Can Racism Be Cured?

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 1/8/22

            Several years ago my wife and I walked to our car from a movie theater, having just viewed “The Help.” The book and movie were Kathryn Stockett‘s true-to-life account of growing up in Jackson, Mississippi in the cultural tradition of domestic Black help, particularly maids. Stockett’s family engaged in the practice that vividly illustrated the unequal world of segregation.

            The movie highlighted the utter subservience of Blacks to Whites and the cruel and silly social distancing that White women, particularly, expected of their Black help. Black maids never ate with their White employer. They set aside the plate and fork they would use so that utensils were never mixed with those of the White family they served. Actually the movie was about class as much as race.

            As soon as my wife and I got inside our car I began to weep. After getting hold of myself I managed 5 words: “That’s exactly how it was.”

             I grew up in Mississippi where segregation was rank.  I watched as Black children and teens walked from the edge of town past my family’s house to a crumbling shack called a school. I knew about the unpaved muddy streets in the “Black section” of town. That too was how it was.

            I cranked my car and drove from the theater toward the street. Just before reaching it I became emotional again and had to pull over. The memories in my pocket would not stay put. Of all things, it took a movie to make them explode.

            Why had these memories not exploded sooner? How could I at age 18 write a column for the college student newspaper titled “A Defense of Legal Segregation”? Why did I move from a sensitive child who understood and abhorred the power structure of segregation to a teenager who was a racist? The answer to these questions is that tradition is strong. Whether good or bad, it clings to us. We honor it and it shapes us. As I left childhood, I began to accept the tradition around me.

            My years of racism were from age 13 to 19. The time was 1958 to 1963. During those years I was not one bit bothered by White men calling grown Black men “Boy,” or by the fact that my brothers and sisters and I weren’t expected to say “Sir” to Black men or “Ma’am” to Black women.

            What I am describing is not “systemic racism,” a horrid expression that almost makes racism excusable. My racism was acquired. Segregation was a social order. I was no victim of a system. I was certainly no “privileged White.” I was an adherent who at the bottom of his heart knew that Blacks were not inferior and that Whites were wrong to employ an evil social order for their own benefit.

            When I was 19 something happened that changed my heart. Guess what. It was a national conference of Southern Baptist youths sponsored by the Southern Baptist Convention. Did I say “Southern”? Did I say 1963? At the conference, speakers boldly approached the topic of segregation and race. Preachers and other prominent leaders challenged approximately a thousand youths to examine their hearts and minds regarding “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

            I stood convicted and I confessed. Once again I was a 12-year-old who had not been tainted by an evil tradition. I felt free from the weight of my sin and free to oppose openly the sin I had committed.

            Often when confession is made, forgiveness is needed as well. Wealthy Al Sharpton, a Reverend, has not forgiven. Neither has wealthy Jesse Jackson or wealthy, joyless Joy Reid of MSNBC. I wish they would. I believe they would experience the freedom I and so many others have experienced. They choose to rattle old bones rather than forgive and live. Countless Blacks refute them.

            My freedom led me to teach in an all Black school in my second year of teaching. The faculty at George Washington Carver Jr. High School in Meridian, Mississippi remains one of the delights of my life. Today it’s a supreme joy to live in a neighborhood where Blacks and Whites love and respect each other and to attend a church, Kennesaw First Baptist, where the same is true.

            How things have changed. Today Mississippi has more Blacks per capita and more Black elected officials than any other state in the nation. I’m told that America elected and re-elected a Black president. Someone tell the old line media.

            Last week my wife and I watched the old movie, “Sounder.” Watch it and be thankful that things have changed. Be thankful that we are not any longer a nation of racists.

 

Roger Hines

1/5/22

           

           

           

 

                         London, 1802; America, 2022

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 1/1/22

            Two hundred twenty years ago English poet William Wordsworth, who was by no means a Puritan, took pen in hand and called on the great, deceased Puritan poet, John Milton. “Milton! Thou should’st be living at this hour / England hath need of thee,” Wordsworth wrote.

