During the six day Egypt-Arab-Israeli war, I gave serious thought to joining the Israeli defense forces. They had said they would take people from other countries that were past normal military age. I once had a super-secret clearance in the Air Force, but by the time I had made a few phone calls about my security clearances, the entire war was over and the trail of destroyed Russian tanks stretched from the Israeli border through Gaza and on to the Suez Canal. Obviously, I wasn’t needed.
The premise was rather simple: There has not been an Israeli war where their forces were not out-numbered 10-1, 15-1, 20-1, etc. The thinking was, at the time, ex-military men who know how to take orders, could drive a truck or jeep, stand guard duty and fill a lot of positions that would free up young Israeli soldiers, and add themselves to the fighting force.
Jerry White, ex-Air Force and retiree from Eli Lilly, is one of my neighbors. A couple of times a week we have long chats when he is out tending to his lawn. Jerry had received an e-mail from someone named Joyce Smiley. Smiley (I don’t know if this is a man or woman) included a picture of a man over age 60 and certainly looks overweight and out of shape. The e-mail is long and is about sending old guys off to war rather than 18-year-olds. I took it to be humorous, but it makes a lot of sense. Standing there talking, Jerry White said, “You and I have done what we have wanted to do, we’ve raised our families, are veterans, and we’re a whole lot closer to the end rather than the beginning. If you and I were killed, they would not be killing a future Nobel Prize winner, a physicist, or a Ph.D. in philosophy. And when a young man gets killed, his entire future was ahead of him, while most of our lives are behind us.”
While the image of a group of 50, 60, or 70-year olds trudging along an Afghanistan trail may seem a little ridiculous, in reality it is not. If we keep playing policemen to the world it is going to extinguish those young men from our demographic pool. The old-timers described earlier, are capable of driving various vehicles, and could help carry wounded to helicopters. We could stand guard some place. You could call us the “Senior Service.” And my thought is, we serve six months at a time. When I suggested this to a woman I know, she said, “It sounds great, Ronn, but who’s going to remind you to take your medicine?”
Obviously, I haven’t given this an enormous amount of thought, but someone who has served his military time and is rather bored with retirement just might fill a need. I would imagine, if we were fed and clothed, you wouldn’t have to pay us as much as you would an 18-year-old. With few exceptions, we’re a whole bunch smarter than most of these recruits.
I never did shoot in anger, or get shot at. But think about this … my neighbor, Jerry, is absolutely correct … we could do a lot of good for the country and let somebody else worry about the lawn.
Tell Uncle Sam I have a pair of Air Force brogans I was issued in August of 1956. I’ve only re-soled them one time. I think they still have some wear left in them. So does Jerry White, and so does Ronn Mott.
Ronn Mott, a longtime radio personality in Terre Haute, writes commentaries for the Tribune-Star. His pieces are published online Tuesday and Thursday on Tribstar.com, and in the print and online editions on Saturday.
Opinion Columns
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Ronn Mott
Discussion
RONN MOTT: Senior Guard
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RONN MOTT: Rabid Republicans
The so-called news people at Fox News can hardly sit still long enough to report on the latest gossip or untruth about our sitting President. They can hardly contain themselves.
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LIZ CIANCONE: Smell of fresh air gave way to dryers
Remember when clean clothes smelled like fresh air and sunshine rather than fabric softener and dryer sheets?
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STATE OF THE STATEHOUSE: Is it regulation that doesn’t make sense or evening the playing field?
I’m not much of a drinker, so I haven’t spent much time thinking about how Indiana’s alcohol laws personally impact me, but that changed last fall when my daughter got married.
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Mark Bennett: High-profile mural connects historical dots from city to river
At 96 feet wide and 2 stories tall, the power, impact and value of the Wabash will be evident.
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RONN MOTT: Mushrooms = Hoosier happiness
Someone wrote or said a few years ago a statement that would define the word “Hoosier.” According to this urban legend, a Hoosier is somebody dribbling a basketball around the Indy 500 while eating a fried, morel mushroom. It did not define me, at the time.
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RONN MOTT: Israel’s Air Force
Recently the Israeli Air Force bombed and rocketed a convoy leaving Syria going to Lebanon with rockets that were going to be used to attack Israel. It did not get there. It was destroyed.
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RONN MOTT: Media merry-go-round
Round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows. That isn’t a unique phrase to this writer or to this era in time. But, when it comes to the musical chairs of broadcasting, it certainly applies.
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LIZ CIANCONE: Courts see a different appearance than cops
Have you ever noticed the transformation between the arrest of an accused lawbreaker and the first appearance in court?
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MARK BENNETT: Life at face value: Mom’s simple advice still presents a valuable daily challenge
Most moms don’t base their advice on scientific research.
(Unless, of course, your mother is a scientific researcher. If so, carry a No. 2 pencil and take good notes.) -
SUSAN DUNCAN: Advice to the kids on Mother’s Day
Just so you know, now settled firmly into middle age, I think of “kids” as anyone in their 30s and younger. I also accept that many of my elders view me as an upstart whippersnapper, though snapping even my fingers nowadays can be a chore.
