September 2024

I purposely didn’t write a column about 9/11 that would have published last week on 9/11. I knew that it would be on everyone’s minds on that day. I wanted to wait a week and talk to you about the heroes not only of that day, but the coming weeks. Heroes, I believe, are born. They have no need to be created. I have met several of them in my life and, well, you just know they are special. Even if you might not know how special. I won’t trouble you with all of them, but those of you who are from Corning, and might be young, ask your elders about H.N (Porky) Robinson. I was long out of high school before I got to know just how special he was. Ask someone if they know where he served in WWII. Then I met and had the privilege of spending a couple of hours with Captain Larry Chesley, later, Lt. Col. Chesley. Captain Chesley spent 7 years in the Hanoi Helton from 1966 to 1973. I was so very honored that he sat and told me his story candidly, I will never forget. He passed away in 2021. Rest in Peace, Sir. I won’t continue, though there were others. What makes these men and women do the things they do, with no regard to sometimes their own welfare? One week back from this publication was the 23rd anniversary of 9/11/2001. For weeks we read about heroes of that day, and for weeks new heroes kept stepping forward to treat this wound in America’s heart. This is a story I wanted you to hear, in case you haven’t, of one of those heroes. His name was Rick Rescorla, and he was born in in a tiny village in Cornwall, England on May 27th 1939. He was one day behind me, who arrived a day earlier near Piggott, Clay County, Arkansas, on the 26th. In 1956, the same year I graduated Corning High School, he left Hayle at age 16 to join the British Military. He fought the communist backed insurgencies in Cyprus and Rhodesia from ‘60 to ’63. In 1962 I was in the Central Highlands of Viet Nam. His experiences made him very anti-communist, as well it should, and it did with man