            In one of his most famous sonnets, “London 1802,” Wordsworth made explicit his distress over conditions in England and all of Europe at the opening of the 19^th century. A lover of France, he was saddened that, unlike the American Revolution, the French Revolution was not successful. Indeed, Napolean was elected Consul for Life in 1802. Wordsworth was grieved by what he considered “England’s betrayal of her heritage of freedom and virtue.”

             Milton is most remembered for his classic epics, “Paradise Lost” and “Paradise Regained.” Knowing of Milton’s high reputation, Wordsworth invoked the famous Puritan to make his point about England’s social, moral, and political climate. Not a religious man, Wordsworth still saw in Milton a strength of character that England needed.

             Patrick Henry and Jefferson and Reagan, thou should’st be living at this hour. America hath need of thee! Like Patrick Henry, I would rather be sick and free than be healthy and not free. Oh, but the Covid “crisis” has not come to such an extreme choice, you say. Yes, it has. Seems to me things are getting fishier and fishier. No matter how many cities are ravaged with violent destruction, no matter if crime statistics have shot through the roof, and no matter if the most powerful nation in the world has fled like a scared rabbit from its enemy, our president and his trusty bureaucrats continue trying to turn our minds to anything but. Even though the covid variants are real, I suspect we all know when the fear-mongering will end: well before the November election.         

Cynicism? Look, 340,000,000 citizens, 814,000 deaths. That’s .0023 % of the population, every death of which is sad beyond measure. It’s true that a pandemic covers the globe, but numbers and words often become weapons in the hands of those who need a weapon to sway people’s minds. Inside the USA, Covid has not brought death to a large number. Stating this cold fact can increase the grief of those who have lost loved ones to Covid, yet facts are facts and life can be made easier when we acknowledge them.  Covid has unnecessarily brought the limitation of freedom. Lost freedom is always difficult to regain. So are devastated livelihoods.

            My own four-week bout with Covid and the two-week wind-down that followed were as awful as the aftermath of open heart surgery five years before: incessant pain, total fatigue, and unfamiliar loneliness. My salvation was a stalwart wife, wondrous doctors and nurses, and the grace of God. I’m thankful to be alive. But my little story is miniscule compared to the many accounts of lost livelihoods and freedoms, lost because a virus has been politicized.  Compare the stats of Florida and Texas to those of New York and New Jersey. Population density differences of the south and north aside, the lockdowns in the north have devastated far more livelihoods than have the more relaxed policies in the south.  The differences between how these two southern states and the two northern states have handled lockdowns is instructive. The condescending, moral superiority of those who criticize non-vaxers is repugnant.

            Which brings us to Henry, Jefferson, and Reagan. As everyone knows, Patrick Henry thundered, “Give me liberty or give me death.” His speeches in the Virginia House of Burgesses and the life he lived show that he meant it. Jefferson said, “Law is often nothing more than the tyrant’s will and is always so when it violates the rights of an individual.” Jefferson abhorred the lingering tyranny in Europe and wished to keep it out of America. Reagan said, “Government is not the solution to our problems; it’s the cause of most of them.” This happy warrior repeated this theme in every speech he delivered.

             “Altar, sword, pen, and fireside,” (the pulpit, the government, the press, the home), wrote Wordsworth, are letting England down. So are our institutions today letting America down. Politicized pulpits, unelected bureaucracy, a sold out press, and weakened homes have rendered the nation “bereft of inward happiness.”

 Intrusive government is bringing America down far, far from the Jeffersonian ideal. We need a second opinion on Covid and its management but we’re not getting it. For instance, the 50,000 plus distinguished signers (doctors, epidemiologists, virologists, citizens) of the Great Barrington Declaration are still being ignored. Something’s fishy. What’s really scary is the acquiescence (and moral superiority) of those who swallow every word Dr. Fauci utters.

Wordsworth, America hath need of thee as well.

Roger Hines

12/23/21

 

                            Does the West Have a Future?

