In 1980 I watched the film series “Free to Choose” and Walter Williams was in that film series. I really liked what he had to say.
Dr. Walter Williams proposes:
Failing Public Schools – Give parents greater control over their children’s education by setting up a tuition tax credit or voucher system to broaden competition in turn revitalizing both public and non-public schools
Sweden’s Voucher System Part 1
Pat Lynch “In search of Leadership,” (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Feb 7, 2011) asserted, “Goodness knows, the Little Rock School District gets a fair amount of criticism, and a good deal of it is entirely deserved…Central Arkansas deserves better…”
It is a wonder to me that liberals never admit that maybe the voucher system is worth trying since the current public school system in Little Rock is not working.
Did you know that many of the liberals in Sweden have endorsed the voucher system put in place there? I will be posting parts of the article “Sweden’s school voucher system is a model for America,” (The Daily Caller, Jan 23, 2011) by Odd Eiken.
In 1993, Sweden introduced a system of school choice and vouchers, inspired by the ideas of American economists Milton and Rose Friedman. Even though the system was just as controversial then as any U.S. voucher proposal, the right to chose your school and bring the funding with you is today considered a natural right for families and is widely accepted by all political parties.
Even Sweden’s Social Democratic Party supports the system and recently closed an internal debate on for-profit schools by deciding that there is no virtue in running schools at a loss: schools should be judged on their academic performance, not financial.
The reason for the Swedish voucher reform was both philosophical and practical. The philosophical argument was that since taxpayers have agreed to share the cost for a free and good education, then why should some have to pay for it twice — first with taxes and then in private school fees? The more practical argument came from Swedish experience with educational reforms and innovations in the 1970s that to a large degree failed. It not only caused high costs for society and generations of students who saw few improvements, but it also created an aversion against further innovations and pedagogical experiments.
As American state legislatures begin to convene this winter and again consider education reform, they should empower families and create conditions for entrepreneurship. And as school choice gains popularity among parents and taxpayers, particularly as this is National School Choice Week in the U.S., vouchers should absolutely be on the agenda.
When we designed the Swedish voucher system, we followed the Friedmans’ advice to keep it universal and simple. The answer was a system where funding follows the student regardless of their parents’ income. Under our system, every family has the right to choose a school that’s right for their child. And every student brings with him the same amount of per pupil funding as the cost of the public school in his or her home district.
But under our system, equal terms work both ways. If a school chooses to be part of the voucher system, it has to be all-inclusive, provide national standards and have its performance monitored. And it has no right to charge its students fees beyond the voucher. The purpose was to create equal financial conditions while protecting the ultimate right of the voters and taxpayers to create a budget for spending on schools. Since the public school still often is the default choice, that means that independent schools need to be more creative, productive or academically successful with equal funding in order to compete.
Mr. Odd Eiken is Executive Vice President of Kunskapsskolan Education, the largest private school provider in Sweden. He was State Secretary of Schools in Sweden 1991-94 and helped develop the nation’s voucher reform.
President and Nancy Reagan posing with Sylvester Stallone and Brigitte Nielsen during a state dinner for Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. 10/8/85.
I was involved in the 1980 campaign for Ronald Reagan because of several factors. One of these influences on me was the book “Free to Choose” by Milton and Rose Friedman. Below you will see a clip from Phil Donahue’s Show with Milton Friedman.
I am going to post portions of this article by Ronald Reagan the next few days.
June 10, 2004, 10:30 a.m.
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
Ronald Reagan’s pro-life tract.
EDITOR’S NOTE: While president, Ronald Reagan penned this article for The Human Life Review, unsolicited. It ran in the Review‘s Spring 1983, issue and is reprinted here with permission.
Mother Teresa “the greatest misery of our time is the generalized abortion of children.”
Abortion concerns not just the unborn child, it concerns every one of us. The English poet, John Donne, wrote: “. . . any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn — without diminishing the value of all human life. We saw tragic proof of this truism last year when the Indiana courts allowed the starvation death of “Baby Doe” in Bloomington because the child had Down’s Syndrome.
