I hesitate to post this from the news because it brings up a lot of very unpleasant memories...But the circumstances are uncannily similar to what happened 39 years ago to my friend and high school classmate, Holly Maddux [Warning before clicking Holly's link; the crime scene photos are gruesome]...
From the original newslink above: "Police responded to a residence on Plaza Avenue at 5 p.m. on Sunday after receiving reports of a foul odor coming from the second floor apartment. When they arrived, they found the body of 40-year-old Melanie Heuberger in a bedroom closet."
Judging from the suspect's photo, he is as much a scumbag as the despicable Ira Einhorn who took the life of my friend...Every once in a while, the details of that case start to fade from my memory, and then someone like this from the bottom rungs of humanity's ladder reaches the surface, and I get to review the particulars all over again...
Following high school, I lost touch with my classmates and was unaware of Holly's fate until the late 80's when I happened to be watching John Walsh's "America's Most Wanted," and began to hear the story of my friend's murder and the escape from justice of her killer...Like many people, I tend to only remember the more pleasant memories of a deceased friend, but for the life of me, I can't recall a single derogatory facet of Holly's life...
I would never characterize us as close friends, as she was one of the more popular and well-known students at John Tyler H.S., and I was just one of the faceless nobodies seen walking the halls from class to class...And yet, as Holly walked to her nearby home after school, she occasionally caught up to me and we talked as I walked to my car...
That she even recognized my existence always shocked me since she was one of the three most beautiful girls in my high school (for the life of me, when her face is on my mind, I can never remember who the other two were), in addition to being head cheerleader and Class of '65 Salutatorian...I recall that in an age when the fashion trends dictated huge, puffed out hairstyles and lots of makeup for the H.S. girls, Holly outshone them all with her straight natural hair, and no makeup whatsoever...She was also a gifted and accomplished dancer and artist, and held a black belt in judo...
I lost contact with all my former classmates when I enlisted in the USAF, but my later reading tells me that Holly went on to Bryn Mawr College, and subsequently became involved in the women's lib movement...From there she met self proclaimed guru and Earth Day founder, Ira Einhorn (who extrapolated his surname to "The Unicorn"), and began a live-in relationship with him...
After he murdered her in 1977, with blows to the head so violent that parts of her broken skull were driven into her brain, he stuffed her broken body into a trunk, and stored it in a closet of their apartment...The coroner later determined that she was still alive when he sealed her in the luggage...After numerous complaints of the foul odor by neighbors, police discovered the grisly remains 18 months later, and arrested Einhorn...
Days before his trial was to begin in 1981, he vanished, skipping bail that his wealthy environmentalist friends had posted...He was tried in absentia in 1993, and sentenced to life in prison without parole...He was located in 1997 in France where his extradition was blocked by squeamish French authorities who feared a death penalty if he were re-tried...
In 2001 he was finally brought to justice in the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia, and sentenced again to life in prison without the possibility of parole...Perhaps his modern day counterpart, Adam Plaeger, will take his cue from Einhorn and borrow his innovative defense that the CIA murdered his girlfriend, then framed him for the butchery...
The worst thing about Einhorn's horrendous crime is not just that he took Holly's life, but that he destroyed the potential from which the world could have profited...I can only hope that the family and friends of Melanie Heuberger will have closure for their loss in less time than it has taken for those of us who cared for Holly Maddux...
The long awaited conclusion and update to this story may be found here...
I've recently been re-examining some of my thoughts concerning the Vietnam era, although my considerations have centered more on the hardware involved...As a young weapons mechanic, fresh out of tech school at Lowry AFB, I was assigned to the 49th TFW, 9th TFS at Spangdahlem AB in what was then West Germany in 1966...My job as a load crew member was to configure our F-105D's and F-105F's with whatever ordnance was called for that day, whether conventional or nuclear...
I didn't particularly like the work as it was monotonous and predictable, not to mention our uniforms and boots had to be in inspection order at all times...After a few long months of this, we started receiving the first of my beloved F-4 Phantoms, and I requested reassignment to the 349th MMS as a weapons release technician...Happily I was accepted and began doing work much more satisfying and meaningful to me...