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 12/25/21

            Christmas is here and we should experience it with gusto. Who but the most hard-hearted doesn’t take joy from seeing children made happy or from sensing the general spirit of joy that clings in the air? Such joyous spirit, however, doesn’t last throughout the year. It eventually succumbs to forgetfulness as our thoughts turn to a new year and to hope for a better one.

            The last two years have been challenging for Americans. The coronavirus has been no more disruptive than the nation’s political and cultural divide, a reality that is sometimes necessary. For two years cities have been plundered and the plunderers ignored. Language such as “transforming America” indicates that many citizens simply don’t like America. The right to bear arms is seriously questioned. Science has been politicized. Scientists, formerly objective searchers and researchers for the truth, have become bureaucratic whisperers into the ears of the king. We are tasting tyranny. Thankfully, the discontent of the American worker poses a challenge to the ruling class of both political parties.

            Yes, it’s 1776 all over again. The Tea Party isn’t dead. It’s very alive, infiltrating the body politic under different names. But back up beyond that. It’s 1215 when the very king of England was forced to sign the Magna Carta. Even before then, everywhere man yearned to be free, as in ancient Rome where Cicero passionately defended the rights of free men under law. Alas, back before Rome, the stalwart Greek, Pericles (a Trump-like figure in that he was a man of wealth who energized the working class) advanced democracy and the participation of commoners.

            The Greeks were the first westerners. One would have found no glimmers of self-rule in ancient Babylon, or China, or Russia. What America’s founders gave us was the full flower from a root, a stalk, and a bud that grew in Greece, Rome, and Britain. Its soil and nutrition was the Judeo-Christian ethic.

            We call it western civilization, one quite unlike that of the lands east of the Mediterranean.  Most American students study it for the first time in 10^th grade World History. College students study it under the simple title, “Western Civilization.” Fundamentally the values of western civilization have been representative democracy, the worth of the individual, liberty, equality, freedom of thought, capitalism, private ownership, and freedom of religion. One doesn’t typically associate these values with China, Russia, tribal Africa, or the small Southeast Asia nations.

            How do these values fare today?  “Western Civilization” was once a required course in virtually every American university. This requirement ended by 2010 when it became voluntary or was replaced with a course called “World Civilization.” And what was wrong with teaching the history and values held by western nations? According to Jesse Jackson what was wrong was the “Euro-centric, white male-domination” which these values led to. In 1988 at Stanford University, Jackson led a demonstration around the campus with students yelling, “Hey hey, ho ho, Western Culture’s gotta go.” Caving to Jackson, Stanford opted for “multiculturalism,” catapulting the term to prominence and replacing “Western Civilization” with “Culture, Ideas, and Values.” Call it the birth of cancel culture.

            The Twentieth Century was the American Century. America led the world economically and militarily. Her confidence was wrought of victory in two world wars and an ever growing economy. However, since 2010, the Trumpian interlude notwithstanding, that confidence and leadership have waned. How could it not when political and corporate leaders defend every crazy notion that comes along (cultural Marxism, “equity,” transgenderism, guaranteed income, unabated globalism)? How could it not when America’s military is chased from Afghanistan by ruffians?  How can universities yield knowledgeable, productive citizens while yielding to students’ demands for a warm, mothering environment?

            Western civilization’s greatest achievement has not been art, philosophy, or even scientific advancement. The marvel of the West, particularly America, has been the preservation of individual liberty and respect for the common man. The deplorable common man knows something is wrong when a guy says he is a girl, or when parents become the target of the FBI for speaking out about what their children are being taught.

            Cicero wrote, “Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever.”  The Bible states, “For lack of knowledge the people perish.” If western civilization dies, America dies. But there’s hope. Over half of the nation’s governors are conservative Republicans, most of whom are speaking out boldly for localism and common sense. The 2022 election is looking better every day for conservatives.

 It wasn’t debt forgiveness, guaranteed incomes or one nation under therapy that our founders sought. It was freedom wrung from bold risk, ruggedness, and common sense, qualities that must be reclaimed and reclaimed fast.

