Maj. Gen. R.O. Barton, U.S. Army and Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., U.S. Army, as “Flagship” Utah Beach.
At the Invasion of Southern France the U.S.S. BAYFIELD hosted RADM S.S. Lewis, U.S.N., rendering us a “Flagship” for that engagement.
On February 19th 1945 (D-DAY Iwo Jima) we hosted Maj. Gen. Clifton B. Cates, U.S.M.C., Commanding General, with elements of his 4th Marine Division. I landed 4th Marines on D-DAY at Blue Beach One and lost my HIGGINS boat on my first trip in to the beach. It sunk out from under me! I have vivid memories of Iwo Jima to this day.
I have every reason to believe that if any of the aforementioned departed Officers were with us today, they would support my plea for UNITED STATES COAST GUARD recognition as a Sister Service Organization of WWII!!! We are not seeking favors. We deserve better. We earned it…the hard way!
It started with S/M 1/c Douglas A. Munro, U.S.C.G., Congressional Medal of Honor, 9/27/1942. He evacuated some 500 U.S. Marines via HIGGINS boats destined for extermination off Guadalcanal.
I am given to understand that the second American Flag and staff that was erected upon Mt. Suribachi was donated by Quartermaster Bob Resnick, U.S.C.G., from his LST-758. The Coast Guard was present, Big Time!
I humbly beseech you honorable and decorated Leaders to issue a directive to your Band Masters to include the U. S. Coast Guard marching song “Semper Paratus” henceforth and hereafter, at ALL SERVICE related programs where such is presented.

Respectfully yours,
Marvin Perrett, U.S.C.G.
“Coxswain” PA33-21 (WWII)

CC: Admiral Tom H. Collins, U.S. Coast Guard
P.S. I have just been advised that there is posted on Saipan, Service Ensigns, without that of the Coast Guard.
Please correct this! The Coast Guard was there also!! Not to mention OKINAWA, as well!

After publishing the letter, this morning, we received the following email from Marvin Perrett:
It was difficult to read amidst the tears of joy and pride still rolling down my cheeks at this writing!
We "Coasties" have suffered this slight down through the years.
Iwo Jima was the last straw for me. I was compelled to speak out on this, the biggest day of my life. It was more than I could bear. Sorry it came to this; however, this one is for my COAST GUARD shipmates, past, present, and future.
Semper Paratus!
~Marvin~

Semper Fidelis,
WTSjr

Quick note, then back to the paying work...
Recently - and for a variety of reasons - we’ve had a number of requests for a list of 30 Principles of Writing Success, developed for the Southeastern Writers Association’s annual conference back in 2003 (We will be teaching a course in non-fiction writing at the same conference, this summer.). Though developed specifically for professional writers, the principles can be adapted to almost any career. See them here.

ON AN UNRELATED NOTE: I hate country music (to me, it all sounds like a bunch of warmed-over soft-rock leftovers with steel guitars) ... but how can any red-blooded American male not love this?!!!

WTSjr

My buddy, Jeff Quinton, just did.