As the F-4's arrived, the F-105's departed for depot refitting in the US, and then on to Vietnam, where, I was told, all 75 of them wound up on the floor of the jungle due to their inability to outmaneuver the MiG's and SAM's when laden with bombs...For years I've dismissed them as inferior designs sent to do a job they weren't built for...But after reading several books written by those who actually flew them or flew with them, I've changed my perspective...
At the height of the cold war, when our B-52 aircrews were in the air continually carrying nuclear payloads to the edge of Soviet airspace, then flying them back to turn around and do it all over the next day, a different kind of bomber was needed for fast response in Europe...A tactical bomber which could carry a smaller nuclear payload was necessary to fly low altitude, map-of-the-earth missions against the Soviet Union if we detected their launch of a nuclear strike against us or our allies...
Thus was born the Republic F-105, probably the largest single-engine fighter ever built...Two books I've recently read point up the aircraft's strengths and deficiencies..."The Hunter Killers" featured the 105 prominently as the author chronicled the Wild Weasel program, and its role in Vietnam...
"Bury Us Upside Down" told the story of Operation Commando Sabre as they advanced the forward air controller's mission from the propeller age into the jet era...At no extra charge to my loyal readers, I will attempt to review both books here as they both cover a lot of the same real estate...
What the two operations had in common was fighter pilots with their tendencies to being the shot-caller in their own realm...Commando Sabre aircrews (callsign Misty) are discussed at great length in "Bury Us Upside Down"," and were typically made up of two combat-qualified fighter pilots, one of which was relegated to backseat duty as an EWO, reading radar emissions, monitoring radio channels and taking photos...
The Misty's job was to fly low and fast over the jungle canopy along the Ho Chi Minh Trail searching out probable truck parks, fuel dumps, rest camps and weapons caches, then marking them with smoke rockets...At this point bomb-laden F-105's and F-4's would drop from the clouds overhead to "hit the smoke" and obliterate the threat...
Naturally a fighter pilot is never happy out of the front seat where he can control the aircraft's movements, so the Misty pilots typically took turns when flying missions in one seat or the other, which also kept everyone sharp on both jobs...The book is thoroughly enjoyable because of its readability; a common thread runs through every chapter pulling the reader through with an invitation, almost a command, to the next page...
Beginning and ending with the funeral of Misty pilot, LtC. Howard K. Williams, 24 years after his F-100 disappeared in flight in 1968, the story unfolds of the formation, staffing, execution and conclusion of Commando Sabre...The authors (one a Misty pilot of 58 missions) tell of the interconnected lives of the squadron's personnel, along with many fascinating sidebars...
As an example, Dick Rutan, whose time as a Misty was part of his many-faceted aviation career, surreptitiously planned a one-man operation to find the location of the crash site of his friend Howie Williams in the North Vietnam jungle, and bring back proof of either his death or his capture...After arranging leave time, covert transportation and gathering materials, he received a mysterious phone call warning him not to undertake the task, that it had been "taken care of"...
Rutan says that to this day he does not know who was on the other end of that phone line, but suspects someone in SIGINT was privy not only to Williams' fate, but his own plans for self-insertion into North Vietnam...After much thought, he cancelled his plans, and had no further information until his friend's nearly empty casket came home...
"The Hunter Killers" tells of another group of flyers asked to do what would seemingly be a suicide mission...Wild Weasels made permanent teams of fighter pilots from TAC, and EWO's from SAC, since SAC crewmembers were already accustomed to working together as a team in one aircraft...A Google search of the cryptic acronym on the official patch of some Wild Weasel squadrons, "YGBSM," will reveal the first reaction from newly picked Weasels as they were told what was to be expected of them...
As much as I enjoyed reading the book, and gaining new insight on the assignments of some of the F-105's after they left my care, I found it seemed disjointed as the jump was made from one chapter to the next...It was as if the author had written a first draft, then decided to scatter in a few more essays as filler...
I read, and then re-read many parts before I could get some complete thoughts of the author's intent...However, even though my time with the USAF did not include any SEA assignments, I feel I have a better knowledge of what went on there and why from reading both these books...I feel as though some of the aircraft in my charge went on to greater glory, and I'm proud for having shared my service life with them...
