Having so many kids, grandkids and now great grandkids has been an interesting experience and I truly cherish it, though at times I cannot remember all of their names and some of them I've never seen.
Oh, Micheal, my son, if you are reading this, Spring Creek Max Prison has 14 openings for Correctional Guards and you can apply online. Also, Border Patrol is now advertising, if you still desire to get into law enforcement like your brothers. Mona and I would love to see you return to Alaska, though.
On another personal note: To Linda Lee, my sister, I wanted you to know I have forgiven you and hope you can do the same for me. I love you and pray for you every morning.
Will, I continue writing every day, but do sometimes take a Sunday off. The house is quiet in the early morning hours and this is when I do my best writing and spend some time with the Lord.
Currently, in the project I am working on now I continue to use fictional characters but with my real life experiences and now I'm working on the Exxon Valdez tragedy that struck the Prince William Sound in 1989. I was working as the Public Safety Director and Police Chief, with two police officers under me and 22 volunteers to handle EMS/Fire Department /Search & Rescue. This was a whole new experience for me and I was enjoying the new challenge. Whittier was a quiet little town, but a major hub for the Alaska Railroad. Whittier was the hazmat destination for Alaska, plus all the fuel barges coming north for Alaska's 4 military bases. The night before the disaster, when a reported Captain Hazelton was said to have been slightly intoxicated and had ran his super tanker aground on a large rock, had created the worst oil spill in U.S. History, and my City Manager had gone in for heart surgery. So, when the disaster struck and Whittier became a major staging area for Exxon and VECO, the City Council made me the city's Emergency Operations Manager. You talk about being in unknown and troubled waters, this became a whole new world for me. I was negotiating high dollar leases, working with the city attorney and our accountant to make sure no one went to jail and still running the department. I hired on two extra officers and lost half of my volunteers to take jobs out in the oil spill. Hundreds of people were being hired to clean the beaches, which was mostly to hopefully satisfy the Exxon customer. I went out on those beaches after they were reportedly cleaned and saw they looked pretty good on the surface, but when I tipped over some rocks discovered great globs of crude oil. Only years of tides were ever going to really clean those beaches. My Public Safety Department averaged 300 calls a year, most of these being EMS and Search & Rescue. We had a 22-foot rescue boat and our department was responsible for nearly half of the Prince William Sound, which was a huge area to cover. I was given a special Alaska State Trooper commission so I could enforce the laws out in the Sound and ended up responding to a couple shootings out on the small islands in the Sound, plus had the nasty task of processing all the dead animals coming into Whittier. Exxon wanted to keep a count on all the wildlife destroyed by the spill. I also had to keep my city council members from going to jail, as they tried to lease property to Exxon they didn't have any right too and tried to sell my rescue boat to Exxon, which was illegal as it had been obtained on a federal grant. Things like that were always popping up. But, by the end of summer, our little department had responded to 3,000 calls and the police side had really picked up.
We had our share of crazies and in my story I write about a certain character to I hospitalized twice in the Anchorage mental ward and came so very close to shooting one early morning when he threatened to kill me and one of my officers. But, the doctors finally held him for 90-days and then shipped him to Wisconsin for long term care. This was where he was from and had come to Alaska because of the oil spill. His sole desire was to kill lawyers and all those responsible for the spill. Interesting fellow, he was also my size and quite strong.
I met every train that came in during my shift, usually 5 of the 7 trains we were getting daily. The only access to Whittier back then was by train, but they now have a road for autos. When I saw the caliber of some of the people coming into town, I started putting them back on the train and ordering them to leave. Almost like the old days when the sheriff ordered someone to leave town. Oh, I was threatened and many of them said they would sue me, but it never happened. I didn't need prostitutes, gamblers and drug dealers increasing my workload.
I had this one professional lady come into Whittier, she was from Anchorage and was working out of our two bars. This was early on in the summer and when I ran a check on her came up with a felony warrant for her and was a no bail warrant. A particular superior court judge didn't want to take a chance on her getting loose and when I checked on her, found that she was reportedly an Aides carrier. I arrested her and then had three young men in my office to give them the bad news. That night I had to keep one of them from shooting himself. I had to get her out of town, but the railroad was repairing the long tunnel, we had two, one at 1.2 miles long and the long tunnel being 3.2 miles long, and the railroad was closed down for 7-days. I soon learned that the Army had a special, some what secret at the time, special tunnel through the mountain that inspector road an electric car to keep an eye on the fuel pipeline. So, I put her into thick coveralls to keep her wrong, heavy gloves to keep her from scratching me, as she had tried and failed, and tape over her mouth to keep her from spitting on me. We rode the long dark tunnel on a very small flatcar and I must say, I had to laugh when I saw all the track worker's faces when I came walking down the mountainside, having exited the tunnel and they saw my prisoner all taped up and in handcuffs. I turned her over to the State Troopers, who were in face masks and gloves. A week later I learned this woman had no Aides, but the judge angry with her, put out the felony warrant and added the Aids part to make sure she got picked up. A man had tried to kill himself because of this judge's anger with the girl. Made no sense.
