Daily Deployed: RPA crewmembers prepare to fight each day they arrive for duty

DAILY DEPLOYED

RPA crewmembers prepare to fight each day they arrive for duty

 STORY BY RANDY ROUGHTON// PHOTOS BY STAFF SGT. VERNON YOUNG JR.

6 July 2015

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The Airmen of the 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, have a much different deployed experience than most other members of the Air Force. While they operate from Creech and come home to their families at the end of their shift, they’re responsible for missions happening across the world in Iraq and Afghanistan. This brings a whole new layer of issues these Airmen must overcome to perform their duties.
(U.S. Air Force video // Andrew Arthur Breese)

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After working the night shift as a newly arrived remotely piloted aircraft pilot at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, Maj. Jeremy slept on a mattress that snugly fit in his closet. He resorted to the unusual sleeping arrangement to get the rest he needed during the day as his three children played freely in the house.

Maj. Jeremy, a 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing MQ-9 Reaper pilot, spends time in his closet sleeping. During the day, Jeremy set up a bed in his closet to prevent his children from awakening him. His shift work demands that he work while his children are in bed and sleep while his children are awake.

At night, once the children were in bed, Maj. Jeremy gave his wife, Nikki, a kiss before he began his 35-minute commute from their north Las Vegas home to his midnight shift at Creech AFB, where he still pilots an armed remotely piloted aircraft 7,000 miles away in Afghanistan.
Unlike deployed manned aircraft pilots, Maj. Jeremy returns home after each shift fighting the war. However, he describes himself as feeling like “a ghost in the morning,” because he had to spend so much of his time catching up on his sleep while the rest of the family members went about their daily business. Some of the most heart-wrenching moments involved missing his children’s activities, such as his oldest son’s Little League baseball games and then 4-year-old daughter’s first dance recital.

Maj. Jeremy, a 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing MQ-9 Reaper pilot, enjoys some play time with his son. Jeremy values the quality time with his children even more because of his demanding work schedule. While working the swing shift, Jeremy found it hard to get in quality time with his children because of the conflicting schedules.

“Leaving home to go to a war zone is a mindset,” the former C-5 Galaxy pilot said. “It’s a huge emotional roller coaster, leaving the stressors of my family behind and inheriting new stressors on the way to work. It was a huge mindset change, and I had to have that capability to be able to wear different hats, being Dad and going in and fighting the war.”

Col. Jim Cluff, 432nd Expeditionary Air Wing commander, stands in an MQ-9 Reaper hangar doorway at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, May 4, 2015. The 432d is the first wing totally dedicated to operating remotely piloted aircraft: the MQ-1 Predator, MQ-9 Reaper, and RQ-170 Sentinel. The wing has flown aircraft in Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom for intelligence surveillance reconnaissance and tactical missions, flown by pilots and sensor operators in the United States.

Most of the 432^nd Air Expeditionary Wing “Hunter” Airmen use their commutes to prepare their minds to be in a wartime mindset at work, said Col. Jim Cluff, the 432^nd AEW commander.

Col. Jim Cluff, 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing commander, is photographed at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada. The 432nd AEW is the first wing totally dedicated to operating remotely piloted aircraft: the MQ-1 Predator, MQ-9 Reaper and RQ-170 Sentinel. The wing has flown aircraft in Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and tactical missions, flown by pilots and sensor operators in the United States.

“I ask them every time they come through that gate to have a deployed mindset and a warfighter mentality,” Cluff said. “But then I want them to undeploy every day and every night when they drive home. It puts a lot of stressors on our Airmen when you ask them to do that every day.”
Each shift is like a police stakeout from thousands of feet away. The pilot flies the RPA while working with his sensor operator and intelligence analyst to look for patterns of life and day-to-day interactions on the ground. The crews provide around-the-clock intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support to troops on the ground. In addition, the RPAs often search for high-value terrorist targets and sometimes launch missile strikes.

Airman 1st Class Tyler, a 432nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron MQ-9 Reaper maintainer, inspects the wing of the aircraft after a training mission at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada. Maintainers provide a visual inspection to the remotely piloted aircraft to detect cracks and prevent possible malfunctions for future missions. As an RPA maintainer, he works closely with pilots, sensor operators and intelligence officers to complete each mission objective.

“All of those (missile strike) decisions are made away from Creech AFB and Cannon (Air Force Base, New Mexico) in the theater, as they should be,” Cluff said. “In the end, we all have a vote, as well. My Airmen have a vote at the end of the day because they’re the ones pulling the trigger and guiding the weapon. If they’re not comfortable with the shot, they won’t take it. (RPA crewmembers) are professional Airmen, they are professional aviators, and that profession brings responsibility. That responsibility is if I’m going to take a life today, I’m going to take a life knowing that it’s the right thing to do.”

An MQ-9 Reaper flies a test mission over Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, May 6, 2015. The MQ-1 Predator is an armed, multi-mission, medium-altitude, long-endurance remotely piloted aircraft that is employed primarily as an intelligence-collection asset and secondarily against dynamic execution targets.