Many of our fellow citizens grieve over the loss of life that has followed Roe v. Wade. Margaret Heckler, soon after being nominated to head the largest department of our government, Health and Human Services, told an audience that she believed abortion to be the greatest moral crisis facing our country today. And the revered Mother Teresa, who works in the streets of Calcutta ministering to dying people in her world-famous mission of mercy, has said that “the greatest misery of our time is the generalized abortion of children.”
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Friedman, shows why he is unsurpassed in modern times in defending liberty. He cheerfully decapitates the ideas of a government-controlled economy, over a wide range of examples. His layman’s explanation as to how government intervention and the Federal Reserve control of the money supply helped cause the Great Depression is simply outstanding.
On his epitaph, which he composed, Jefferson mentions that he was the author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statuette of Virginia for Religious Freedom and that he was the father of the University of Virginia. He neglected to mention he had been the President of the United States.g
Teddy Roosevelt’s last request before dying was “Please put out the light.” Thomas Jefferson’s last words were “This is the Fourth?” John Adam’s dying words were “Thomas Jefferson still survives,” unaware that Jefferson had passed away a few hours earlier.k
Mississippi Center for Public Policy and The Federalist Society present: Is ObamaCare Good for Patients, Doctors, Employers, & State Budgets?
Above you will see a clip from Mississippi concerning health care. My mother’s parents lived in Mississippi and I grew up going down there to visit my cousins. They were football fans and we used to go see Ole Miss take on Miss St many times in Jackson. Emory Bellard was the coach at Miss State from 1979 to 1985. Dave Campbell wrote an excellent article remembering the life of Bellard.
Emory Bellard will be remembered as the man who created the Wishbone.
As a member of Darrell Royal’s Texas Longhorn coaching staff in 1968, Bellard developed the triple-option offense that utilized three running backs lined up in an inverted “U” formation behind the quarterback.
A year later, when Texas won the national championship on the way to 30 straight wins, Bellard’s offense changed the look of college football and brought a huge number of high school teams along for the ride…
Bellard, who was head coach at A&M from 1972-78, was honored at the Texas Sports Hall of Fame last October, where his players, assistant coaches, opposing coaches, family and friends sang his praise.
The Hall of Fame in Waco opened a permanent exhibit dedicated to Bellard, a 1995 inductee…
The 12th Man Kickoff Team later honored Bellard at its annual banquet. The former A&M coach was recognized at halftime of the Aggies’ win over Nebraska.
“As a young football coach, you couldn’t have a better mentor than Coach Bellard,” Slocum said. “He was an outstanding football coach, but more than that, he was a great human being. Being able to see how he handled people and situations was a great learning opportunity for me. He always thought and saw the best in people. He loved his players, and his players loved playing for him.”
Slocum had a chance last week to talk with Bellard.
“[Coach Bellard] told me, ‘I’ve led a great life. I got to do exactly what I wanted to do at some great institutions and with some great young men,'” Slocum said.
In seven years at A&M, Bellard went 48-27, leading the Aggies to two 10-win seasons. His Aggies went 10-2 and shared the Southwest Conference title in 1975, and Bellard earned the American Football Coaches Association award as the College Coach of the Year. In 1976, the Aggies closed the season ranked seventh nationally after beating Florida in the Sun Bowl 37-14 to finish 10-2 again…
Emory Bellard took over as head coach at Mississippi State from 1979-85. In seven seasons in Starkville, Miss., he posted a record of 37-42. Two of his teams finished in the Top 20. He coached the Bulldogs to back-to-back bowl games for the first time in school history.
His 1980 team finished 9-3 and beat top-ranked Alabama 6-3, ending Alabama’s 28-game winning streak. By the time Bellard’s teams upset the Crimson Tide, Alabama head coach Bear Bryant had long since installed the Wishbone offense for his attack.