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FLASHPOINT: Again in 2013 General Assembly, middle class generally ignored
Last year, the people of Indiana entrusted the Republican Party with some of their most precious possessions.
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RONN MOTT: ‘Raccoons II’
In the Algonquin Indian language, raccoon means “working with hands.” They are really cute little fellows until they injure a child, or a pet, or leave feces around where you certainly do not want it.
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RONN MOTT: ‘NRA Convention’
At the recent NRA Convention in Houston, Texas, where the right-wing political hot air almost lifted the convention's building off its foundation, the NRA trotted out the forever yours political dame of the right wing, Sarah Palin. Sarah did not disappoint.
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RONN MOTT: ‘Heritage gone’
The last high school I attended was being torn down just a few days ago. I didn't learn about it until I saw classmate Dick Mills on television and a display he had put together about State football championships in the middle 1930's. I began elementary school with Dick Mills. That was Matthew South Elementary School on South Sixth Street in Clinton, Indiana. After seeing Dick on TV, it dawned on me that all schools I had attended in Clinton have been torn down.
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LIZ CIANCONE: We always want more than we need
Washington seems more preoccupied with the unemployment rate than they are about the constant stalemate. Still with thousands out of work and the unemployment rate hovering somewhere between 7 percent and 9 percent, it does deserve more than a passing nod.
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MARK BENNETT: Should I stay or should I go?
Some have their Bill Clinton-era Cavalier packed (with the trunk bungee-ed shut), apartment cleaned (except for the fridge), and iPhone GPS locked onto the fastest route out of Terre Haute. Others are staying — until they find a better job, or because they’re starting a career here, or because this town feels like home. In each case, a new stage of life begins today.
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College Class of '13 gets a little extra advice
Local college grads will hear commencement speakers offer life and career advice this month. We’re offering them an extra dose here from folks who’ve found success in various vocations and regions of the nation. Many have Terre Haute roots.
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RONN MOTT: Things that go bump in the night
I live in a very old house. There are all kinds of noises that occur, especially at night, or so it seems. Aside from the various creaks and pops from old wooden floors and walls when the furnace heats up and sends warm air into the rooms, we, my wife and I, have heard other noises.
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RONN MOTT: Around the dial
At lunch the other day with Terry Tevlin (First Financial Bank), I bumped into Dale Mahurin. I hadn’t talked to Dale in a long time and inquired about his wife, Julie Henricks.
Julie has returned to the radio microphone doing a weekend gig on Mix FM. For fans of Julie’s show on WTWO-TV, don’t worry, she’s not leaving … just multi-tasking. Welcome back to the radio airwaves, Julie! -
ANDREA NEAL: Newspaper journalists still make a difference
A recent survey ranked newspaper reporter as the worst career of 2013, just below meter reader and lumberjack, but you wouldn’t guess it from the stories told by journalists who gathered in Bloomington to see six of their own inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame.
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RONN MOTT: George Jones
I got to Nashville in the early ’70s, hired by John Patton, who had been a DJ for WBOW earlier in his career. Then, he was managing WMAK in Nashville and I was promised a top sales list and received the yellow pages (many a promise like this has happened to people in this business). I also did sports commentary for the morning man and would ultimately do a season of play-by-play and a short TV schedule for Tennessee State.
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LIZ CIANCONE: Old age is in email of the beholder
My Best Friend isn’t much for writing letters, so email has opened a new world for him. He can dash off a few words to a high school friend or his college roommate — now living in Florida and Washington State,
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MARK BENNETT: Spirited response to a rising river
The power within the Wabash revealed itself last week.
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FLASHPOINT: Time has arrived for overhaul of TV news
Former FCC Chairman Alfred Sikes gave an address in 1992 in which he claimed television news was too superficial and too focused on visuals.
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RONN MOTT: Remembering Pat Summerall
I don’t remember how I first became aware of Pat Summerall, but the first time I heard him was on a New York radio station (WCBS, I think). He was doing the sports for the morning man and exchanging some opinions about sports and such with him.
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RONN MOTT: What I don’t know
I was watching a segment on the History Channel the other night while I waited for the end of “The Big Bang Theory” and a show I had seen before. It was “Sex in History.” And the two segments I watched were about Ben Franklin and Howard Hughes.
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RONN MOTT: You, me, and the Muslim world
I don’t know how to do this. I’m a fairly intelligent human being, but the events of the past week in Boston have turned me emotionally inside out. It’s more than the people who died, it’s more than the people who were injured … some permanently,
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LIZ CIANCONE: A memory test from the oldtime radio days
For some reason, I seem to be the go-to source for all sorts of obscure information out at the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center.
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MARK BENNETT: Littered with irony: Why do people callously discard their trash, and who are they?
Though they aren’t acknowledged by the U.S. Census Bureau, there are basically two demographic groups of people … Those who would dump their old toilet on the banks of the Wabash River or a rural roadside. And those who wouldn’t.
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RONN MOTT: China
The recent blustering by North Korea and their weaponry, which now includes ICBMs, has pulled into full attention America’s involvement with China.
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