In addition to conducting missile strikes, RPAs are also used to gather intelligence. That information is then collected, processed, exploited, analyzed and disseminated through the Air Force Distributed Common Ground System. The DCGS, which consists of 27 geographically separated network sites, produces intelligence information from data collected by sensors on the MQ-1 Predator, MQ-9 Reaper, RQ-4 Global Hawk and other intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms. The 480^th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, executes worldwide DCGS operations.
RPA pilots can fly up to almost four times the average of 300 hours flown by manned aircraft pilots. While most people connect RPAs with protecting troops and hunting terrorist targets, they can also save lives, as the RQ-4 Global Hawk and RQ-1 Predator did in damage assessments and assisting aide convoys after the earthquake in Haiti in 2010. They also continue to deal with myths about the job. They particularly dislike the word “drone,” because they feel it carries a connotation of an aircraft potentially delivering a strike without human decision-making.
“Every Predator can fly for almost 24 hours,” Cluff said. “That is a lot of video to look at, and it takes a lot of people to do that. So it’s a manpower intensive operation we are involved in.

Maj. Bishane, a 432nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron MQ-9 Reaper pilot, controls an aircraft from Creech Air Force Base, Nevada. Remotely piloted aircraft pilots work closely with intelligence officers, sensor operators and maintainers to complete mission objectives. RPA personnel deal with the stressors of a deployed military service member while maintaining the normalcy of a day-to-day life through programs designed to enhance communication skills, family and spiritual growth.

“We fly airplanes from here around the world 7,000 miles away, and there’s always a man or woman in the loop. That loop just happens to be 7,000 miles wide, and there is always somebody involved in the decision-making.”
Another myth many people have about RPA pilots is that they are nothing more than glorified video game players, said Maj. Bishane, an RPA pilot who volunteered for RPA duty.
“What I tell people is ‘Yes, if you play video games, there are certain skill sets that may translate,’” Maj. Bishane said. “‘However, the individual you’re watching is a real person, and perhaps the family, and it starts to sink in that this is a real-life thing happening, and you have to manage your emotions appropriately. Because if a ground commander decides you need to pull the trigger and execute the strike, this is an individual that perhaps you’ve been watching for a long time, and you start to learn about them in some respects. Now you have to execute that strike and you may see the aftermath, in terms of a funeral or something like that. Yes, you’re looking at them through a screen, so you’re not necessarily right there. However, you start talking about how much you’re watching the target, and it becomes a more intimate ballet with you and that target.’”
RPA pilots obviously don’t face the same immediate physical risks their counterparts in manned aircraft experience directly over their targets. However, combat, whether from directly over the enemy or from a world away, still delivers an emotional toll. A 2011 study at the School of Aerospace Medicine at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, found that almost half of RPA pilots experience high operational stress severe enough to disrupt their personal lives.

A remotely piloted aircraft maintainer assigned to the 432nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron removes wheel chalks from a MQ-9 Reaper after a training mission at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada. Aircraft maintainers and pilots work together to greet the aircraft upon each landing.

“There is a safety net physically, but emotionally we have to put up with a lot,” Maj. Jeremy said. “We have so many different roles to play, switches to flip and different hats to wear that the emotional and mental toughness you need to do it is sometimes as dangerous as the physical aspect of being in the war.”
Chaplain (Capt.) Zac does his part each day to help take care of the wing’s Hunter family during visits with the 432nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron Reaper weapons expediters, followed by chit-chats with maintainers in an RPA hangar.

Airman 1st Class Zack Snell, a 432nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron MQ-9 Reaper aircraft maintainer, performs pre-flight checks prior to a mission at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada. Snell, a dedicated crew chief, performs daily maintenance tasks to prepare himself and the aircraft for future deployments. Maintainers work closely with pilots and sensor operators to load artillery and equipment essential to each mission. The pilot trusts the hands of the maintainers to deliver a well-equipped and mechanically sound aircraft.

“Take it easy,” he tells them as he says goodbye with a handshake. “Holler if you need anything.”
The chaplain is part of a unique human performance team that combines chaplaincy staff with a psychologist, a physiologist and a physician that are available 24/7 to provide counseling and guidance.
“There needs to be a daily presence,” Chaplain Zac said. “Sometimes I can look in someone’s eyes and say, ‘Airman, you don’t look like you did yesterday.’ But that means I or the chaplain’s assistant were there yesterday. That daily contact gives us the ability to notice those things and intervene before it’s too late.”
Post-traumatic stress disorder amounts to a small percentage of what the human performance team sees in RPA crewmembers. More often, they see combat stress and relationship issues, he said.

Airman 1st Class Zack Snell, a 432nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron MQ-9 Reaper aircraft maintainer, performs pre-flight checks prior to a mission at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada. Snell, a dedicated crew chief, performs daily maintenance tasks to prepare himself and the aircraft for future deployments. Maintainers work closely with pilots and sensor operators to load artillery and equipment essential to each mission. The pilot trusts the hands of the maintainers to deliver a well-equipped and mechanically sound aircraft.

