Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval is the newly appointed vice chair of the National Governors Association Health and Homeland Security Committee. This is a reward for his performance a the Republican National Convention

“Like Republican governors all across this nation,” Sandoval said. “I chose to make the tough decisions.”

Does he mean decisions like voiding battling both the state’s employee and teachers unions, unlike Ohio, New Jersey and Wisconsin’s Governor or continuing to lay the ground work for ObamaCare, something neither governor in Florida or Texas are doing?

Then there was this from the former federal judge, “So I stepped down from a lifetime appointment to make a difference.”

Not really.

Sandoval told the Reno Gazette-Journal, as he announced his 2009 candidacy for Nevada governor, that he had become increasingly concerned about how the state was being run and he “decided to act on my concern.”

That’s a big difference.

The year 1881 is generally declared the beginning of technological change in the logging industry. Up until then, men, oxen and horses carried the load.

In that year, in Eureka, California, John Dolbeer applied for a patent for the steam donkey engine. Early loggers gave it that humble name because the original model looked too puny to be rated in horsepower.

Back in 1864, Dolbeer, a very successful mill worker, became a partner with logger William Carson in Humboldt County. Together they built a logging empire called Dolbeer & Carson.

Dolbeer’s donkey was actually patented in 1882. It evolved through even more labor-saving changes including a “haul back line” through a pulley attached to a stump that eventually put the horse out of business.

His donkey engine sat on heavy wooden skids. It was an upright wood-burning boiler with a stovepipe on top that was attached to a one-cylinder engine, which drove a revolving horizontal drive-shaft with capstan spools at each end for winding rope.

Operating an early Dolbeer donkey required three men, a boy and a horse.

One man, the “choker-setter,” attached the line to a log; an engineer or “donkey puncher,” tended the steam engine; and a “spool tender” guided the whirring line over the spool with a short stick. The boy, called a whistle punk, manned a communicating wire running from the choker setter’s position out among the logs to a steam whistle on the donkey engine.

Occasionally a novice Spool Tender would try using his foot instead of a stick. When he returned from the hospital, he would use his new wooden leg instead.

When the Choker Setter had secured the line running from the spool, the Whistle Punk tugged his whistle wire as a signal to the engineer that the log was ready to be hauled in. As soon as one log was in, or “yarded,” it was detached from the line; then the horse hauled the line back from the donkey engine to the waiting Choker Setter and the next log.

By the turn of the century, donkeys were mounted on barges to herd raft of logs and “bull donkeys” lowered entire trains of log cars down steep inclines, all with the help of iron and then steel wire cable that replaced the original ropes.

During his National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, Senator Harry Reid demanded NV Energy close the Reid Gardner plant near Moapa Valley.  Without the slightest bit of evidence, he says the plant is killing nearby residents.

Again, for Reid — the truth tends to be a tricky thing.

For one thing, Reid Gardner is one of the cleanest coal-fueled power plants in the U.S., with the number of visible emissions incidences dropping from 825 in 2005 to only 7 in 2011. Electricity produced by the plant is also  up to 4 times less expensive than “green” energy sources.

Meanwhile, Reid Gardner doesn’t operate for the first five months of the year. It’s usually only in service during peak usage periods which is in summer.

It has the ability to generate 557 megawatts of electricity, all-day,  all-night, everyday of the year. Compare that to Reid’s solar project at Nellis Air Force Base — with an output of only 14 megawatts.

The plant can produce enough electricity to serve about 335,000 Nevada households. Plus NV Energy provides around $34 million in annual tax revenue from the plants operation for Clark County.

Finally, by closing Reid Gardner, another 150 jobs will be lost. This, on top of an already nation-leading 12-percent unemployment, is something Nevada cannot afford.

It’s obvious Reid doesn’t have Nevada’s interest at heart.

Yet another friend has passed away…

Debbie Raborn was born September 29, 1954, in Olla and entered into rest September 2, 2012, in Bossier City, Louisiana. She was the general manager of KBUL Radio in Reno, Nevada for a number of years, where I worked for her.

Many times after I’d completed my air shift at midnight, we’d meet up at the Peppermill for a couple of beers. Even after I was fired and working at the cross-town competitor, KROW, we’d find time to sit and visit after shift.

She was a woman who harbored a lot of sadness in her heart but could laugh at almost any situation life threw at her. And you know — I’ll miss Debbie’s striking ‘gator-green’ eyes.