Traveling together, wilderness hunters Daniel Boone and William Bean first laid eyes on the northeast area of what would become Tennessee while on a hunting trip prior to 1769...Bean was impressed enough by the beauty and resources of the area, that he became Tennessee's first permanent settler, building his first home in what would later be called Bean Station at the future crossroads of the Old Wilderness Road and the Old Stagecoach Road...
At this time, William became the first of four continuous generations of Bean gunsmiths...A naturally talented tinkerer, he took to gunmaking using locally found raw materials, even fashioning his own tools and machinery...
His rifles were so highly prized for their durability and accuracy, they were passed down from one generation to another by his customers...During the American Revolution, when soldiers were often expected to furnish their own weapons, many of the most feared marksmen brought Bean rifles with them into battle...
All seven of his sons followed him into the business, his oldest, Russell, being the most notable, not only for his skills at the workbench, but for his often uncontrolled temper...Following an alcohol-fueled rage he once cut off the ear of an infant, the reason for which being lost to history...
Refusing to answer a bench warrant issued by then Magistrate Andrew Jackson for his arrest regarding the offense, Bean barricaded himself inside his cabin with several of his own firearms...Not finding anyone brave or foolhardy enough to execute the warrant, Jackson confronted Bean himself, and by sheer force of will, brought him to justice...
Four of Russell's sons answered their country's call for fine firearms by entering the business with their father...Baxter was known not only for his rifles, but also his handguns...A contemporary of the times, Col. David Crockett, is known to have owned several Bean rifles, and is likely to have held one in his hands at the time of his death at the Battle of the Alamo...
Charles, Jr. was the last of the fourth generation to be actively engaged in the firearms trade...He converted many of the original flintlock actions made by his ancestors to percussion actions, and continued to make percussion firearms after other manufacturers had moved on to the modern breechlock mechanisms...
His rifles still commanded a higher price despite the advantages given by the breechlocks...Some were thought to be in use at the Battle of Bean Station during the War Between the States, where CSA General James Longstreet and his men routed the Union forces of General Shackelford and forced their withdrawal...
The Bean family thrived well in later years, sometimes altering the spelling of their surname, marrying into other families and expanding the frontiers of America...The gun business was apparently ingrained in the family DNA as evidenced by future events...
In 1908, a young beauty named Leslie Beene, then 14 years old and a direct descendant of William Bean, married a 17 year old cotton farmer named Claudie Johnson who built their home on his own land with his own hands in southern Arkansas...Even though Leslie's mother accompanied them to the courthouse for their marriage license, and gave her permission, in today's world Claudie would likely be prosecuted...
They were together more than 60 years, living on the same farm and dying within 11 days of each other after raising five children to adulthood...Their oldest daughter, Evelyn, married a young oilfield roughneck named Earl Young a month before the outbreak of World War II when he enlisted and left for overseas duty with the US Army...
Returning from his duty wearing staff sergeant's stripes following the Allied victory, he and Evelyn raised two sons in Texas, the youngest of which, after a successful sales career, built a construction business and started raising his own family, but tragically died from a heart attack before the age of 40...
The oldest son, following a varied career path, established a gun sales business, and built and co-owned the finest gun store and first indoor shooting range in Montgomery County, Shooter's Station...After successfully re-establishing the firearms trade in the family history, he retired and became a recluse where he offers his unbidden opinion on varied subjects by sporadically publishing entries in a rarely read blog and entertains his loyal fans with parody videos...
His mother, Evelyn, still lives in her own home nearby, where she looks forward to visits from her grandchildren and great-granddaughter while wondering whether her surviving son will ever grow up and make something of himself...Excluded from most intra-family discussions is a noted fashion designer said to be a distant relative...
Making good on my earlier threat, I am revisiting this subject with new examples...The world, and notably the Mexican President, is beginning to notice various similarities between political hopeful, Donald Trump, and the failed mid-twentieth century politician and madman, Adolf Hitler...
- At one time during his regime, AH constructed a West Wall along Germany's border with France, ostensibly to keep the French Army (a joke in itself) from invading his country...AH later made France pay for it by raping and plundering their nation after his hordes invaded their nation in an end run around that same wall...DT has vowed to build a wall along America's southern border to stop the invasion of illegal immigrants from Mexico, and has promised to make the Mexican government pay for it...He may have in mind using the same underground tunnels the Mexicans now use for transferring shipments of drugs and cash...