Bellard’s Wishbone revolution became the offense of choice for 14 national championship teams.
Emory Bellard, who was a head coach at Texas A&M, is credited with helping create the wishbone offense while a UT assistant. / SA
Emory Bellard, who was a head coach at Texas A&M, is credited with…
Emory Bellard, head coach of the Texas A&M Football team during the 1970s. EN File. / SA
Emory Bellard, head coach of the Texas A&M Football team during the…
I just wanted to add one thing about Miss St and the cowbell. Why are the Miss St fans the only fans in the world allowed to use artificial noise makers? It bugged me back in the 1970’s and it bugs me now. I personally believe it will take them winning the SEC before enough anger is aroused by this to do something about it.
The strongest legal argument — implicitly supported by the HCFA — attacks the constitutionality of the individual mandate to buy health insurance. “The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.” Cong. Budget Office, The Budgetary Treatment of an Individual Mandate to Buy Health Insurance 1 (1994). Nor has it ever said that every man and woman can be fined for declining to participate in the marketplace. And never before have courts had to consider such a breathtaking assertion of raw power under the Commerce Clause. Even at the height of the New Deal, in the infamous case of Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 11 (1942), the federal government claimed “merely” the power to regulate what farmers grew, not to mandate that people become farmers or require people to buy farm products.
But that should not be surprising, because ours is a government of delegated and enumerated powers and the Constitution does not grant Congress the power to force private commercial transactions. Even if the Supreme Court has broadened the scope of congressional authority under the Commerce Clause — it can now reach local activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce — never before has it allowed people to face a civil penalty for not buying a particular product.
Stated another way, every exercise of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce has involved some form of action or transaction engaged in by an individual or legal entity. The government’s theory — that the decision not to buy insurance is an economic one that affects interstate commerce in various ways — would, for the first time ever, permit laws commanding people to engage in economic activity.
Under such a reading, which two judges in other Obamacare cases have alas accepted, Congress would be the sole arbiter of its own powers, the only checks on which would be political. The federal government would have plenary authority to compel activities ranging from eating spinach and joining gyms (in the health care realm) to buying GM cars (as part of an auto bailout). Authority so novel and sweeping would be indistinguishable from a general “police power,” which is irreconcilable with the established principle that Congress has only limited and enumerated powers. As Judge Henry Hudson said in striking down the individual mandate in the Virginia case, “This broad definition of the economic activity subject to congressional regulation lacks logical limitation and is unsupported by Commerce Clause jurisprudence.”
President and Nancy Reagan talking to Mother Teresa in the Oval Office. 6/20/85.
Ronald Reagan radio address from 1975 addresses the topics of abortion and adoption.
Dr. Adrian Rogers was my pastor from 1975 to 1983 and he had a big impact on me and my views on abortion. Below is a video clip from his memorial service which I attended. I am going to post portions of this article by Ronald Reagan the next few days.
June 10, 2004, 10:30 a.m.
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation
Ronald Reagan’s pro-life tract.
EDITOR’S NOTE: While president, Ronald Reagan penned this article for The Human Life Review, unsolicited. It ran in the Review‘s Spring 1983, issue and is reprinted here with permission.
Justice Byron White: “raw judicial power.”
The 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade is a good time for us to pause and reflect. Our nationwide policy of abortion-on-demand through all nine months of pregnancy was neither voted for by our people nor enacted by our legislators — not a single state had such unrestricted abortion before the Supreme Court decreed it to be national policy in 1973. But the consequences of this judicial decision are now obvious: since 1973, more than 15 million unborn children have had their lives snuffed out by legalized abortions. That is over ten times the number of Americans lost in all our nation’s wars.
Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. No serious scholar, including one disposed to agree with the Court’s result, has argued that the framers of the Constitution intended to create such a right. Shortly after the Roe v. Wade decision, Professor John Hart Ely, now Dean of Stanford Law School, wrote that the opinion “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” Nowhere do the plain words of the Constitution even hint at a “right” so sweeping as to permit abortion up to the time the child is ready to be born. Yet that is what the Court ruled.
As an act of “raw judicial power” (to use Justice White’s biting phrase), the decision by the seven-man majority in Roe v. Wade has so far been made to stick. But the Court’s decision has by no means settled the debate. Instead, Roe v. Wade has become a continuing prod to the conscience of the nation.
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Little known presidential facts:
John Tyler (1790-1862) had more children than any other president. He had eight by his first wife and seven by his second. He was 70 when his last child, Pearl, was born. He was also the first president to get married in office, though his eight children form his first wife did not approve of the wedding and did not attend.j
Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911-2004) won the Most Nearly Perfect Male Figure Award from the University of California in 1940.k
Dr. Adrian Rogers was my pastor from 1975 to 1983 and he had a big impact on me and my views on abortion. Below is a video clip from his memorial service which I attended.
I am very pleased with the uprising across the country to try and stop Obamacare. Unfortunately the governor and attorney general in Arkansas are Democrats that want no part of that. The people are Arkansas in my home town of Bryant don’t see it that way though.
Ilya Shapiro, Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute, accepts the challenge to debate the constitutionality of ObamaCare.
Thank you very much for the invitation to share my thoughts on Arkansas’ proposed Health Care Freedom Act (HCFA) and how it relates to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, commonly known as “Obamacare”). In my capacity as a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute — a nonpartisan public policy foundation dedicated to advancing the principles of individual liberty, free markets, and limited government — I have been speaking and writing about how Obamacare destroys federalism and fundamentally transforms the relationship between citizen and government. I have also been extensively involved with the lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of various parts of the law, including having filed several amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs.
The HCFA seeks to protect two essential rights. First, it protects a person’s right to participate or not in any health care system and prohibits the government from imposing fines or penalties on that person’s decision. Second, it protects the right of individuals to purchase — and the right of doctors to provide — lawful medical services without government fine or penalty.
No one questions the need for serious health care reform. Regardless of how such reform is fashioned, however, either at the state or federal level, the essential rights protected by the HCFA should be preserved. Indeed, supporters of provisions like the HCFA have a variety of perspectives on the form that health care reform should take, but they agree that no matter what legislation is passed, it should not take from Americans their right to control their own medical affairs. It is that precious right which is at stake here, for in many countries where the government plays a larger role in regulating or providing health insurance — including compelling individuals to join government-approved health plans — health care is rationed and individuals are prevented or discouraged from obtaining otherwise lawful medical services.
Now, as a matter of law, it is well established that the U.S. Constitution provides a baseline for the protection of individual rights, and that states may provide additional protections — and all of them do. For instance, some states provide greater protections of freedom of speech or due process rights.
Still, there is serious tension between the HCFA and certain parts of Obamacare. The Supremacy Clause establishes the Constitution as the supreme law of the land and provides that federal law prevails over conflicting state law where Congress has the legitimate authority — from its enumerated powers — to enact the legislation and where it does not impermissibly tread upon state sovereignty. The various lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare assert a number of claims relating to these principles. The Florida-led suit, which now boasts 26 state plaintiffs, is perhaps most famous, but the separate cases brought by Virginia and Oklahoma, respectively, are notable because they are based largely on those states’ HCFAs (the former enacted as state law, the latter as a popularly ratified state constitutional amendment).
As should by now be clear, the state lawsuits, among others, are serious challenges maintained by serious lawyers and public officials. They question an unprecedented assertion of power — literally without legal precedent both in its regulatory scope and its expansion of federal authority — that, if left unchecked, would gravely alter the relationship of the federal government to the states and to the people. Nobody would ever again be able to claim plausibly that the Constitution limits federal power.
Mississippi Center for Public Policy and The Federalist Society present: Is ObamaCare Good for Patients, Doctors, Employers, & State Budgets?