 

Roger Hines

12/23/21

           

           

           

 

                                A Tale of Two Christmases

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 12/18/21

            On Christmas morning of 1965 my father, my younger brother and I followed my mother’s casket out of a small, rural church in Mississippi. The crisp Christmas Day air was a welcome relief to our tear-streaked hot cheeks. The sunshine as well was a Godsend.

            I was 21, my brother Carlton, 18. Our mother was 65. We thought she was so old. Actually, age 65 truly was older then than it is now, especially for a country woman aged by Southern summer suns and over 45 years of childbearing and childrearing. It wasn’t children and hard work that did her in, however. It was kidney stones.

            For years kidney stones had plagued her. Several times a year Dr. Baker Austin would come from town with his gawky medical bag to administer a shot to ease the pain from the stones.

            Our mother’s death had not been sudden. Shortly after Thanksgiving the urologist at St. Dominic’s Hospital in Jackson had told us that her kidneys were embedded with stones and that the resulting uremia was quite advanced. The closer we got to Christmas, the more hopeless her condition became. It was one of those long good-byes.

I arrived home from college to be with her at the hospital the week before Christmas. All of my older 15 brothers and sisters had families of their own, but those living nearby had taken care of her.  

            Death is one thing; dying is another. During the week of her observable dying, my mind raced back repeatedly to my childhood. As a small child I was a big worrier. Knowing my mother was so much older than the mothers of my elementary school classmates (their mothers were the age of my older sisters), I was afraid my mother would die before I grew up. The doctor’s visits to our house reinforced my fear, often driving me to the vast Bienville National Forest behind our house to cry privately.

            Please understand, but at some level I think our mother willed her death. Despite her characteristic strength and joy of life, she expressed no such bravado as “I’m gonna conquer this.” In fact, at the height of one of her worst attacks when Carlton and I were the only children still at home, she looked at us with a forced smile and said quietly,” If God will let me live until my baby boys get grown, I’ll be ready to go.”

            Her “baby boys” were now grown. With my eyes glued to her casket, I began to grieve anew, complaining to God with those oft-raised “why” questions we’ve all felt, heard, or expressed. Within a couple of hours, however, two things not only alleviated but obliterated my grief.

            The first thing was the cool Christmas Day air. As it patted my cheek it seemed to say, “Your mother was strong and you can be too.”  The second thing was the Christmas Day noon meal (“dinner”) our family shared. Our laughter and storytelling, so characteristic of all our gatherings, were not lessened by the loss of our mother. Our joy amidst sorrow was no indication of anyone’s super-spirituality. Rather, it was a testimony to the power of what our parents and pastors had pointed to in the Bible: “Oh Death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory?”

            On another early Christmas morning, this time in Georgia in 1981, I drove from my home in Kennesaw to Northside Hospital, not because of a death but because of a birth. Our new, second son and last child, Reagan, had been born on Christmas Eve. Driving south on I-75 and atop I-285, I saw only four vehicles. Ah, Christmas does slow us down, I mused.

            A week later Reagan came home in a Northside Hospital Christmas stocking to join his siblings, Christy, Wendy, and Jeff, his countenance as fresh and happy as his grandmother’s was right up to the week of her dying. Reagan made this Christmas a Thanksgiving as well.

            Since even Herod the Great couldn’t suppress Christmas, I pray that no reader of these musings will ever allow life’s setbacks or man’s evil to suppress it either. The Christmas message is still the same: God put on an earth suit. Wherever this message has gone schools, hospitals, and orphanages have followed as have peace and joy to the world.

            As it turned out, my own two favorite Christmases weren’t so different after all. They both ended in peace and joy. Ever wondered, along with Elvis Pressley, “Why can’t every day be like Christmas?” We know that every day should be. The Christmas message says they can be.

            Merry Christmas! And peace to you amid any sorrow.