- AH hid his income from the public, although his wealth was considerable for the times...In addition to royalties from mandatory purchases of his book, his copyrighted image on postage stamps brought in a fortune...He was known to pay taxes only reluctantly...DT continues to hide his wealth and its sources by refusing to release his prior income tax returns...
- AH was known for his vanity and fastidiousness in public appearances...He hid his unattractive features, such as his palsied hand, whenever possible...DT's famous combover speaks for itself...
- AH simultaneously sought support from business leaders as well as union members in his rise to power, promising each he would work to disempower the other if elected...After his ascension to national leadership, he destroyed both...DT has sought and gained the contributions of business entities, while promising the working class their dreams will all come true after his inauguration...
The current spokesliars in the Kenyan government will probably never get an accurate headcount on the number of chumps who bought into their concocted story of demonstrating the valuelessness of the 100 tons of tusks and horns they destroyed...Whatever that number is, it was lost among the people who could have benefited from a different end to the now destroyed products...
Watching the vacuous smile on CNN reporterette Robyn Kriel's face as she described the burning of several tons of priceless ivory made me wonder if the associated losses ever entered her mind...There may have been plenty of room behind her smoke-irritated eyes for thoughts of how many hungry mouths could have been fed with the estimated $172 million she just watched reduced to ashes...
Eating dinner that night on her CNN expense account, she may not have had much time between bites to consider what impoverished Kenyan's were enjoying at their tables on their estimated $1.25 income per day...To be fair, the approximately 17.7% of Kenya's population who subsist on that amount were probably too busy dying from hunger to worry whether her coffee was sweetened to her liking...
The jet fuel used to sustain the fires might have found better use in the cookfires of Kenya's kitchens for their non-existent meals, or if nothing else could have helped tank up the jet for Kenya's most traveled president...The tallies are not yet in as accountants toil feverishly to figure how many years were shaved from the backside of Earth's life from the smoke and ash which filled the air over the African savannas from the torched ivory adding to that worrisome global warming...
Speaking from behind their comfortable desks in their sumptuously appointed, air-conditioned government offices, Kenyan spokesliars would have gullible observers believe that the burn was meant to prove to the world that ivory, horns, antlers and all other appendages removed from donor animals have no value, when in fact the proceeds gleaned from the potential sale of these items could have funded a number of worthwhile projects...Aside from feeding Kenya's impoverished millions, the poachers who gained the illegal harvest could be more aggressively sought, tried and punished...
The animal products which could have been profitably transformed into pistol grips, knife handles, paperweights and sundry other items, giving useful employment to many, have instead been turned into airborne pollutants and carcinogenic irritants...The value of existing ivory and other corneous accoutrements continues to rise, pleasing its investors, while the lure of wealth from illegal poaching goes forward unabated...
Please note that I am not in favor of poaching under any circumstance, although I might have made an exception for medieval English serfs feeding their families from the bounty of feastables in the King's forests, but I am equally opposed to cutting off one's nose to spite one's face by destroying what has intrinsic value for the sake of making a political statement...
Both my parents grew up in the Great Depression, and coincidentally supported with their votes Democrat candidates for most of their lives...To this day my mother still blames Herbert Hoover and the Republican Party for all the calamities that have occurred since 1929...To my knowledge, the only non-Democrat votes they ever cast were for Ronald Reagan because his message to Americans, and to the world was loud and clear...
My younger brother voted Republican until his death because he believed they represented the best direction forward for America and the world...I've voted Republican for national and local candidates since I attained the age of majority (which in my case was 21 since the 26th Amendment was yet to be ratified, although my enlistment in the military at 18 was accepted)...
In recent years local and state Republican candidates have received my support and my votes because of personal knowledge of them, and belief in the policies they represented...The last two presidential races saw my vote go to non-Republican candidates for the first time as I checked off the names for Libertarian nominees, even though some planks in the Libertarian platform will never gain my support...
Some will certainly look on those votes as "wasted" since I knew they had no chance of winning their races, but a vote for any other candidates would have represented even more wasteful decisions as neither the Republican nor the Democrat candidates showed me any intention other than to increase their own power...Today, I look on the national political scene in dismay as no recognized party organization has shown any direction toward a unified America...
