12/28/11 - NNHS Newsletter - Last Day of Hanukkah!

“Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d,
King of the universe,
Who has wrought miracles for our forefathers,
in those days as in this season.”

(Traditional Hanukkah blessing)

I am in a slight mess. My electric wheel chair is broken and I can't afford to get it fixed. The company that I am working with is slow to replace it because I have Medicare and they only replace every 5 years; it has been less than 5 years. I spend most of the day in the bed because my manual wheel chair won't fit through my narrow doorways. Hilton Village, remember?

If anyone reading this knows of someone getting rid of one could you please contact me at jabacon@verizon.net. 

Thanks, Jamey Douglas Bacon

     YOWZERONI-RINI! "A slight mess?!?" I'm so sorry to hear this, Jamey!

   TYPHOON NATION?!? I can think of several ways we can help with this; does anything come to your mind?!?

   Hang in there, Jamey!

Lest We Forget

Posted: 26 Dec 2011 08:16 PM PST

By NORMAN M. COVERT

The Covert Letter sends Christmas and New Year wishes to our faithful readers. I’m sure you agree that special greetings are due our soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, and Coast Guardsmen serving far away from their families. Christmas for these uniformed patriots is still “Duty, Honor, Country,” in the words of the late General of the Army Douglas MacArthur.

Packages from home are terrific, but you can’t beat being at the fireside with your loved ones.

Author on assignment in Korea March 1971, the Han River (background) marking the demarcation line with bridge to the so-called Freedom Village.

The majority of our troops may have come home from Iraq in November and December, but many Americans, including one of my own, are still there. Sunni and Shiite bombs wreck its people, streets and government buildings daily; the fragile government becoming more unstable as days pass.

May God keep our kinsmen in the palm of His hand!

The Afghanistan/Pakistan Theater continues to take its toll on our warriors. I wonder if we will see a victorious end to this quagmire of political and military turmoil. Again, we pray God’s protection for family and friends in those dangerous Forward Operating Bases (FOB).

Army and Air National Guard troops are still in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Other troops remain armed and at their posts in South Korea from the DMZ south to Pusan. Tensions are high this Christmas with the death of North Korean Leader Kim Il Sung.

Legends abound telling of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day truces at the battlefront. These include the true World War I account of an impromptu ceasefire and exchange of personal items. German and Allied soldiers made it happen in no-man’s land between the trenches in France and Belgium.

The story is told on good authority that Walter C. J. Wev, a bugler with the 16th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, gave an impromptu concert of carols on Christmas Eve 1862. Col. Carnot Posey’s 16th Infantry was encamped on the Rapidan River near Chancellorsville, Va., where federal troops on the opposite bank requested he play so they also could hear. My great-great-grandfather agreed and moved closer to the shore line.

My weapon card from Headquarters Company, 237th. Armorer had trouble spelling "Covert." It was in the middle rack, slot 11B, M-14 rifle No. 400462.

Christmas conjures memories of my military service in the Federal Republic of Germany (1968-69). I was a Chaplain’s assistant at Wharton Barracks, Heilbronn, Germany, assigned to the 237th Combat Engineer Battalion, VII US Army Corps. 

Author with German Benedictine Monk Pr. Andreas Michalski at abbey, Bad Wimpfen im tal, Germany, 1968.

Christmas meant  assisting Presbyterian Chaplain Maj. Richard George, Roman Catholic Chaplain Maj. Thomas J. Confroy and German Pr. Andrea Michalski (O.S.B.). 

I was the weapons carrier (M-14 rifle) as well as resident organist and choir director for the military community chapel. My duties included ensuring preparations for all services. Transportation was arranged for Jewish soldiers taking part in Hanukkah activities at Robinson Barracks, Stuttgart.

View toward Choir Loft of Chapel, 2007, now a Coptic Christian Reformed Church. Author played role in obtaining stained glass windows shown.

My first Christmas Eve was decorated with a good-sized snow fall.  All was quiet in the Casern with families celebrating in quarters and many soldiers celebrating together in G.I. Gasthofs. It was indeed a “Silent Night, Holy Night.”

Wharton Barracks Chapel was lighted inside by a small lamp in the choir loft, where I marked time until Midnight Mass. I played carols and other music that were traditions in my home  church. Christmas memories came in a flood, undoubtedly mirrored this year in so many of our military members.