“We’re in combat. As a result, we are deployed in place, and that brings certain stresses and difficulties in people’s lives,” he said. “Most of the things we deal with are relationship oriented, but that’s a part of being away from your family so much and being in a difficult environment.
“We have to have relationships, and the only way we can have relationships is through access. So we have to have the same clearances other people have. We have to be able to walk where they walk and work where they work,” Chaplain Zac said. In doing that, we build relationships, which allows us to have proactive care rather than reactive care. We don’t just want to put people back together. We want to prevent people from breaking in the first place.”
One of the ways Maj. Jeremy stays strong is by remembering conversations with some of the service members RPAs protected when he was deployed . That’s how he and his fellow RPA crewmembers know the importance of the job they’re doing on this small base in the Nevada desert.

A MQ-1 Predator and a MQ-9 Reaper assigned to the 432nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron remain ready for their next mission at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada. The two aircraft have provided intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

Fortunately, Maj. Jeremy no longer sleeps in his closet. He now works a day shift so he can make his son’s baseball games and other family activities. Still, there are days when he wonders if he can continue to successfully balance his family responsibilities with the demands of a continuous wartime mission. However, there are always those days that reinforce the importance of the RPA mission.
“Some days, you go to work and think this is awesome,” he said. “Other days, you feel really burned out and think, ‘Do I really want to do this for another 10 to 12 years? But then I hear from some of the guys we support and leave work in a completely different mood than when I went in.”

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Maj. Jeremy’s struggle to balance mission and family is typical of the life of remotely piloted aircraft pilots. Manning remains a critical issue for the Air Force as MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper operations have surged nine times in eight years. The Air Force needs 1,700 pilots but only has 1,000 fully trained, according to Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III. The service needs 300 newly trained pilots annually, but is only getting about 150, with almost 250 leaving the field each year, Welsh said.
Earlier this year, Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James announced short-term actions in an “RPA get-well plan.” Those actions included incentive pay increases and bonuses for crews, directing additional funds to the mission, augmenting current crew manning, increasing the number of pilot graduates and increasing the use of Guard and Reserve Airmen, as well as contractors. Also, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter approved resetting the combat air patrol planning guidance to show the decrease in patrols from 65 to 60 to alleviate the RPA community’s state of constant surge. The Air Force also plans to mobilize reserve component forces to take on three patrols and is working on funding actions to relieve RPA crewmembers’ stress. The service recently added almost $8 million into the RPA program to increase technical school capacity, increase reserve component manpower augmentation days and contract some downrange and recovery efforts.

- See more at: http://airman.dodlive.mil/2015/07/daily-deployed/#sthash.TKHpJXnn.dpuf

Addition By Subtraction: Choosing amputation later helps some wounded warriors gain independence

While serving in the Air Force, Daniel Crane injured his right arm which caused nerve damage leading to a complete loss of function. Prior to heading to the Invictus Games he chose to receive an amputation. Crane participated in multiple events in London, including Archery, Athletics and Swimming. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Andrew Lee)

An off-duty shooting two years ago took away three things in retired Staff Sgt. Daniel Crane’s life that he enjoyed. Gone was the former quarterback’s ability to throw a football. Gone, also, was his shooting capability, at least at the proficiency he was accustomed. Even his career as an active-duty security forces Airman seemed to be lost forever.
On July 28, 2012, Crane was shot in his vehicle by an anti-U.S. forces national while stationed at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. The bullet struck Crane’s brachial artery and severed nerves in his right arm, requiring eight surgeries. The use of his forearm and hand never returned.
But as Crane reached the two-year anniversary of the shooting, he was perhaps busier than he was before his injury. Less than a month before the anniversary he calls his “alive day,” Crane had an elective trans-radial amputation that took the right arm to 4 inches above his wrist. He has now resumed his CrossFit workout while training for five sports in the inaugural Invictus Games, an international competition for wounded servicemembers, in London.

Daniel Crane competes in a 100m Men’s Ambulant IT3 race during the 2014 London Invictus Games at the Lee Valley Athletic Centre, England, Sept 11, 2014. Servicemen and women participating in the inaugural Invictus Games are those who have overcome adversity in every sense of the word. Be it either wounded, ill, or injured, these warriors have found themselves an invitation to compete in the games and represent their country, service, and comrades. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Justyn M. Freeman)

“I never would have thought I would be involved in as many activities and sports after my injury and amputation,” Crane said. “I feel so good to really get back into competition. You know those guys that everybody is annoyed with because they are always so competitive? Now I’m that guy everyone is annoyed with, but at the same time, I also make sure the guy next to me is doing as well as he can, too.”
For eight years, another wounded warrior, Tatiana Perkins, lived with a paralyzed right arm after a motorcycle accident on May 12, 2006. She was a staff sergeant with the Air Force Reserve’s 940th Civil Engineer Squadron at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., when the accident left her with a partially torn anterior cruciate ligament and torn medial collateral ligament, shattered clavicle and complete nerve erosion in her right arm.
A doctor first suggested amputation a year and a half later. Perkins said she didn’t seriously consider it until she moved to Tucson, Ariz., and began working as an amputation rehabilitation coordinator at the Veterans Administration Hospital. There, she met a man with a similar injury who became a Paralympic athlete after his elective amputation.
While Perkins, like Crane, is an athlete who competed in the Warrior Games this year, her main motivation for eventually having her arm amputated was different – she wanted to start a family with her husband, and didn’t relish the thought of being a one-armed mother.