George Frost Kennan, the man credited with authoring the United States’ policy of “containment” during the Cold War, passed away at his home in Princeton, Thursday night. He was 101.
“Kennan was the man to whom the White House and the Pentagon turned when they sought to understand the Soviet Union after World War II,” write Tim Weiner and Barbara Crossette in THE NEW YORK TIMES. “He conceived the cold-war policy of containment, the idea that the United States should stop the global spread of communism by diplomacy, politics and covert action - by any means short of war.”
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, February 16, 1904; Kennan was the son of attorney Kossuth Kent Kennan and Florence James.
As a boy, Kennan attended St. John's Military Academy in Delafield, Wisconsin. There he excelled in history, literature, and English. He was also elected by his peers to the rank of cadet lieutenant and senior class poet. He later would self-describe his boyhood personality as “oddball, not eccentric, not ridiculed or disliked, just imperfectly visible to the naked eye.” As a young man, he attended Princeton University, earning an A.B. degree in 1925. The following year, he entered U.S. Foreign Service.
Kennan initially served as vice consul in Switzerland and Germany. From 1928 through 1929, he served in the countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. In 1930, he earned a diploma for “Oriental Languages” from the Berlin Seminary.
In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt officially recognized the Soviet Union and subsequently dispatched to Moscow America’s first ambassador, William C. Bullitt. The latter chose Kennan to be a member of his new embassy staff. In this capacity, Kennan was able to develop strong opinions as to the global implications of Stalinism, including its executions and bloody purges, death threats against dissidents, and concentration camps. He also developed an uncanny ability to discern the difference between the Soviet Union’s official hostility toward the West and its unofficial cordial diplomacy.
In 1937, Ambassador Bullitt was replaced by Joseph E. Davies, a respected democrat who primary task was to develop goodwill between the two nations in order to lay the groundwork for a possible future alliance. Kennan, who had been privy to an insiders peek at the dark side of Stalinism refused to remain in Moscow under Davies. He briefly returned to Washington, but was soon dispatched to Prague. There he witnessed the Nazi annexation of the Sudetenland.
When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Kennan transferred from Prague to the American embassy in Berlin. When the U.S. entered the war in December 1941, Kennan and his fellow embassy staffers were detained and prohibited from leaving Germany until May 1942.
Kennan’s next post was as chargé d'affaires of the U.S. mission to Portugal in Lisbon.
In 1944, Keenan returned to Moscow where he served as minister-counselor until 1946. He then returned to the U.S. where he served on the faculty of the National War College. In 1947, he was named chairman of the State Department’s Policy Planning Committee.
In July, the quarterly publication, Foreign Affairs, ran a piece entitled, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” The article, published by an anonymous writer under the pseudonym “X,” became the basis for American policy toward the Soviet Union. The article offered a model of “containing” the Soviets which would remain U.S. policy throughout the Cold War. The article stated, “The main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.” The author was later revealed to be Kennan.
Though Kennan never served a day in the CIA, he also is considered to be the great architect of the Agency’s covert action arm. In June 1948, Kennan drafted a National Security Directive which ultimately provided for the establishment of the CIA’s storied Office of Policy Coordination.
In 1950, Kennan temporarily left government service in order to conduct research at Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Studies. In May 1952, he was named ambassador to the Soviet Union. However, critical comments he made about Soviet treatment of Western diplomats forced the Soviets to declare him “persona non grata” in October. In 1953, he returned to Princeton. From 1957 to 1958, he taught at Oxford University.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Kennan ambassador to Yugoslavia. He served in that capacity until 1963. He then held a variety of academic posts including a professorship at Princeton (1964-1966), a university fellowship in History and Slavic Civilizations at Harvard (1966-1970), and a fellowship at Oxford’s All Souls College (1969). He also served as president of both the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1965-1968) and the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1967-1971).
Kennan authored many books (winning two Pulitzers), and he is the recipient of numerous national and international awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Albert Einstein Peace Prize.
For more information on George Kennan, see ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.

“...an excellent reference source...engaging...practical...a useful addition to reference collections for all libraries.”
--- American Reference Books Annual

“Smith's resource contains little known facts that will delight and entertain...tight, well-organized information presented in an easy-to-read format. Smith has compiled an exhaustive resource of CIA trivia that will answer some of the most obscure questions.”
--- Florida Times-Union

“Engagingly written, the book is eminently readable and informative, not to mention fun to browse. It should draw the casual reader and researcher alike as a useful and convenient source of background information. As befitting a good reference title, little known facts will delight the curious...belongs in all libraries with strong current affairs collections.”
--- Reference Reviews

WTSjr

For those interested in a couple of quick, informative reads about the famous patron saint of Ireland, click here and here.
Also, we've received a huge response RE: BORN TO BE A SOLDIER (essentially a Southern boy's chronicling of his ascension to the profession of arms, and why). Wish we could respond to each related email message, but there are simply too many and we have to meet our paid-writing deadlines. Read the story here, or simply visit yesterday's entry.