Whittier was like that, where the town's motto was "Unique, Even in Alaska", and Whittier was truly unique. I learned a lot there and worked a lot of overtime, but I was on salary and my officers were often taking home larger paychecks then I was. But they earned it. I had a lot of encounters with some very strange people, saw so much waste of manpower and equipment. I witnessed Exxon throwing brand new equipment away and then claiming it as losses for the insurance. In my opinion Exxon was not the friendly company their commercials tried to portray themselves. But, from what I experienced and what I learned there, it enabled me to get my very nice job with the State of Alaska, as a Senior Gambling Investigator. Now that became a job I truly enjoyed, but all my corruption cases and those against organized crime will be in another book in my Badge and the Cross Series. I owe all my jobs to the Lord guiding my career. Twice I was hired as a police officer over the phone, once where I had not even applied, and then to be asked to interview for the Whittier job when I had no knowledge their was a job opening there. I hope you'll find the book interesting as a I am enjoying the writing of it.
Time for some headlines: "In February, 2019, U.S. Government Debt Surpassed a Record $22 Trillion".... "Powerful 7.5 Earthquake Hits New Guinea".... "Swine Fever Spreading in Asia with New Outbreaks in China and Vietnam".... "4 Die and 10 People Injured When Two Small Planes Collide Over Ketchikan, Alaska"...."White House Reportedly Considering Sending 120,000 U.S. Troops to Middle East".... "Congress Won't Fund Nuclear Weapons Treaty Unless China, Russia Put in Cross-hairs." ...."23rd Democrat Enters Presidential Race".... "Jewish Woman Stabbed in Sweden, Suspect Arrested for Antisemitic Attack"...."Antisemitic, Homophobic Pastor Banned From Entering Ireland".... "Saudi Arabia Says Attack on oil Facility an Act of Terrorism".... "Spain Pulls its Frigate Out of U.S. Fleet Due to Rising Tensions With Iran"..... "France Reports an Increase of Assaults on LGBT People in 2018".... "Sri Lanka Imposes Nationwide Curfew Following Violent Clashes".... "President Trump Proposes Extra $ 1.6 Billion For NASA's 2024 Return to the Moon Project".... "4 Policeman Killed, 12 Injured in Bombing in South West Pakistan".... "Price of Oil Catapults Higher over News of Sabotage of 2 Saudi Oil Tankers".... "Saudi Oil Pipeline Operation Stopped After Yemen drone Attack"...." "Dow Drops 600 Points After China Imposes New Tariffs".... "European Union Picks up Tab for Palestinian Terror Payments for Martyrs, After Israel Refuses to Give Funds to Palestinians That May Fund the Terror Program".... "Iran Says There Will Be No War With the U.S." ( Oddly enough Japan said the same thing just before attacking Pearl Harbor).... "Alabama Lawmakers Vote to Ban All Abortions in Their State and to Punish Doctors".... "Stunning Toll on Boy Scout Sexual Abuse Scandal: More Than 12,200 Reported Victims"...."CDC ( Center for Disease Control) Says Africa Record Low Birth Rates in 2018".... U.S. Embassy Orders Non-Emergency Staff to Leave Iraq Immediately as Tensions With Iraq Rise".... "Tim Conway, Beloved TV and Movie Actor Dead at 85"..... "New Immigration Bill to End Asylum Claims at Border, Return Minors Home".... "Ambush of Catholic Parade in Burkina Faso Kills 4 People".... "China-Russia Deepening Defense Partnership a Growing Concern for U.S."....."U.S. Embassy in Beirut Releases Security Alert for U.S. Citizens" .... "U.S. House Bill to Ban Sales of F-35 Attack Jets to Turkey".... "U.S. Military on High Alert in Iraq and Syria Over Iran".... "Congress Says No U.S. Military Base In Poland Until It Pays For Holocaust Victims".... "Missouri Senate Passes Bill to Ban Abortion After 8-Weeks".... "Iraq, Fearing Another U.S. War Has Warned Militias Tied to Iran Against Provocation".... "Worst Drought in 40 Years Hitting North Korea"..... "120 Illegal Immigrants Discovered Inside Locked Trailer in Texas".... "Mexico City Extends Pollution Alerts, Cancels Schools and Closes Parks"
Yes, the world is in a troubled conditions between wars, rumors of wars terroristic attacks, antisemitism and anti-Christianity on the rise, and the spread of disease. The drought that is hitting North Korea could lead to thousands of deaths. The value of the American dollar worsens as prices rise and the China-Us Tariff war only makes it worse. The U.S. Supreme Court once again battling it out over Roe vs Wade, but I believe the states should handle this one. Let it be up to the voters of each state to decide, sometimes the federal government just needs to stay out of the way.
I just finished Stephen Coonts latest book, where a sitting President decides to become a dictator and uses a terrorist attack in the U.S. to bring about his tyrannical ways, even cancels the upcoming election to remain in office. Hundreds of congressmen are arrested as due process no longer exists, the Constitution and the rights of the citizen are abolished and FEMA personnel now become the new army for the President. Texas is the first of many states to secede from the union and now the U.S. Armed Force are fighting a second civil war against Texas. Meanwhile, a growing guerrilla movement is underway to toss the President out on his ear. Good reading. Book is entitled "Liberty's Last Stand" . I highly recommend it.
Well, that's it for now. I hope you all have a great day and may the Lord Bless You and your loved ones. BILL