Christmas Eve ruminations recalled buddies who had been summarily shipped from the 237th to Military Assistance Command (Vietnam) (MACV). The war had taken a turn for the worse and it had priority. In Germany, we were short handed. Resupply problems hampered our ability to keep vehicles and equipment up to readiness standards. Spare parts were going to Southeast Asia. My Ford Jeep’s sparkplugs came from a German store.

Russian t-62 Main Battle Tank maneuvers on streets of Prague as freedom fighters cause havoc with Molotov Cocktails in background. (GUARDIAN Image)

We spent most of 1968 training on the Rhine River and at Grafenwohr, Hohenfels and Wildflecken. The coming of September saw my unit ”locked and loaded” on the German side of the Danube river, where a nearby village still lay in ruins from World War II fighting.  Austria was south of our fighting position.

We were alerted because the Soviet Union boldly sent a force of T-62 Main Battle tanks into the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic August 21, 1968. Their purpose was to defeat a determined force of freedom fighters, who sought to overthrow President Ludwik Svoboda and the Communist government.

Our mission was to be the first line of defense for West Germany should Soviet leaders seek to expand their success in Czechoslovakia. Sadly for the Czech people, Soviet military might snuffed the uprising.

We were ordered back to garrison at Heilbronn-am-Neckar, aware that our 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment could see Eastern Bloc forces massed on the eastern opening in the Fulda Gap in anticipation of a “GO” order.

In the face of such tensions, soldiers doffed fatigues that Christmas Eve in favor of civilian attire, temporarily escaping the reality of  their mission as defenders of freedom. 

  Christmas Day for me meant getting back into fatigues and combat boots, driving Chaplain Confroy to the outlying Nike missile sites. He offered Christmas Mass for the troops, who were sequestered in high security garrisons. It was a blessing for the son of a Church of God minister to serve as Altar Boy at these masses. 

The 237th was disestablished March 15, 1992, almost one year after its gallant service in Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm. Transfer of the historic Casern ensued to Baden-Württemberg government. Only the chapel and my former barrack remain. 

William A. (Bill) Kennedy, Sr., shared a 1944 V-Mail Christmas card he sent from Kunming, China to his widowed mother.  The post card was unique for soldiers in the China, Burma, India (CBI) Theater of Operations. It depicts a soldier clutching his Garand rifle and thinking of home. The scene was replicated many times that momentous year, which saw victory in Europe in May 1945 and victory in Japan in August 1945.

  We have lost thousands on the battlefields of history and many still have not been accounted for by the Department of Defense. Repatriation of remains continues and we pray the families of these unknown warriors will soon achieve some closure.

Coming home for Christmas 2012 should be a goal, but our troops deserve to come home to victory parades.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to all –©Norman M. Covert, 2011.

#  #  #

Mr. Covert may be contacted at nmcovert@thecovertletter.com or nmcovert77@aol.com. 

   I get a big kick out of this video every time I see it! Many of those pictures I scanned myself - and at least six of the images were captured by our own Wizard of Wonderment,        Dave Spriggs ('64) of VA, specifically for use on Our Old Stomping Grounds! There's even a shot I myself took back in 1963 while I was still in high school!

   The video was created by Bill Sasser (Hampton HS - '61) of VA. We've had it linked to Our Old Stomping Grounds for some time now:

http://www.nnhs65.com/old-stomping.html  

By Peggy L. Ferguson

I love the New Year. I feel like I am the threshold of a new year. I am glad that there is a week between Christmas and the New Year because it gives me a chance to recover, regroup, and rethink. Of course, I would like to think of a new year as a fresh, blank, Big Chief Tablet to write whatever I like on, but that is not really the case.

Our lives are not marked off in 365 day intervals, where everything begins a new on day one. There are many things, situations, circumstances, and processes that transcend years and even decades. Example include careers, an education, a marriage, self-improvement efforts, and other long term goals like financial management. Life is a continuous process.

Even in the midst of these processes, a new year, however, gives me an opportunity to evaluate my progress, assess my accomplishments, and rethink the areas that need improvement. I can look back over the last year and determine the progress I made and assess areas that continue to need a lot more work.