Tatiana Perkins practices the standing discus throw Aug. 3, 2014, at the Air Force Academy, Colo. The Wounded Warriors are conducting their final group practices prior to the up coming Invictus Games in London Sept. 10-14, and the Warrior Games Sept. 28 through Oct. 4, 2014. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Tim Chacon)

“Taking care of a child is one of the things I worried about with one arm, like changing a diaper,” Perkins said. “While I know how to change a diaper with my feet, it’s not like I can go out with my child to the mall and use a public restroom to change the diaper with my feet. It’s about independence for me.”
Crane and Perkins are among the many wounded warriors who choose to have a limb amputated for safety concerns and to aid their rehabilitation. Both retired Airmen credit being around and talking to other wounded warriors with helping them make a decision they think will improve their quality of life.
“When it came time to pulling the trigger on the amputation, it made it that much easier,” Perkins said. “Here I was, thinking about what was taking me so long to make a decision on improving myself, and there were Airmen, Soldiers and others, who only a year or two into their injuries were already prospering and doing things they never thought they would do prior to their injuries. I got tired of playing in my backyard. I wanted to get out.”
Elective or delayed amputations amount to about 15 percent of all combat-related amputations, according to a Military Medicine article published in 2011. Surgeries are performed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center near Washington, D.C.; Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio; Naval Medical Center San Diego and Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Maryland.

Retired Staff Sgt. Melissa Coduti and Tatiana Perkins participate in a 100m sprint during the Invictus Games at the Lee Valley Athletics Centre, England, Sept. 11, 2014. Athletics is one of several sports the more than 300 wounded warriors from 13 nations competed in. The vision of the Invictus Games is to harness the power of sport to inspire recovery, support rehabilitation and generate a wider understanding and respect for those who serve their country. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Tiffany DeNault/released)

Wounded warriors who face this decision must weigh several important factors, said Dr. (Maj.) James Bales, an orthopedic surgeon with the 81st Medical Group at Keesler Air Force Base, Miss. As head coach of the Air Force Warrior Games team, Bales talks with many Airmen and Air Force veterans who have to decide about elective amputation. When counseling them, Bales wants the wounded warriors to consider whether the benefits of amputation would outweigh the risks.
The main factors he recommends they consider are: the functionality of the limb, whether the muscles or nerves still function, how bad the limb was damaged and the location of the injury. Recovery and rehabilitation tend to be easier for lower limbs than for the hands and arms, and aren’t as susceptible to swelling, he said.
“We’ve made such huge strides in below-knee amputations, with some great prosthetics available today, that these people can pretty readily return to relatively completely normal lives,” Bales said. “For the upper extremities, the hand is hugely more needed than the foot, so to press forward with hand or arm amputation is a lot bigger deal because of what you need them for — activities with daily living. When we talk about the upper extremities, we want to see if we can save the thumb and one finger to have a pincher group, so he can pin something down with the forearm.
“The main thing is we want to focus on 98 percent of the things they can do, rather than the 2 percent they cannot.”

Tech. Sgt. Leonard Anderson and Staff Sgt. Daniel Crane go over swimming techniques during the Wounded Warrior Pacific Invitational (WWPI) swim meet at the Iolani High School’s Dillingham Pool. WWPI is a competition among seriously wounded, ill and wounded service members from the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Navy and Special Operations Command. The WWPI is the largest joint-service competition to take place outside the annual Warrior Games. (U.S. Navy photo/Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Kenneth R. Hendrix)

A tattoo Crane got above the scar on his right arm near the one-year anniversary of the shooting shows his commitment to the things he can still do, even after his delayed amputation. The tattoo illustrates the words of a Bible verse, “Faith and trust in what we cannot see.”
Now that the hand that was no longer serving him as intended was removed, Crane is learning to shoot and throw a football with his left hand. He received his prosthetic hand just a few weeks after his June 20 amputation, and now even has hopes of returning to his active-duty career, though he was medically retired in February.
“The chances of me coming back into the military now that I’ve had my amputation, I think, have gone up because I will be able to do so much more,” Crane said. “Now that I have the prosthetic, I can grab things with my hand, I can do pushups, and I can still pass the fitness test.
“Now that I’ve gone through my own elective amputation, I am really very happy with it. With the prosthetic, I feel I can do more and more. It just makes me feel like I have two hands again.”

- See more at: http://airman.dodlive.mil/2014/10/addition-by-subtraction/#sthash.7GrcRS8o.dpuf

Nature's Day of Reckoning

When hurricane forecasters first named Hurricane Opal, it was basically a formality in the second-most active hurricane season in history. Opal seemed like just another weak, underdeveloped late-season storm.
But on the night of Oct. 4, 1995, Hurricane Opal cut a wide swath of destruction in the Wiregrass, pounding the area for more than five hours with winds in excess of 80 mph, before heading north and causing more than $200 million of damage in Alabama alone.
The more than $2 billion of damage Hurricane Opal left in Alabama and Florida made it the third most costly hurricane in history, behind Andrew in 1992 and Hugo in 1989.
Today, The Dothan Eagle remembers the impact the hurricane made on the Wiregrass during the first week of October 1995.