While he says he supports a federal land transfer for Yerington, Senator Harry Reid also wants it to include creating a new wilderness area in the region. The bill has already passed the Republican controlled House and allows the small town to buy 19 square miles of Bureau of Land Management property to be developed by Nevada Copper.

The mining operation will employ between 400 and 800 workers, each making an average yearly salary of $80,000. The surrounding land is to be used by businesses serving the mine, with plans that include a BMX track, outdoor amphitheater, a solar farm and a light-manufacturing district.

As for the proposed wilderness area, its land located between Smith Valley, Nevada and Bridgeport, California. It covers about 80,000 acres or nearly eight times the size of Yerington’s proposed land purchase.

So in exchange for cash, jobs and economic growth, a federal government that already controls 86-percent of Nevada’s land,  would get even more acreage. Meanwhile Nevada continues suffering through the nation’s worst unemployment rate at 12-percent.

Yet, if Senate Republicans say no to Reid’s proposed wilderness area, the Senate Majority Leader will prevent the land transfer bill from reaching the floor. Then he’ll waste no time in accusing the GOP of being at fault for the lack of jobs creation.

But we know the truth.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid attacked Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney about his tax returns once again. This time during the opening day of the Democratic National Convention for refusing to release several years of tax returns, where he also contends no other presidential candidate in history has been as secretive.

“Never in modern American history has a presidential candidate tried so hard to hide himself from the people he hopes to serve,” Reid said. “When you look at the one tax return he has released, it’s obvious why there’s been only one.”

Reid added about Romney, “We learned that he pays a lower tax rate than middle-class families.”

For Reid, a fact is a bothersome thing — so he does his best to avoid them. However, the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler called him on his ill-stated quest.

“For all the rhetoric about high taxes in the United States,  most Americans pay a relatively small percentage of their income in taxes.  Romney had an effective rate of 13.9 percent in 2010 and 15.4 percent in 2011.  That gives him a higher rate than 80 percent of taxpayers if only taxes on a tax  return are counted and puts him just about in the middle of all taxpayers if  payroll taxes paid by employers are included,” writes Kessler.

Once again Reid shows the nation that he is completely without a moral compass. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reminded many long-time residents of Nevada about Reid’s history of making false accusations.

“In the Democrat’s first bid for the U.S. Senate, Reid threw out all sorts of unsubstantiated charges against Paul Laxalt, the former Republican governor of Nevada who went on to defeat Reid by 611 votes in a recount,” wrote Laura Myers.

It was during the height of the Watergate scandal in 1974, when Reid questioning the former Nevada Governor about his financial connection to Billionaire Howard Hughes.  Reid challenged Laxalt to show his own and his family’s finances and to explain how he paid $7.5 million for the Ormsby House in Carson City.

Reid, then Nevada’s Lt. Governor claimed he wanted to clear up the “Ormsby House mystery.”

In October he handed out financial statements and tax returns for himself and his three brothers. He then challenged Laxalt to do the same. Reid continued by stating Laxalt hadn’t paid income taxes for several years.

In the end Reid claimed his financial worth was $305,292. On the other hand, Laxalt was worth only $200,000, excluding his interest in the Ormsby House.

Laxalt also showed he had not profited as governor. His returns showed that in December 1961, he was worth about $167,000 and, when he left the governor’s office in 1970, he worth less-than $102,000.

Kind of sounds familiar, huh?

Senator Harry Reid publicly banned relatives from lobbying him or his staff after several 2003 news reports showed Nevada’s industries and institutions routinely turned to Reid’s sons or son-in-law for representation. Now, questions surrounding those family ties are coming up again about the Senate majority leader’s influence.

Reid and his oldest son, Rory, are both involved in an effort by Chinese energy giant, ENN Energy Group, to build a $5 billion solar farm and panel manufacturing plant in southern Nevada. The Chinese company hopes it will be the largest solar energy complex in the U.S.

Solar panel prices have plunged globally, leading to the bankruptcy of equipment maker’s like Solyndra, with $535 million in U.S. government loan guarantees, and job cuts at other solar manufacturers. Pressured to curb Chinese trade practices, the Obama administration imposed duties as high as 4.73 percent on solar equipment imported from China.

This prompted more Chinese companies to move their manufacturing facilities to the U.S. It also helped Harry and son’s in their quest to secure the Chinese company for Nevada.

