From George Will,Town Hall

CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. — Numbers come precisely from the agile mind and nimble tongue of Frank Buckles, who seems bemused to say that 4,734,991 Americans served in the military during America’s involvement in the First World War and 4,734,990 are gone. He is feeling fine, thank you for asking.

The eyes of the last doughboy are still sharp enough for him to be a keen reader, and his voice is still deep and strong at age 107. He must have been a fine broth of a boy when, at 16, persistence paid off and he found, in Oklahoma City, an Army recruiter who believed, or pretended to, the fibs he had unavailingly told to Marine and Navy recruiters in Kansas about being 18. He grew up on a Missouri farm, not far from where two eminent generals were born — John “Black Jack” Pershing and Omar Bradley.

“Boys in the country,” says Buckles, “read the papers,” so he was eager to get into the fight over there. He was told that the quickest way was to train for casualty retrieval and ambulance operations. Soon he was headed for England aboard the passenger ship Carpathia, which was celebrated for having, five years earlier, rescued survivors from the Titanic.

Buckles never saw combat but “I saw the results.” He seems vague about only one thing: What was the First World War about?

Before leaving England for France, he was stationed near Winchester College, where he noticed “Buckles” among the names that boys had carved in their desks. This ignited his interest in genealogy, which led him to discover that his ancestor Robert Buckles, born in Yorkshire on May 15, 1702, arrived at age 30 in what is now West Virginia.

After Corporal Buckles was mustered out of the Army in 1920 with $143.90 in his pocket, he went to business school in Oklahoma City for five months, then rented a typewriter for $3 a month and sent out job applications. One landed him work in the steamship business, which took him around the world — Latin America, China, Manchuria. And Germany, where, he says, in 1928 “two impressive gentlemen” told him, “We are preparing for another war.”

Behind glass in a cabinet in his small sitting room are mementos from his eventful life: a German army belt with a buckle bearing words all nations believe, “Gott Mit Uns (God Is With Us).” The tin cup from which he ate all his meals, such as they were, during the 39 months he was a prisoner of the Japanese — because he was working for a shipping company in Manila on Dec. 7, 1941.

Widowed in 1999, this man who was born during the administration of the 25th president recently voted in West Virginia’s primary to select a candidate to be the 44th. His favorite president of his lifetime? The oldest, Ronald Reagan.

Buckles is reading David McCullough’s “1776.” That date is just 18 years more distant from his birth than today is.

This Memorial Day, Buckles will be feted back in Missouri, at the annual parade and fireworks in Kansas City. Perhaps he will journey to Bethany, to the house on whose porch he sat at age 3, 104 years ago.

He was born in February 1901, seven months before President William McKinley was assassinated. If Buckles had been born 14 months earlier, he would have lived in three centuries. He has lived through 46 percent of the nation’s life, a percentage that rises each morning when he does.

On June 28, 1914, an assassin’s bullet in Sarajevo killed the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The war that followed took more than 116,000 American lives — more than all of America’s wars after the Second World War. And in a sense, the First World War took many more American lives because it led to the Second World War and beyond.

The First World War is still taking American lives because it destroyed the Austro-Hungarian, Romanoff and Ottoman empires. A shard of the latter is called Iraq.

The 20th century’s winds of war blew billions of ordinary people hither and yon. One of them sits here in a cardigan sweater in an old wood and stone house on a rise on a 330-acre cattle farm. In this case, and probably in every case, the word “ordinary” is inappropriate.

Please take a few minutes to read Michelle Malkin’s post about little Maria Chapman. Your eyes will want to turn away, but you must not neglect so great an instruction in what truly defines life, family, and love.

A Letter Received Today From U.S. Senator David Vitter (R) Louisiana

Dear Friend,
I wanted to inform you about recent efforts by liberals in the U.S. Senate to add amnesty legislation to the Iraq War emergency funding bill.