I was born to be a soldier: Not that I was particularly brave or even destined for a distinguished military career, but I think there is something inherent in most Southern boys that predisposes them to the profession of arms. And I simply got a bigger dose of it than most.
As early as I can remember, I was surrounded by, and fascinated with, all manner of things military.
Growing up in South Carolina - particularly along the once scorched-earth route that followed Union General William Tecumseh Sherman - it seemed that everywhere was once a battlefield and everyone was somehow connected to it.
Swords, rifles, flags, daguerreotypes, and photographs of young uniformed men filled the local museums, historic homes, and even the attics of friends and family-members. Books about French knights, Confederate cavalrymen, and German paratroopers lined the dens of senior male relatives. Portraits of Southern Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson graced the foyers of banks, libraries, and government office buildings. Models of British warships were displayed on the credenzas of my dad’s business acquaintances. And in Dad’s Gervais Street office hung a picture entitled “The Surrender,” a parodist’s portrayal of Union General Ulysses S. Grant relinquishing his sword to Lee.
Beyond that, most every man in my world - Dad, Dad’s friends, my friends’ dads, my uncles, older cousins, and ancestors as far back as my family knew - had at the very least served a hitch in active or reserve service. If they had not it was because they were medically disqualified, not because they chose not to serve.
In any other region of the country such a record of service would qualify a family as being considered a “military family.” In the South, however, it was simply ordinary duty, and no family was considered a military family unless the patriarch had logged at least twenty years of service and retired.
But the South was military. It always has been. And military tradition, though rarely expressed albeit acknowledged by Southerners, permeates every inch of the Southern social fabric from deer drives to debutante balls to the pageantry associated with college football games.
Though I didn't realize it at the time, the approach my parents took with me even had martial overtones.
Dad taught me before I was six-years-old – “Love your country.” “Love your flag.” “Never raise your hand against someone senior to you.” “Never start a fight.” “Never run from a fight.” “Always fight fair unless your sister or your mom are attacked.” Then I was exhorted to pick up the biggest stick available and crush the attacker’s skull.
Dad also told me stories about Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion and how he and his men would burst upon the British columns, striking quick, and then disappearing into the Carolina swamps where the British soldiers were unable to track them. Marion and his guerillas were particularly fascinating to me as at least one of their hideouts had purportedly existed in the area where we vacationed at my Uncle Bob’s “lake house” on the Santee. Marion's exploits – combined with Uncle Bob's twisted tales of “untamed Injuns” and others-not-like-us who lived on nearby islands and ventured out only to murder children in their beds – was enough to convince me that a soldier was the most important man in the world.
The first stories I remember being read to me were from the Childcraft book series. Mom read those to me: Always the tales I wanted to hear about ear-ringed pirates operating along the Eastern Seaboard, English princes commanding grand battalions in the era of Marlborough, and American patriots on horseback splashing across backcountry streams.
The first books I bought (which I still own) were The Golden Book of the American Revolution and Great American fighter pilots of World War II.
And, of course, I can't remember not playing with plastic submachine guns, G.I. Joes, and those miniature green soldiers.
At Kat’s Hotel – an inn in downtown Aiken so-named by my sister, Annette, and me because our Aunt Kat worked there as a receptionist – I spent hours in the pool pretending I was a Navy frogman infiltrating an enemy-held beach. My mission included swimming from one end of the pool to the other, slowly surfacing, eyes first, then my nose and only just enough to breathe while I reconnoitered older girls who were usually sunning in a row of chaise longues.
I even dreamt of one day forming an underwater commando unit with some of my neighborhood buddies. We would be called the sea devils.
Like all Southern boys, we built forts, played “army,” and sometimes crawled into a neighbor's garaged boat and pretended we were patrolling the South Pacific with John Kennedy and PT-109.
Even sports had a martial flavor for us. We often played pickup games of baseball, basketball, and football; inevitably arguing over which team would be called the “Fighting Gamecocks” - the mascot of the University of South Carolina and the nom d’ guerre bestowed upon Continental Army General Thomas Sumter by one of his opponents, British Colonel Banastre Tarleton.
At night, lying in bed, I consciously divided my world into six parts: I was at the center, safe and strangely contented by the sounds of crickets, dogs, and distant train whistles. North was where the Yankees lived, and, as I understood it then, they were our natural enemies. To the south was Charleston where South Carolina earned its “Palmetto State” sobriquet in a fiery exchange between the Royal Navy and our coastal defenders. To the near west was the city center of Columbia, still scarred in some places from Sherman’s invasion a century before. To the near east was Fort (Andrew) Jackson where the distant “wooomp” of grenades and mortars was “a constant” as young army recruits trained for combat in Vietnam. And above me was the infinite sky where, in my mind, unseen American fighters pilots were holding back the hordes of Russian bomber pilots who wanted to kill us all.