The first week of October 1995 began like any other autumn week in the Wiregrass.
The announcement of the O.J. Simpson Trial verdict on Tuesday, Oct. 3 competed for some of the usual fall conversation with football, festivals, and school. But mostly, people were just busy with their own lives.
Jim Dennis and his wife were anticipating the birth of their first child and Lenard Windham was trying to help organize Ozark's first rodeo scheduled for the weekend.
A Dothan country radio station was gearing up for Wednesday night's Country Music Association Awards. Jeffrey and Paige Dulac had just remodeled their kitchen.
No one gave much thought to the storm making its way through the Gulf of Mexico and quietly mustering unprecedented strength.
By Tuesday afternoon, Hurricane Opal had taken precedence over everything, rudely changing thoughts, schedules and plans a day before its 80-plus mph winds, altered area buildings and landscape, turning the week upside down for Mrs. Dulac and everyone else.
"I was hearing reports the storm was going to hit, and I felt kind of silly because I had never experienced anything like this," Mrs. Dulac said.
"I told our cleaning lady I had to run to the store because I needed more ice and things like that, and I came back and really felt foolish."
Literally overnight, the hurricane had picked up its forward speed in the Gulf of Mexico and dramatically dropped its barometric pressure.
The drama began Tuesday as the storm continued its path toward the Florida Panhandle.
Wiregrass American Red Cross chapter director Mary Turner calls her volunteers.
At Flowers Hospital, Randy Taylor checks the parking lot to remove any loose objects that could become flying debris, while Dennis does the same at Extendicare Health Center.
The Extendicare assistant administrator has other concerns: his wife is eight months, three weeks pregnant and her doctor tells the couple that the drop in barometric pressure that accompanies a hurricane can sometimes cause premature labor. Kaitlyn Dennis is born nine days after the hurricane on Oct. 13, a day after her parents attended Bob Dylan's hurricane relief concert in the Dothan Civic Center.
Meanwhile, Windham makes storm preparations on his 2,500-acre Skipperville farm. He feeds the cattle early in the day, so they will be on safer ground among the trees during the storm. He also puts all loose objects in the barns and nails down the roofs of his chicken houses.
The real fun begins in Wednesday's early morning hours when a 1:45 a.m. telephone call interrupts Mrs. Turner's sleep, summoning her, disaster services director Irene Hearn and other officials to a meeting at Dothan-Houston County Emergency Management Agency at 2 a.m.
At 8, the first shelter in the area opens at Westgate Recreation Center and the first evacuees begin arriving at 11.
At 9, Hot Country 96.9, which one day earlier had been planning a major promotional contest in conjunction with Wednesday night's Country Music Awards, begins broadcasting hurricane updates every 15 minutes.
By early afternoon, store shelves begin to empty as residents were snatching all the fresh water, batteries and other supplies needed to ride out the storm. Lines of cars are on the highways, especially U.S. 231 South, and at gas pumps.
Emergency rooms are busy during the day, treating accident victims trying to get as far north as possible ahead of the storm. Hospital activity decreases as the hurricane draws closer, said Janie Powell, Marilyn McKissack and Jennifer Johnson, patient care services director, emergency room manager and manager of labor and delivery, respectively.
Meanwhile, the weather had deteriorated. A tornado touches down in Cottonwood and another funnel cloud is spotted near Daleville at Cairns Army Airfield.
At 3 p.m., 96.9 plays its last record and begins wall-to-wall hurricane coverage.
A second shelter opens at 4 p.m. at the Dothan Civic Center. The city's two main shelters - the civic center and Westgate - sheltered more than 700 people that night.
The eye of Hurricane Opal hits Hurlburt Field, near Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., at 5 p.m., packing wind gusts of up to 144 mph. The storm still has much of that punch when it hits the Wiregrass.
By 7 p.m., Opal knocks out electrical power in the area and begins a five-hour assault on the Wiregrass with winds in excess of 80 mph.
In downtown Dothan, as power is interrupted across the Wiregrass, The Dothan Eagle's presses start printing Thursday morning's edition - some five hours earlier than normal in an effort to beat the possible power outage. As the winds and rain pound the area, the newspaper is able to successfully complete its entire press run and newspapers are delivered with few delays across the area as residents survey the damage at sunrise.
Not long after the heaviest winds hit the area, the Dulacs lose one of their two trees at their Girard Avenue home in Dothan. Later that night, they find an oak tree had crashed on top of their carport.
In Headland, a tornado dropped a pecan tree on Dennis Daughtry's mobile home while he's sleeping in the back bedroom about 8:30 p.m. He rushed outside to disconnect his electricity, gas and water and rode out the rest of the storm at a neighbor's home. For months after the hurricane, Daughtry would live in a tent while awaiting FEMA assistance.
During the worst of the storm, the only connection to the outside world is the radio and only two stations were able to continue broadcasting throughout the night. WDJR uses the services of Tom Nebel (then at WTVY and now the station's general manager) and begins taking calls from residents throughout the Wiregrass reporting conditions and damage in their area.
"I'm in Dothan," one of the station's more than 500 callers that night tells WDJR's Jerry Broadway and Mitch English. "It's raining really hard. The wind is blowing. There are trees down. I can tell the power lines are down."
After WTVY was knocked off the air for what is believed to be the first time in the station's 40-year history, Nebel started doing full-time breaks with WDJR. After 7:30 p.m., he remained on the line for the next five hours.
Three or four times during the night, Broadway braves the winds to re-fuel WDJR's generator.
"You haven't lived until you've poured gas in a generator with the wind blowing 90 mph," Broadway said. "But it was scary enough just being in here listening to the wind howl and when our heavy, metal back door blew off between 10-11, it sounded like someone had fired a shotgun at the end of the hall. I thought the roof had caved in on us.
"It was the longest night I've ever spent with the exception of the night my first child was born. It was just a wild night. I'm glad I had the opportunity to do it and I hope I never have the opportunity again."
The next day, crews are busy on the streets with clean-up as residents do the same at their homes. There is little damage to Windham's and wife Bonn's home.
His farm is another story. When he inspects the damage at 4 a.m., following the hurricane, Windham finds one of his 300 cows has been killed, along with almost 2,000 of his 9,000 chickens. There was damage to the roofs of all 10 of his chicken houses. Windham later found a hay barn had been blown into the highway.
"That night, sitting at the house listening to the wind, I had absolutely no idea it was that bad," Windham said. "We had hardly a limb fall out of our pecan trees there. But everywhere else, it was just devastating."
In the shelters, people no longer in fear for their lives now turn their anxieties toward their homes and loved ones.
It was now a matter of cleaning up the damage and trying to get life back to normal. High school football games were played that Friday night and Ozark held its jamboree and rodeo that weekend.