 

Roger Hines

December 15, 2021

 

                                  The Dying Villager

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 12/4/21

            In 1976 at the Republican national convention Barry Goldwater said of Gerald Ford’s opponent for the presidency, “Jimmy Carter’s future is Lyndon Johnson’s past.” This past week Stacy Abrams announced her intentions of running against Brian Kemp for governor of Georgia. For the same reasons – policies – that Goldwater was referring to, we can be sure that Stacy Abrams’ future is Joe Biden’s present.

            And what is Biden’s present? It too is Lyndon Johnson’s past. To Biden’s present and Abram’s future, add steroids. Never has our nation moved so swiftly from representative democracy to executive and bureaucratic power, from local government to the administrative state, and from capitalism to giveaway programs as it has in 2021. Hem and haw and call it what you will but what we’re talking about is socialism. What’s “in” is the village; what’s being forgotten is the villager. What’s “in” is diversity; what’s passé is freedom of speech for those who don’t embrace diversity as defined by progressive politicians, the university, Hollywood, the media, and of all things, corporations and the military. Remember General Milley?

            The waltz being performed by diversity troops and socialist true believers is a sad and dangerous one. Both groups of dancers know where their waltz leads. Many villagers apparently do not. When diversity was first mentioned, it generally referred to the effort to hire more minorities. This noble goal was soon overshadowed by the demand that we embrace trillions in giveaways, so-called equity, transgenderism, homosexuality, and critical race theory. Diversity has become tyrannical. “Think as I think,” it yells. Diversity’s claims should remind us of the old saw, “An open mind is like an open mouth. It accepts everything, rejects nothing, and becomes an open sewer.”

            Don’t be close minded. Be inclusive. Or so the progressive argument goes. Diversity today would have us to accept the welfare state and call it “democratic socialism,” an utter contradiction of terms.

            What LBJ, Biden, and Abrams all have in common is their acceptance of big government and socialism. Socialism is legalized theft. Like capitalism it is an economic system, but unlike capitalism it takes by force. It tells producers that they must surrender a particular portion of what they have produced or built so that it reaches the hands of those who have done neither.

            Socialism places the individual beneath the society, that is, the nation, the village. It imbues the village with a power which it denies the villager. To the socialist the village is supreme, thus the cry “It takes a village.” Not a family, understand, but a village. Hillary Clinton’s book of this title is about the role of government, not the strengthening of families.  The village giveth and it taketh away. And of course parents must turn their children over to the village school and then get out of the way. What do parents know?

            It’s ironic that so many socialists are wealthy. One wonders if Bernie Sanders was embarrassed when his recent bestselling book made him a millionaire. Did he give away an amount equal to what he claims we should give in taxes? Why has Congress always opted for humongous ideas like “the Great Society” and “Build Back Better” that leave villagers in the lurch, not really helping the poor, not really advancing anything. LBJ’s Headstart sounded wonderful but somebody please assess where the family stands today and tell us why youths destroyed cities for four solid months last year. How goes the village today?  What good have the billions flowing from village headquarters done?

             To fully understand socialism is to first understand the socialist. The socialist, whether sincere or a wolf in sheep’s clothing, is always a do-gooder or is playing the role of do-gooder. The insincere ones are desirous of the power socialism brings them. Does anyone think that Castro, Lenin, Mao, Hitler, or Mussolini were not socialists? Do we not remember that the UK was sinking until Lady Thatcher emerged?  Political tyranny doesn’t thrive where capitalism thrives. It thrives where tyrants seized power or where, in a formerly capitalistic country, citizens sell their souls and plop their rear-ends down to wait for checks, thus creating a labor shortage and a far less functional and happy village.

            Death is one thing. Dying is another. Many villagers around us are dying, some socially because they choose to, opting for checks in the mail rather than honorable, invigorating labor. Others are dying economically because their businesses were closed down or because the children of socialism smashed in and destroyed them.

 And that’s why it matters who will be America’s next president and Georgia’s next governor.