I recently joined fellow immigration reform-minded colleagues in a letter to U.S. Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid expressing outrage at the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee’s inclusion of the Feinstein AGJobs language to the Iraq War emergency funding bill and urging for the controversial provision to be removed.

The liberal Senate leadership is building a reputation for sneaking unpopular provisions that would never see the light of day as stand-alone bills into larger necessary pieces of legislation, like the Iraq War

supplemental funding bill. These amnesty proponents need to learn that the American people want border security and enforcement as their immigration reform policy, not sweeping amnesty for millions of illegal aliens.

Because of our efforts and the rising outrage and phone calls from concerned citizens like you, the Feinstein AGJobs amnesty provision was removed from the emergency funding bill. As chairman of the U.S. Senate Border Security and Enforcement First Caucus, I will remain ever-vigilant at fighting amnesty provisions in future legislation.

There is absolutely no limit to the depth that amnesty supporters in Congress and the U.S. Senate won’t sink. This time, they have attached an agriculture-amnesty amendment for over 3 million illegals to the Iraq War Funding Bill. Story HERE. Please contact Senator Landrieu and Senator Vitter’s offices and ask them to vote to REMOVE the ag-amnesty amendment to the Iraq Appropriations Bill.

From the Louisiana Action Council

“On Monday, Senate Bill 672, which would nearly triple the base salaries of all Louisiana legislators, breezed through the Senate Finance Committee with unanimous support. Currently, legislators receive a $16,800 annual base salary along with a $6,000 expense allowance. If passed, SB 672 would raise the rank and file legislators base salary to over $50,000 and increase state lawmaker’s expense allowance to $12,000 annually. In addition to the salary and expense increases, legislators will still continue to receive a per diem of $143 for every day that they are in committee or session. Once enacted, the ramifications of SB 672 would make Louisiana legislators the ninth-highest paid state legislative body in the country. This legislation passed through the Senate Finance Committee with very little debate and now proceeds to the full Senate for further discussion.“

Evodna’s commentary: “I do not favor a tripling of the base salaries, however, I do favor an increase. Under the current system of compensation, only the self employed, retired, or independently wealthy can afford to serve as legislators. There are undoubtedly scores of other citizens who are educated, articulate, and imminently qualified, who would do an amazing job of representing their districts, but they can ill afford to give up their current jobs which support their families. Adjusting the base salary would allow for greater participation of average citizens who would like to serve, but are prohibited by salary considerations.”

Yesterday evening, I received an email from LA Realtors, an organization headquartered in Baton Rouge which provides continuing and licensing education for Louisiana Realtors. This group also has a legislative lobbying arm, and it was the legislative arm which listed as its first item an all out call to have Realtors from across Louisiana call their elected officials and oppose House Bill 1365. See LROpposesHB1365.doc .

Being somewhat suspect of the wording at the LA Realtors site, I did a bit of research and discovered that LA Realtors is misrepresenting and mis-characterizing HB 1365. The bill does NOT prohibit renting or leasing property to aliens. The bill DOES prohibit renting or leasing property “knowingly or in reckless disregard for the fact that the alien has entered or remained in the United States in violation of law.”

The bill even provides a defense for those who make a reasonable effort to “verify that the lessee has been lawfully admitted to the United States and that the lessee supplied the lessor with a valid driver’s license, voter registration card, or other proof of his citizenship status or lawful presence in the United States.” (From page 2 of the bill’s text.)

Contrary to the alarmist rhetoric of LA Realtors, the bill does NOT place an undue burden upon lessors. It merely tells them that no longer can they make a fast buck off of people who are in this country illegally, which has the subsequent effect of draining our state’s social services, educational system, health care system, as well as taking jobs away from our own citizens, and threatening our national security. And that’s not alarmist, it is fact. Resource data of the impacts of illegal immigration HERE.