Tater Hales' Dispatch from the American Revolution Declaration of Independence

Folks have just about lost their independence fever minds here lately, except for a few good-for-nothing traitorous Tories like that worm Willie who runs the general store and has probably been sending his own little dispatches across the ocean. The last time I saw Willie the worm, he asked me why in the world would we not want to be subject to the most powerful country in the world.
"There are lots of reasons, worm-boy," I told him, "but I only need one. We're gonna kick them out of our land for trying to shove a sissy sport like soccer on us."
These old Tater eyes see more and more people wearing their independence bonnets these days. Finally, folks in these parts are speaking more of Tater's language instead of trying to kiss that fat king's crown while he's trying to kick ours all the way south of Georgia. First, there was Thomas Paine's "Common Sense," which came out in January. The title alone got my attention - you know how Tater feels about plain old common sense - and there was plenty in Paine's work. He called for us colonists to rebel against the British monarchy (I always thought that was a funny word, sounds more like some kind of fancy bird) and proclaim our independence. But it wasn't just the title that got Tater's attention. Paine made us feel this was our time to show what we're made of by rebelling against "a violent abuse of power" and throw away the tyranny of a king just like my horse Sir Liberty Bell III of Salem Hills, Va.
"These are the times that try men's souls," Common Sense began: "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country, but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered."
I hope at least my grandchildren will one day read these words, but you never know what writings will be handed down to future generations. The worst fear many of us independence patriots have is for the colonies to win this fight for freedom, give birth to a country and one day have citizens who forget what we broke from the mother ship for in the first place. Freedom, to us, is life. To some of us, it will be death. We don't want it to ever be used as a catchphrase or an excuse for laziness or wrongdoing.
"The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind," Paine wrote. "We have it in our power to begin the world over again... The birth-day of a new world is at hand."
The war began in April 1775 at Lexington and Concord and soon spread to Bunker Hill and Breed's Hill, but in the past year, independence has spread like yellow fever. In June, Richard Henry Lee read a resolution that proclaimed the right of the colonies to be free and independent states, absolved from any connection to Great Britain. Lee's resolution led to five men - John Adams, Roger Sherman, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston and Thomas Jefferson - hammering out the details for a new kind of declaration - one that proclaimed a new nation, independent and free. All Willie the worm needs to know, he can learn from those powerful words Thomas Jefferson wrote to know what this war is really about: the basic fact "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights," and "that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
For those of you in Great Britain who may have trouble with learning, this means we no longer consent. We could hear the Liberty Bell ringing outside the State House after they adopted the Declaration of Independence, and I hear General Washington made copies of the important paper and read it to his Army who are preparing for a fight against the British Armada at Long Island, N.Y. People throughout the colonies are lighting fires and launching rockets all night to celebrate.
When we win our independence, I hope Americans will remember what it took to form this country and never take this date, or the freedoms they enjoy because of what we're doing, for granted. The worst thing that could happen would be for any American to just look at the fourth day of July as a day to not work. The war isn't even a year old, and we already realize the price that has to be paid. I hope future Americans will never fail to realize it as well.