 

Roger Hines

12/2/21

           

           

 

           

 

                           Sixteen Reasons for Thanksgiving

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 11/20/21

            In his novel “Anna Karenina” Tolstoy declared, “All happy families resemble each other; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

            A recent visit to my hometown to see a 93-year-old sister brought Tolstoy’s sentence to mind. For an entire year, thanks to Fauci & Company., my childless, frail sister neither saw nor was she seen by any of her siblings. Finally seeing Margurette plus four more of my 16 brothers and sisters reminded me of the deep love all 17 of us have had for each other.

I’ve always placed my beloved siblings in chronological “clumps.” My oldest brother R.C., born in 1917, was a farmer, though not a life-long tenant farmer like our father. R.C. eventually had his own farm and land. Our father worked on the farms of three different “men on the hill,” never owning a handful of dirt. Unlike Paul (1919) and Pete (1921), R.C. remained in Mississippi, relishing hard labor. I admire him immensely.

            Who could blame Paul and Pete for joining the Army in order to escape the cotton fields? They had picked cotton from early boyhood. Many other Southern farm boys took the same path. Paul and Pete loved the military, despite their duty in some of the worst fighting of World War II.  Nobody enjoyed life more than they. How culturally enriched the Hines family became when Paul brought home an Italian bride from Trieste soon after the war ended. Away from her home and its Adriatic breezes, Antonia fought nobly and successfully against Southern heat and grease.

            Ida, Jewel and Authula (just call her Thula) were housewives their entire lives. I wouldn’t be scornful of the word “housewife” in their presence if I were you. Well aware of the changing culture in the late 50s and early 60s, all three of them would tell you quickly what they thought about the increasingly negative influence of Hollywood. Born in 1922, 1924, and 1926, respectively, they, like their mother, loved and served their families sacrificially. These stalwart sisters weren’t too concerned about women’s liberation. Instead of “I am woman, hear me roar,” they were more inclined to say “I am woman by the grace of God.”  

Ida was what Southern folks would often call “a mess.” Overflowing with stories and jokes, she could occasionally be slightly risqué which led our mother to cup her hand over her mouth to abort laughter and then whisper, “Ida!”

 Margurette and Minnie (1928 and 1930) comprise one of the four clumps of two. Margurette was the last sister to be a full time housewife while Minnie, a mother of three, was a Registered Nurse. Minnie married a Yankee. Funny and brilliant, Ramsey took delight in our country ways and loved coffee and laughter as much as we did. Margurette and Minnie’s love for each other always made me think they were twins.

Walter Hines, Jr. (Bub) and Durwood (1931 and 1933) comprise the fourth clump and the second duo. Bub was a businessman and then a pastor; Durwood was a mail carrier. They both told hilarious jokes and always kept up with current events. This latter habit rubbed off on me.

The remaining three clumps are the ones with whom I grew up. The siblings named above had left home and had families by the time I was born. Almedia (1935), Ruby (1937), and Janelle (1938) were as close as three sisters could be. They were smart. Because our mother enjoyed working in the garden and fields with our father, I still picture these precious sisters doing most of the household chores. Almedia became the executive secretary of the state Pardons and Parole Board; Ruby, the secretary for a prominent lawyer who ran for Governor; and Janelle a secretary for Sunbeam Corporation and later Raytheon.

Carolyn and Tressie (1940 and 1942) were only four and two years older than I yet each often seemed like a mother to me. Carolyn married a Marine and traveled the world; Tressie had a family and became a Registered Nurse.

I and Carlton (1944 and 1947) grew up under the gentle reign of Eisenhower (a hero to both Paul and Pete). Carlton graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi and has worked in banking and insurance. We’re close. “Baby brothers” have to stick together.

No day passes without one or more of these siblings parking in my mind. Our poverty was elegant, though real. Rather than turning us into rabid socialists, it steered us to call upon the God our parents loved and served. R.C., Paul, Pete, Ida, Jewell, and Durwood have left us. Their invigorating spirits have not. I’m thankful for all 16 of these incredible people.