Remember folks, this isn’t just about illegal immigrants from Mexico, many of whom are here simply trying to make a better life for their families (but still here ILLEGALLY). It is also about people from other countries who wish to do us harm. And if those people can find places to rent where all they have to do is dole out cash each month, and where no one asks any questions, it makes it a cakewalk to stay indefinitely in our country to further whatever ill plans they may have for America.

I’d like to think that most lessors are honest, and truly do care about illegal immigration’s impact upon our local communities and upon our state and nation. But the truth is, money talks, many lessors don’t care, and will charge exorbitant amounts for rent, knowing that the illegals will pay if they want to stay. The illegals have no recourse, and the lessors know it.

I hope that every Realtor who received the email from LA Realtors will take the time to read House Bill 1365, get all the facts, and then make a determination as to whether or not they will support or oppose it.

But as a Realtor, I am deeply disappointed in the LA Realtors organization. Their mis-characterization of HB 1365 is inexcusable. Such an incident underscores the need for everyone to take the time to examine the FACTS, rather than simply take as gospel what is sent out as a “legislative alert.”

As a side note, when I logged in to the LA Realtors web site this morning, it defaulted to their post of May 2. You have to scroll down to find their mention of a companion bill to HB 1365. The May 2 post states in part,

“LR is opposing several bills outright or in their current form:
• HB 1157 by Rep. Tim Burns — would prohibit renting or leasing property to illegal aliens and creates a penalty of not more than $500.00 and not more than 6 months in jail if statute is violated. This legislation would create a heavy burden on all property owners who lease or rent property and it is sometimes impossible to identify who is really an illegal alien.”

Faulty premise of the May 2 post notwithstanding, at least in the May 2 post, LA Realtors included the word “illegal”, a vital piece of information which they failed to include in sending out their email alert of May 9.

As for me, I’m contacting my state representative and asking them to SUPPORT HB 1365.

Anti-illegal immigration legislation from other states and effects of such legislation HERE.

From the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action

“This past week, the Senate approved Senate Bill 142, sponsored by State Senator Stephen Scalise (R-9). SB 142, the NRA-backed concealed carry permit confidentiality bill now heads to the House for consideration. Please keep checking your email and www.NRAILA.org for further updates on this legislation.

On Monday, May 12, the Louisiana House will vote on House Bill 199, authored by State Representative Ernest Wooton (R-Belle Chasse). HB 199 would allow Louisiana concealed carry permit holders to protect themselves on college and university campuses and remove the state restriction on “gun-free school zones” for permittees. Please contact your State Representatives and respectfully urge them to support HB 199 and to resist any amendments that State Representative Wooton does not support. Call your State Representatives in Baton Rouge on Monday at (225) 342-6945 or send them emails in support of HB 199 over the weekend.”

Email addresses of your representatives can be found HERE.

Bossier Parish lost a true statesman this week. Eddy Shell, an elected Police Juror representing South Bossier, was the consummate gentleman, and perfect example of what an elected official should be.

For nearly two and a half years, I observed Shell as he sat on the Bossier Police Jury. Shell never feigned an interest in citizen concerns brought before the Police Jury - Shell truly CARED about citizen concerns, and carefully weighed every decision made. His public statements, even on controversial issues, never appeared to me as “just for show”, but instead appeared to be deliberate, thoughtful, and circumspect. Most citizens haven’t a clue as to how thoroughly Police Jury decisions impact every area of our daily lives. Even fewer understand what a loss it is for his district that his voice will no longer be heard on the Police Jury.

As I read Shell’s obituary, I could not help but think that he surely must have been near perfection as a son, a brother, a husband, a father, and agrandfather. Shell reminded me of the fictional Ward Cleaver - upright, straight-laced, and fair, with a patriotism and love for parish and for country that offers a valuable lesson to each one of us.

I’ve read in scripture that Christians in Heaven will one day be given governing responsibilities, based upon how they lived their lives while on the Earth. No doubt, Eddy Shell will govern far greater territory than a Police Jury district.

So long Eddy, and thank you for the true public servant you were. I’ll see you in Eternity!