Tater Hales' Dispatch from the American Revolution Declaration of Independence

Folks have just about lost their independence fever minds here lately, except for a few good-for-nothing traitorous Tories like that worm Willie who runs the general store and has probably been sending his own little dispatches across the ocean. The last time I saw Willie the worm, he asked me why in the world would we not want to be subject to the most powerful country in the world.
"There are lots of reasons, worm-boy," I told him, "but I only need one. We're gonna kick them out of our land for trying to shove a sissy sport like soccer on us."
These old Tater eyes see more and more people wearing their independence bonnets these days. Finally, folks in these parts are speaking more of Tater's language instead of trying to kiss that fat king's crown while he's trying to kick ours all the way south of Georgia. First, there was Thomas Paine's "Common Sense," which came out in January. The title alone got my attention - you know how Tater feels about plain old common sense - and there was plenty in Paine's work. He called for us colonists to rebel against the British monarchy (I always thought that was a funny word, sounds more like some kind of fancy bird) and proclaim our independence. But it wasn't just the title that got Tater's attention. Paine made us feel this was our time to show what we're made of by rebelling against "a violent abuse of power" and throw away the tyranny of a king just like my horse Sir Liberty Bell III of Salem Hills, Va.
"These are the times that try men's souls," Common Sense began: "The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country, but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered."
I hope at least my grandchildren will one day read these words, but you never know what writings will be handed down to future generations. The worst fear many of us independence patriots have is for the colonies to win this fight for freedom, give birth to a country and one day have citizens who forget what we broke from the mother ship for in the first place. Freedom, to us, is life. To some of us, it will be death. We don't want it to ever be used as a catchphrase or an excuse for laziness or wrongdoing.
"The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind," Paine wrote. "We have it in our power to begin the world over again... The birth-day of a new world is at hand."
The war began in April 1775 at Lexington and Concord and soon spread to Bunker Hill and Breed's Hill, but in the past year, independence has spread like yellow fever. In June, Richard Henry Lee read a resolution that proclaimed the right of the colonies to be free and independent states, absolved from any connection to Great Britain. Lee's resolution led to five men - John Adams, Roger Sherman, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston and Thomas Jefferson - hammering out the details for a new kind of declaration - one that proclaimed a new nation, independent and free. All Willie the worm needs to know, he can learn from those powerful words Thomas Jefferson wrote to know what this war is really about: the basic fact "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights," and "that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
For those of you in Great Britain who may have trouble with learning, this means we no longer consent. We could hear the Liberty Bell ringing outside the State House after they adopted the Declaration of Independence, and I hear General Washington made copies of the important paper and read it to his Army who are preparing for a fight against the British Armada at Long Island, N.Y. People throughout the colonies are lighting fires and launching rockets all night to celebrate.
When we win our independence, I hope Americans will remember what it took to form this country and never take this date, or the freedoms they enjoy because of what we're doing, for granted. The worst thing that could happen would be for any American to just look at the fourth day of July as a day to not work. The war isn't even a year old, and we already realize the price that has to be paid. I hope future Americans will never fail to realize it as well.

Tater Hales' Dispatch from the American Revolution Battles of Lexington and Concord - April 1775

Despite what some of these little rags that call themselves newspapers around the colonies have been printing, my good buddy Paul Revere did not yell, "The British are coming. The British are coming," during his brave ride to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams and other patriots about the British march toward Concord. Ole Tater was there, and let me tell you he said no such thing. What he said was, "The regulars are coming out." If w'ere going to win this fight, we should at least get the story straight.
By now you've probably heard the news from Lexington and Concord, we are at war. The Battle of Lexington didn't last long - we had only about 70 colonial Minutemen against 700 British soldiers, but their Lt. Col. Francis Smith said exactly what the Tater has been thinking since the night we fed the fish at Boston Harbor some tea: "Stand your ground, don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here." I guess the redcoat colonel knows by now that we mean to fight.
But you probably haven't heard the full true account of what happened that night, about my buddy Paul Revere's little midnight ride to Lexington. The British had sent Gen. Thomas Gage to destroy our military stores in Concord. He didn't even tell his own officers his plan until the last minute because they were after Hancock and Adams, and he wanted it to be a complete surprise. What he didn't know was we were all watching in Boston, and let me tell you those British do look silly marching in those red uniforms. So when they crossed the Charles River under a bright yellow moon about midnight, Revere was right behind them. I was out on my own horse, Boone, near Cambridge, when I met Revere galloping like the dickens on some old horse he'd found. So I decided to tag behind him.
Revere had already had friends put two lanterns in the Old North Church to signal patriots in Charlestown that British troops were coming by sea. He went directly to Jonas Clarke's house, where Adams and Hancock were staying, and issued the warning. "The regulars are coming out."
After that, Revere and another rider, a tanner named William Dawes, decided to warn every house on the way to Concord, but they only made it to the outskirts of the town of Lincoln, where the regulars had established a roadblock. They tried to run their horses through them, but the British whippersnappers took my buddy prisoner, although his companion got away.
Here's where it gets funny. Ole Tater had told him if he were ever to get taken by any British soldier, to have some fun with them. So he decides to tell his captors that he knew more than they did about their own mission, and if they remained in Lexington, they would be taking their lives into their own hands because we would soon have more than 500 men there ready to fight. We had no such thing, but Revere is quite the poker player - the regulars bought his bluff. They made him remount his horse, and they headed toward Lexington Green when suddenly a gunshot rang out. Revere told the British officer it was a signal "to alarm the country." Not long after that came more sounds: the crash of a musketry volley that sounded like it came from the Lexington meeting house and the ringing of the town bell. Another colonist the regulars had taken prisoner, who was a resident of Lexington, then turned around and said, "The bell's a ringing! The town's alarmed, and you're all dead men!"
Tater found out later that the musketry sound was only caused by some Lexington men discharging their weapons before going into the tavern. You know most of the taverns won't let us come in with a loaded musket. But the British didn't know that. So as you can see, already some people are spreading fibs about Revere's midnight ride and the battle at Lexington. I'm sure many colonists around Boston may say it doesn't matter because he was able to warn so many people. After all, they say who is going to remember a little horseback ride on a spring Boston evening? They just better not say any such thing to Tater's face. I didn't go to the tavern tonight, so my musket is loaded. Whether we win this war with King George III or not, Tater will make sure people around here don't forget Revere's midnight ride. And doggone it, the man's words were, "The regulars are coming."