Emancipation Proclamation of Preborn Children video of Reagan’s statement
President Reagan presents Mother Teresa with the Medal of Freedom at a White House Ceremony. 6/20/85.
Why did I get so involved in campaigning for Ronald Reagan? Simply put it was a combination of factors. I will going through them the next few days. Today I am going to just talk about the first influence and it was the film series Whatever happened to the human race? by Reagan’s Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and Francis Schaeffer. I watched this film series over and over in 1980. Watch a clip below.
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NOW THEREFORE, I, RONALD REAGAN, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim and declare the unalienable personhood of every American, from the moment of conception until natural death, and I do proclaim, ordain, and declare that I will take care that the Constitution and laws of the United States are faithfully executed for the protection of America’s unborn children. Upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God. I also proclaim Sunday, January 17, 1988, as a national Sanctity of Human Life Day. I call upon the citizens of this blessed land to gather on that day in their homes and places of worship to give thanks for the gift of life they enjoy and to reaffirm their commitment to the dignity of every human being and sanctity of every human life.
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Clip from the film series Whatever happened to the human race? by Reagan’s Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and Francis Schaeffer
Little known presidential facts:
Sally Hemings (ca. 1773-1885) was not only Jefferson’s slave, but also the half-sister of Jefferson’s dead wife. She is said to have been Jefferson’s mistress for thirty-eight years, and scholars have argued for years whether Jefferson was the father of her children. DNA tests in 1998 revealed that a male in Jefferson’s line was the father of at least one of her children, though it did not prove conclusively that Jefferson himself fathered them.c
When Martin Van Buren wrote his autobiography after serving as president from 1837-1841, he didn’t mention his wife of 12 years. Not even once.i
His most underestimated political achievement? In the spring of 1981 the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization called an illegal strike. It was early in Reagan’s presidency. He’d been a union president. He didn’t want to come across as an anti-union Republican. And Patco had been one of the few unions to support him in 1980. But the strike was illegal. He would not accept it. He gave them a grace period, two days, to come back. If they didn’t, they’d be fired. They didn’t believe him. Most didn’t come back. So he fired them. It broke the union. Federal workers got the system back up. The Soviet Union, and others, were watching. They thought: This guy means business. It had deeply positive implications for U.S. foreign policy. But here’s the thing: Reagan didn’t know that would happen, didn’t know the bounty he’d reap. He was just trying to do what was right.
The least understood facet of Reagan’s nuclear policies? He hated the rise of nuclear weapons, abhorred the long-accepted policy of mutually assured destruction. That’s where the Strategic Defense Initiative came from, his desire to protect millions from potential annihilation. The genius of his program: When developed, America would share it with the Soviet Union. We’d share it with everybody. All would be protected from doomsday.
The Soviets opposed this; the Rejkavik summit broke up over it, and in the end the Soviets’ arms spending helped bankrupt them and hasten their fall. Years later I would see Mikhail Gorbachev, who became Reagan’s friend. He was still grumpy about Reagan’s speeches. “Ron—he loved show business!” Mr. Gorbachev blustered. The losses of those years must have still rankled, and understandably. It’s one thing to be outmaneuvered by a clever man, but to be outfoxed by a good one—oh, that would grate.
Mississippi Center for Public Policy and The Federalist Society present: Is ObamaCare Good for Patients, Doctors, Employers, & State Budgets? (What kind of affect will Obamacare have on local state governments?)
I got to talk to Rex Nelson the other day on Bill Vickery’s show the Sunday Buzz. He remember back in August of 2010 when I introduced him to Sherwood Haisty down at the Grady Fish Fry. Mr. Haisty has been involved with the Fish Fry since 1970 and many of his relatives have been all 55 of them. (Rex wrote on this too.)
I told Rex that is funny the way the politicians all say the same thing during the fish fry. They come up to you and say, “I can see that you are enjoying your fish and I would hate to interrupt that…” Then they go ahead and interrupt your meal.