I hear people say that they don't make New Year's resolutions anymore, that they subjected themselves to making and breaking them year after year for decades.

I humbly suggest that New Year's resolutions still have a place in most of our lives.

"Resolutions" only have real resolve if they are initiated and owned by the person making the resolution. If they are "shoulds" directed by nameless and/or not-so-nameless others, they are not truly resolutions. These "shoulds" dressed up like resolutions seem to reflect a recognition of a need to change, yet without the commitment and/or the plan to do so.
We have all heard of the 80% failure rate of New Year's resolutions and perhaps have thought, "what's the use?" There are many possible reasons why New Year's resolutions fail, including the following:

l. They are/were other directed at the outset.
An example would be the resolution to quit smoking because your wife/husband demands it. If your significant others are demanding that you quit, don't grumble about quitting for them. Don't approach quitting with resentment and reservations. Instead, acknowledge that even though you have some mixed feelings about quitting, put all your effort into it and focus on the reasons that you want to quit. Make quitting (and any other New Year's resolutions) meaningful to you.

2. The expectation does not fit the reality of the goal.
An example would be the resolution to lose weight. No matter what methods you may be using to try to lose weight and regardless of the ads you see on tv and on the internet, the pounds will not magically fall off. No matter what your goal, make sure that your expectations are reasonable. Otherwise, you may just give up. With the example of losing weight, consider how often have you given up upon losing "only" five or ten pounds after changing eating habits and walking daily for three months? In reality, changing how you eat, regular exercise and utilizing other lifestyle changes should yield generally improved health and some weight reduction results within a year. For most difficult goals or resolutions, setbacks and less than perfect results should be anticipated.

3. The goal may not include an appropriate method to achieve it.
An example might be the resolution to cut back on drinking. When after multiple attempts at this New Year's resolution, it may become obvious that "cutting back" is not the appropriate approach to solving whatever problems are associated with the drinking. Previous attempts to cut back or to quit drinking may signal alcoholism, an illness that often requires formal treatment/help to arrest it--and total abstinence, not cutting back.

4. New Year's resolutions may involve a veritable laundry list, including everything but the kitchen sink.
This shotgun affect just identifies some things that you might not like about yourself or your life, but does little to bring about actual change.

5. New Year's resolution(s) are verbalized but not written down and so are easily forgotten.
There is no start date, no reminders, no criteria for measuring success along the way.

6. Resolutions may even be written down, but are not fleshed out with measurable goals or short term, mid-range, and long term objectives that serve as a roadmap or blue print for how to accomplish them.
If you have a resolution, turn it into a goal, make it measurable, then plot out a strategy over time on how to get there from here. Develop a time-frame. Example: For saving money this year, I will have $50 taken out of my checking account and moved to savings each pay period. By this time next year, I will have at least $1200.00 in savings.

7. Reluctance to make a commitment or to tell others about your resolutions or goals may reduce the vulnerability that you feel about possibly looking foolish, but it undermines your efforts.
When you let others know that you have a goal/resolution, you allow others to assist you in your efforts. Perhaps some of the people closest to you have the same ones. You could team up.

Some of the most common New Year's Resolutions are to 1) lose weight/get healthy, 2) save money/manage debt, 3) get a better job, 4) get an education, 5) stop drinking/smoking/gambling, 6) improve the quality of your life by spending time with loved ones/manage stress better/learning how to enjoy life, 7) find a partner/be a better partner. Most of these goals take longer than a year to accomplish, but much progress can be made within a year, and the process is the prize.


There are more recovery tools on my website for your use. There are a number of articles and worksheets on individual and family dynamics of addiction and recovery, Recommended Readings, an "Ask Peggy" column, a Links page with additional resources, and a newsletter that will alert you to new educational/informational opportunity releases. To purchase my ebook, "Understanding Cross Addiction to Prevent Relapse" go to http://www.peggyferguson.com/ServicesProvided.en.html

My website is a work in progress. To visit my website or to sign up for my newsletter, go to http://www.peggyferguson.com
Peggy L. Ferguson, Ph.D., Licensed Alcohol/Drug Counselor, Licensed Marital/Family Therapist, Author, Trainer, Consultant, Private Practice Professional providing services in Stillwater Oklahoma.