Often I would lie awake listening to the distant “woomps” and contemplating my own future as a soldier. At eight and nine-years old, I was afraid of one day being killed in action. But more horrifying to me was the idea that a man who did not serve his country might somehow be considered less-than-a-man.
Of course, the debacle in Vietnam would ultimately change that concept for most people.
I was the exception.
In my mind, the call to arms, regardless of the outcome, was the most noble opportunity a man could ever have.
When I was a little older - like so many other Southern boys whose schoolwork begins to take a back seat to mischievous pursuits - I was parentally threatened with being shipped off to a military prep school.
I had mixed emotions about military school. Most of me had no desire to go. The thought of a shaved head, institutionalized corporal punishment, and a female-free environment was not attractive in the least. On the other hand, there was something secretly appealing about flashing swords, brass-buttoned tunics, and learning more about the heroes with whom I had become so enamored.
In the end, my independent nature and a steady girlfriend overcame my warrior dreams. I promised to work harder in the classroom, my grades gradually improved, and my formal training in the art of war was postponed. But I always knew, as did my friends and all other Southern boys, that military school was an option for substandard performers.
Ironically, it was during that same period that I remember my friends and I discussing the prospect of soon being old enough for the draft. About six or eight of us were sitting on the steps outside the gym at our high school. One or two of my buddies said they would run away to Canada. I was horrified. How could anyone be so shameless? To me, running away from duty was worse than death. “My country, right or wrong,” I said, accurately believing that I was the only one in my little group familiar with Commodore Stephen Decatur’s oft’ quoted toast to the nation.
As a teenager, I loved to fish, hunt, camp, and hike: For the sport, yes. But my soul was feeding on something far greater. For me it was a communing with my ancestors and the living land: As I fished the lowcountry's broad rivers and inlets, I saw them as navigable waterways for 18th Century sloops-of-war. In the backcountry where my friends and I followed deer tracks, sun-browned fields and green treelines were seen as dramatic backdrops for British dragoons and skirmishing colonials, and in the shadows of every misty thicket moved the imaginary figures of red-skinned men with paint-streaked faces.
Naturally, I took most of it for granted: Assuming that all American boys, not just Southern boys, were exposed to the same.
I was wrong.
A few years later, when I entered Uncle Sam's Marine Corps, I discovered that there was a markedly greater sense of “duty as the sole reason for joining the military” among new Southern recruits than those of other regions. Not to say that the latter weren't committed warriors: They were. But their initial reasons for enlisting ran the gamut from needing money for college to skirting the law to desiring to wear a dashing uniform to looking for adventure. Southerners, on the other hand, joined because it was simply the thing that Southern boys do.
Years later, my friend John Temple Ligon, a Southerner and a former Army Ranger officer who won numerous combat decorations in Vietnam, took issue with me on this.
“Sure there is a military tradition in the South,” he said. “But to suggest that non-Southerners are somehow not as noble or committed is simply not fair. The guys I served with from Philadelphia and New York performed as well as anyone else.”
True. They did, they do, and they forever will, because all Americans are part of a greater American military tradition. And the idea of “duty as the sole reason for joining” in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 is no longer the dominion predominated by Southerners.
The Iraqi city of Fallujah was recently stormed and taken by U.S. Marines and Army forces, led by 23-year-old rifle platoon commanders and 30-year-old platoon sergeants shouting commands in hearty Brooklyn brogues and Indiana accents. They are there for the same reasons Marine Brig. Gen. John Kelly stated during the drive to Baghdad in 2003: To “kill them all [the bad guys] before they get bus tickets to New York City.”
But Southern boys, whether soldier or civilian, are unique in that they cannot escape being grafted into a society that almost demands service of its young men. It is a society wherein grown men secretly feel a sense of shame at not ever having served. It is a society that, since its inception, was built upon a contrasting foundation of sadism, chivalry, and organized aggression unlike that experienced by any other region in North America. Like it or not, it was a foundation that enabled the South to secede from the Union and hold off a quantitatively superior federal army and navy for four terrible years.
In his book, Long Gray Lines, author Rod Andrew, Jr. contends that the idea of a uniquely Southern military tradition is a prominent though not universally accepted theme in the history of the South.
According to Andrew, “Some historians claim that due to geography, frontier conditions, incessant warfare, slavery, and cultural notions of honor, the South developed into a remarkably militaristic society, fond of military display, preoccupied with war and notions of martial glory, and holding up military service and military training as honorable activities for males.”
In his book, The Lords of Discipline, best-selling author Pat Conroy summed it up best when he penned the line, “no Southern man is complete without a tenure under military rule.”
I am quite certain I would not have been.

© 2005 W. Thomas Smith Jr.

WTSjr

# posted by W. Thomas Smith, Jr. @ 8:24 AM