Tater Hales' Dispatch from the American Revolution Retreat at Long Island, Summer 1776

One thing that gets this old tart's dander up is when some folks show their coward's tail while others stand up and fight like true soldiers, but that's exactly what your favorite Tater saw here in New York this month. We were outnumbered almost 2 to 1 and suffered a dreadful defeat at Long Island this day, but let me assure you we will fight another day, thanks to some clever strategic retreating. The redcoats came at us with just about everything, especially after they heard about that little piece of paper we signed in Philadelphia. I heard General Washington had the Declaration of Independence copied and read to his entire Army July 9.
But already the British Gen. William Howe and Admiral Lord Richard Howe had begun to bring in 30 battleships in the New York harbor, with 1,200 cannon, 30,000 soldiers, 10,000 sailors and 300 supply ships. I heard Howe even had the audacity to say, "Peace will be made within 10 days after my arrival." Peace must have a different meaning in the mother country.
You won't believe this, but both those British scoundrels tried writing General Washington to tell him they would pardon us, but he wouldn't even read it, because they didn't address him as "General." I had my own ideas of what they could do with those letters, but the general just refused them. We have our own kind of pardon, but we like to call them musket balls.
However, Washington did kind of tell them what they could do with the pardon they were offering. "Having committed no fault, we need no pardon; we are only defending what we deem to be our indisputable rights," he said. Three British frigates - the Phoenix, Rose and Greyhound - were causing us all kinds of trouble from Long Island to Staten Island, and then the Brits came ashore Aug. 27. The truth is we almost lost it all because of some stupid mistakes when General Cornwallis attacked. Many just turned tail and ran like dogs. Some even burned the bridge over the Gowanus Creek, making it impossible for others to retreat safely.
When the Germans attacked at Prospect Park, some had to hide in the woods. Lord Stirling helped save the day by leading a force of 250 Maryland men who held off the British to allow most of the army to escape. Most of them were captured or killed. I heard only 10 made it back to the main body of our army.
Stirling himself was left no choice but surrender, but he refused to give up his sword to a British commander. Instead, he surrendered to a German general. Night began to fall and Howe paused so he decided to try to wait us out. Meanwhile, General Washington began an all-out evacuation. Those Massachusetts Marbleheaders, a fine bunch of fishermen, rowed us across the East River to Manhattan at dusk under cover of a heaven-sent fog.
By the time the fog lifted the next morning, all the British found were empty trenches. We heard later that a freedom-loving woman named Mrs. Murray helped us by holding up General Howe in her home. While she offered him refreshments, our troops made their getaway. Still, we lost 1,407 patriots, and 312 of them were killed. But I don't think Howe still thinks he will win as easily as he did before the battle. Old Ben Franklin tried to tell him when he responded to a letter Howe sent him:
"This war against us is both unjust and unwise: posterity will condemn to infamy those who advised it; and even success will not save from some degree of dishonor those who voluntarily engage to conduct it." In other words, Admiral Howe, you will see much more of us.

Dispatches from the American Revolution - the Legend of Tater Hales

Tater Hales can best be described by one of his own statements: "People say dogs forgive easily. Well, Tater Hales ain't no dog."
The 50-something year-old Virginian uses his anger, currently directed at the British government and their tyranny over the American colonies, in dispatches he sends to the small hometown newspaper in Virginia he bought with the money he brought back from the French and Indian War. He somehow finds himself conveniently where historic events happen and uses his unique perspective in the stories he sends back home. Even if flies and mosquitoes can't stand Tater, let's see how the British soldiers take him.

Prologue

I know you whippersnappers out there don't know who I am, but you're gonna know me soon. My name is Tater Hales, and I fought for our former motherland in that old French and Indian War. I won't say what I did with the red uniform when I came back.
Anyway, I come back home and just try to start up a little old rag, just like ole Ben, and King George starts poking his nose in our business. So now ole Tater's poking his nose in the highness' business.
I'm dispatching what I see in the colonies, what they say to get old George fired up, what I see the redcoats doing, and what we do back to them. Tater hears some business will be going on in the Boston Harbor. I'm not sure exactly what it's going to be yet. But ole Tater always gets answers, even if it takes a good ole punch in the nose to get 'em talking. One thing you can stake your little teabags on: You can trust ole Tater to get you the story.