 

Roger Hines

November 18, 2021

 

 

 

The Generals Among Us, Part I

 

                                                The Generals Among Us, Part I

                                   Published in Marietta Daily Journal 11/6/21

            In the preface to his account of World War II titled “A Soldier’s Story,” General Omar Bradley writes, “In this book I have tried to achieve one purpose: to explain how war is waged on the field from the field command post. For it is there, midway between the conference table and the foxhole, that strategy is translated into battlefield tactics; there the field commander must calculate the cost of rivers, roads, and hills in terms of guns, tanks, tonnage – and most importantly – in terms of the lives and limbs of his soldiers.”

            Bradley, the clearest of writers, doesn’t present us a biography. The book is not about him but about the big war. If his chapter 4, “With Patton to El Guettar,” doesn’t grip readers, chapter 15, “D Day, Normandy,” will. No literary or military critic should claim that Bradley “sizes up” his fellow generals; he doesn’t. He describes them and does so in reference to their decisions, their handling of crises, and their responses to strategies with which they disagreed.

            The closest to characterizing that Bradley gets is in Chapter 1, “Summons to the Normandy Invasion.” Writing his story only 6 years after the war ended, Bradley informs us that Patton has just “stormed in to breakfast.” He continues, “Patton’s vigor was always infectious, his wit barbed, his conversation a mixture of obscenity and humor. He was at once stimulating and over-bearing. George was a magnificent soldier.”

            Generals have always been a study for many people. My source of interest in them is twofold: 1) two brothers who came home from WWII with changed attitudes about race, as well as with countless stories that revealed their respect for military leaders – they both admired Eisenhower – and 2) the fact that at least three generals are my personal friends.

            What a privilege it was to re-unite and talk recently with one of those friends. Had I known Major General Jere H. Akin in October of 1980, I’m sure I would have clipped from the Marietta Daily Journal the picture of Colonel Akin at his promotion ceremony. Had I known him in 1996 I would have tried to make it to the Fort Rucker National Prayer Breakfast where the General spoke, asserting that “the majority of military leaders who have strong leadership qualities also exhibit openly a strong faith in God.”

            The General and I first met at Burnt Hickory Baptist Church just after his stint as program manager of transportation for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games. Planning a network of 2,000 buses that moved close to 140,000 people hither and yon – sponsors, volunteers, athletes and all of their entourages - sounds like a challenge. Fear not. The General was retired at the time but not long enough to forget his role in coordinating and tracking the movement of more than 300,000 U.S. soldiers, their equipment, and food during Operation Desert Storm.

            The abilities that such tasks require should be admired, but there are many other qualities held by those who have reached the title of “General,” and Akin possesses all of them, qualities such as work ethic, vision, and faith. At the prayer breakfast, Akin asserted, “Faith is dreaming your dream, leaping into the unknown, and praying for guidance.”

            General Akin was born in Atlanta. He graduated from West Fulton High School and North Georgia College, now North Georgia University, one of the six senior military colleges in the United States. While there he met his future wife Gwen Payne from Carnesville, Georgia.

            Among many other assignments, Akin was twice assigned to the Pentagon, working with the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Vietnam War and then the Army Staff during Desert Storm. Having served in four divisions – the 8^th in Germany, the 1^st in Vietnam, the 2^nd in Korea, and the 101^st Air Assault division, the assignments he enjoyed most were “working directly with soldiers assigned to infantry divisions.”

            General Akin has some strong beliefs about the nation’s current military leadership: “The complete harmony of Desert Storm didn’t happen in Afghanistan. I was truly disappointed with President Biden and strongly believe he should be held accountable for this total disaster.” Referring to the Congressional Hearing on Afghanistan, Akin stated, “General Milley was weak. The President and military leaders should have been working together to succeed. This didn’t happen.”

            Veteran’s Day was declared to honor men like Akin, generals or not. Moving one’s family 20 times, as the general did in order to serve his country, is no little sacrifice. Keeping foot soldiers at the fore of your mind is the mark of a true General, the kind of General my brothers and Omar Bradley informed me of.