It is a great experience to see all the politicians, and this year Mark Pryor can and visited with me. I just did not have the heart to say what I really wanted to. “Mark, do you see the political climate changing in Arkansas? Are you going to continue to support liberal ideas like Obamacare?” I have written on this before.
Dumas wrongly believes that President Obama’s Health Care Reform Act is popular with the people of Arkansas. Since Arkansas has voted as a red state the last two presidential elections, you would think that Fox News Poll would accurately reflect the views of Arkansans.
Most Americans see no upside for their family in the health care reforms being considered in Washington and don’t believe President Obama when he says his plan won’t add “one dime” to the federal deficit. The majority of Americans believe they will have to make changes to their health care coverage if the president’s plan is passed.
These are just some of the findings of a new FOX News poll released Thursday.
More Americans would rather Congress do nothing than pass Obama’s plan: 46 percent to 37 percent of people polled say they prefer the current health care system to the one the president has proposed.
Similarly, more people oppose — 48 percent — the health care reform legislation being considered right now than favor it — 38 percent. While most Democrats — 65 percent — favor the reforms, majorities of Republicans — 79 percent — and independents (55 percent) oppose them.
This is not surprising given less than one in four Americans (22 percent) think they would be better off under the reforms, and many (60 percent) think they will probably have to make changes to their health coverage despite Obama’s assurances that they will not have to. In addition, a sizable majority (67 percent) thinks the president’s plan will increase the national deficit.
Polls that ask whether respondents like the legislation’s supposed benefits (e.g., reduced insurance premiums for the sick) without asking about the corresponding costs (higher premiums for the healthy, insurers denying care to the sick) are meaningless.
The public has consistently expressed its intense opposition to the Obama plan for eight solid months. Democratic pollsters Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen note that “four-fifths of those who oppose the plan strongly oppose it … while only half of those who support the plan do so strongly.” A small, radical, left-wing minority is foisting this legislation on an unwilling public.
This is the second of 11 parts. In this segment, Lucille Ball receives a surprise on-air phone message from Gov. Ronald Reagan. This show was first broadcast in November 1973
My wife and I love to watch “I love Lucy.” The shows are priceless. Below you will see a picture of Lucy. The funny thing is that during the late 1970’s my parents and I would watch the show “Sneak Previews with Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel. When they would not like a comedy, they would say, “That is silly as I LOVE LUCY.” They meant that in a negative way and I know that my mother was ready to switch channels when they said that.
He ran for president four times and lost twice. His 1968 run was a flop—it was too early, as he later admitted, and when it’s too early, it never ends well. In 1976 he took on an incumbent Republican president of his own party, and lost primaries in New Hampshire, Florida, Illinois (where he’d been born), Massachusetts and Vermont. It was hand-to-hand combat all the way to the convention, where he lost to Gerald Ford. People said he was finished. He roared back in 1980 only to lose Iowa and scramble back in New Hampshire while reorganizing his campaign and firing his top staff. He won the nomination and faced another incumbent president.
In Reagan’s candidacy the American people were being asked to choose a former movie star (never had one as president) who was divorced (ditto) and who looked like he might become the most conservative president since Calvin Coolidge. To vote for Reagan was not only to take a chance on an unusual man with an unusual biography, but also to break with New Deal-Great Society assumptions about the proper relationship between the individual and the state. Americans did, in a landslide—but only after Jimmy Carter’s four years of shattering failure.
None of it was inevitable. The political lesson of Ronald Reagan’s life: Nothing is written.
He didn’t see himself as “the great communicator.” It was so famous a moniker that he could do nothing but graciously accept the compliment, but he well understood it was bestowed in part by foes and in part to undercut the seriousness of his philosophy: “It’s not what he says, it’s how he says it.” He answered in his farewell address: “I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference: it was the content. I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things.” It wasn’t his eloquence people supported, it was his stands—opposition to the too-big state, to its intrusions and demands, to Soviet communism. Voters weren’t charmed, they were convinced.
President Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Tom Selleck, Dudley Moore, Lucille Ball at a Tribute to Bob Hope’s 80th birthday at the Kennedy Center. 5/20/83.
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Little known presidential facts:
Warren Harding once lost priceless White House China playing poker
Harding was obsessed with poker and once bet an entire set of priceless White House China and lost it.k
During his second run for presidency, Teddy Roosevelt was shot by a would-be assassin while giving a speech in Milwaukee. He continued to deliver his speech with the bullet in his chest.i
Thomas Jefferson was convinced that if he soaked his feet in a bucket of cold water every day, he’d never get a cold.k
Okinawa – At the Emperor’s Doorstep” episode from “WWII: GI Diary”….. This old 1978 TV docu-drama was narrated by Lloyd Bridges and told the stories of real soldiers/sailors/pilots and their first-hand experiences in battle. Archival footage and good background music really made the stories come alive…..about 25 episodes were made. Video converted from really old VHS tape………. This is the story of the invasion and capture of the island of Okinawa in 1945–the last major land battle of WW2…..part 1 of 3
Okinawa
Leon McDaniel said the battle of Okinawa proved to be the roughest on the Army, Navy and Marines. More men and ships were lost during this battle because of Japanese kamikaze attacks than any other battle.
The USS George Clymer was targeted by a kamikaze plane, but it missed. The USS Bunker Hill aircraft carrier was not so lucky. On the morning of May 11, 1945, 346 men were killed in one attack by kamikaze pilot Ensign Klyoshi Ogawa of Japan.
During the very intense battles, McDaniel would wait in the landing crafts a half-mile from shore for the troops to bring the wounded men down to the shore, where he then picked up the wounded and carried them to the waiting hospital ships.
After Okinawa, McDaniel said, the USS Clymer and many other ships were near the Philippine Islands when they were hit by a typhoon. The ships were in the storm for close to 24 hours. Ships became separated, and a destroyer was never seen or heard from again.
The swells were 80 feet high, McDaniel recalled, and the ship would ride to the top of many swells and then the whole bottom would fall out. McDaniel did have to serve on deck during part of that storm. He was tied to the watch station and at other times he was tied to his bunk.
McDaniel had a twin brother named Louie (now deceased) who served on the USS George Clymer with him. Before receiving ship assignments they were told to ask for no special treatment or assignments. However, Leon had made a promise to his mother to bring Louie and himself home again. So he asked for special permission to be kept together because of being twins and was granted his request.
Leon McDaniel said he participated in the attacks on Guam, Saipan, Leyte, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and for these battles he was awarded five medals.
I have known McDaniel’s daughter, Linda Matyskiela and her husband, Terry, for 10 years as the owners of Bobby’s Country Cookin’ in Little Rock. Linda recently told me, “Daddy, for the last few months, seems to be living in those days that he once would never talk about. My sister Karen and I are so proud of what he did for our country in those many months. He lost friends and shipmates. He kept in touch with several of these men from the ship (from Texas) until the last few years. My family thanks you very much for wanting to share part of his time in World War II. We are so proud of him.”
Linda told me that McDaniel was humbled by my plans to write this article. However, it is I and the readers of this newspaper that should feel humbled to have brave heroes such as Leon McDaniel who have served our Armed Forces and did what had to be done to get us to the point where we could celebrate our nation’s first VJ Day 65 years ago today.
Everette Hatcher is a regular contributor to The Saline Courier and is the fourth generation in his family to work in the broom manufacturing business. Everette and his wife, Jill, have four children and live in Alexander.
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This is the story of the invasion and capture of the island of Okinawa in 1945–the last major land battle of WW2…..part 2 of 3
This is the story of the invasion and capture of the island of Okinawa in 1945–the last major land battle of WW2…..part 3 of 3