Leadership has been replaced by the greed for power and personal wealth while each party has splintered into smaller factions of voters wanting to go their own directions with no heed toward a common goal, and no regard for the inevitable result: a nation with a small dab of satisfaction atop of a steaming mound of resentment...
The anybody-but-a-Republican crowd that has become the Democrat Party is forced to swallow the aspirations of either a barely concealed communist in his last grab at national power before his twilight descends, or a candidate who, had she been born a man, might have been convicted decades ago on any number of charges...The misery that an already suffering nation will endure in the grip of either can only be imagined in one's worst nightmares...
The Republican Party, struggling to uphold its perceived identity as the political home for conservatism, loses a bit more of its grip with each utterance from the noise outlets of the current herd pushing the American nation toward the brink of ruin...Once thought of as the best hope for survival of the American way of life, it has become so splintered as to more resemble a boiling pot of ooze with each fleeting bubble vying to pop the loudest, rather than an anchor in bedrock upon which the American people can base its hopes for the future...
Spearheaded by a pompous, vociferous showman best suited for a career as an unrepentant carnival barker, this group fairly jumps off the stage in its hand-waving, screaming attempts to catch the attention of anyone with an eligible vote...As this octopus slithers toward the nomination, the remaining tentacles scramble to sponge up the remains as the weaker ones wither and fall to the wayside...
The vaunted Tea Party movement is not even a true organized political party as it has splintered into smaller uni-directional groups which champion a select few candidates running under the banner of another, larger political party...Some of these groups are so fiercely adamant in their demands that they campaign against other Tea Party-backed hopefuls who would represent the greater good for all...
Missing in all this is the statesman who puts aside personal gain, and offers leadership to bring the nation back to cohesion, moving in a direction where all can see equality on the horizon, and view it as a desirable goal for all...Leaders who can put aside cronyism, personal animosity and a lust for wealth have all but disappeared from the American scene, and been replaced by those who may believe their own rise to the top of a low mound identifies them as the chosen ones, always forgetting that scum has ever risen to the top of any stagnant pond...
In response to concerns from some readers, it may be necessary to clear up some points of misunderstanding...Under no circumstances am I condoning the ownership, or enslavement of one human being by another...Such an idea is rightfully repugnant to any but the most depraved members of any free society...
Neither am I putting forth the revocation of rights as humans of any inmate, nor the transposition of any person currently incarcerated in the prison system from internee to property...What I propose is a newly established set of sentencing guidelines, whereby judges, empowered to punish those convicted, or those who have admitted guilt to the most onerous crimes, may impose sentence to a term of slavery as allowed by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States...
This severe punishment must be carried out only on those whose guilt has been established beyond any reasonable doubt, whether convicted by a jury, or admitted to by the accused...Those whose guilt has been firmly established may be sentenced to a term of slavery in which the jurisdictional entity becomes the owner of the inmate for the duration of the sentence...The "owner" then becomes responsible for the secure housing, welfare and humane treatment of the inmate until such time as human rights are restored...
The "property" relinquishes all rights as human beings just as they disregarded the rights of their victims...They will be separated not only from society, but from each other and previously convicted criminals who were sentenced under guidelines prevailing in an earlier time...
Currently incarcerated prisoners who commit new crimes in their present environment could be sentenced to a new term of slavery, and transferred to a facility designed to house the property...As possessions of the sentencing entity, the right of communication among themselves, to appeal their treatment, or to schedule their own activities will be denied...
Administration of execution of these sentences must be undertaken by persons appointed by the sentencing jurisdiction who understand completely that they have the responsibility to maintain the property in the best order with the intent of restoring ownership to the property itself...Mistreatment for the sake of further punishment is not the goal, and accountability by the administration must be one of its goals...
Some might argue that The framers of the 13th Amendment intended that imprisonment for crime as it stood then was the slavery they sought to continue...My contention is that since the 13th became law, no person has been sentenced by a court to a term of slavery as punishment, and its implementation can serve as a useful tool in reforming the criminally-minded as well as a strong deterrent to those considering such a move...