Senator Reid recruited the company during a 2011 trip to China and has been quietly applying his political muscle on behalf of the project ever since. Headed by Chinese energy tycoon Wang Yusuo, who took Reid and nine other U.S. senators on a tour of the ENN’s operations.

Reid reciprocated by introducing Wang as a speaker at his 4th annual National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas. Then ENN retained the state’s largest  law firm, Lionel Sawyer & Collins, where Rory works.

From there, Rory helped ENN find a 9,000-acre desert site in Laughlin, Nevada, buying it well below the appraised value made by Clark County, where Rory formerly chaired the commission. Public records show Harry owns some “fairly worthless” land near Laughlin as well as Bullhead City in Arizona.

Then there’s the fact Lionel Sawyer & Collins gave $40,650 individually and through its political action committee to Senator Reid over the past three election cycles. Its political action committee also contributed $2,000 in 2010 and $5,000 in 2008 to the Searchlight Leadership Fund, a political action committee that lists Reid as an affiliate.

After the controversy over the number of lawmaker relatives engaged in lobbying, in 2007 Congress passed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, sharply restricting the lobbying activities of close relatives of members of Congress. The law only applies to registered lobbyists and Rory Reid is not registered as a federal lobbyist in Washington or a state lobbyist in Nevada.

Whether the business is successful or fails, it’s the taxpayer who’ll end up taking the loss where the sun-doesn’t-shine.

The all-absorbing topic in Stockton on March 26, 1906, was the trunk murder mystery — the finding of the dead body of a man in a trunk at the Southern Pacific railway station by baggage master I. K. Thompson and his assistant, N. Vielioh, on a Saturday night. The police were satisfied that the man’s wife committed murder, beating him to death over the head, possibly with a sandbag.

By early Sunday morning, it developed that the murdered man was Albert McVicar, a timber man in the Rawhide Mine at Jamestown. He occupied a room in the California rooming house Friday night with a woman registering as   A.N. McVicar and wife, of Jamestown.

It was learned late that night that the woman was actually the ex-wife of McVicar, but in August of 1905, she had married a Eugene or Jean Le Doux, a teamster, whose folks conduct a miners’ boarding house near Martelis Station in Amador County.

As the furniture purchased at a local store was directed to be sent to Martelis in the care of a man named Le Doux, whom she is said to have designated as her brother, suspicion was directed at him. Sheriff Sibley went to Jackson and investigated but found Le Doux had not been away, and that he was in Jackson on the day of the murder.

This relieved him of any direct connection with the crime. He professed ignorance of it.

The woman’s maiden name was Emma Cole, and her widowed mother, Mrs. Head, resides between Jackson and Sutter, in Amador County. She told Sheriff Sibley her daughter had left home two weeks ago for Stockton or San Francisco.

Where she was at the present time she did not know.

On the same day as the body was found, Mrs. Emma Le Doux was arrested at Antioch at the Arlington Hotel by Town Marshal Thomas B. Sharon on information sent from Stockton. On being arrested the woman promptly admitted her identity and said she knew what she was wanted for.

Upon her arrest, she said to have made a statement. She declared carbolic acid was administered McVicar Saturday morning by Joe Miller, a sandy-complexioned man with a smooth face.

He and McVicar, so she said, came to the room intoxicated Friday night and McVicar went to bed. She said that she was with Miller after that.

In the morning about 9 o’clock they went into the room and Miller administered the poison. She does not go into detail but declared she had nothing to do with it outside of assisting in putting the body in the trunk.

She never gave a reason for the killing. She telephoned her mother in an endeavor to have her meet her in Lodi or Galt and said she expected her mother to take the Santa Fe train for Stockton.

She also told the Constable she was waiting for Miller, who had gone to San Francisco from Stockton.  Miller however left her at Point Richmond, stating that he would meet her at Antioch.

Her statement was conflicting, so her arrest was made. Emma was turned over to Sheriff Veale, of Contra Costa County, and brought to Stockton.

Her statement didn’t account for the bruises on McVicar’s head, and as for carbolic acid, the autopsy didn’t discover any trace of it. Doctors did say there was a slight but unimportant inflammation of the stomach.

“It is hardly likely that anybody would attempt to give another so active a poison as carbolic acid, which would burn him badly and thus betray itself,” one newspaper reads. “A person taking carbolic acid would not be incapacitated from putting up a hard struggle, and there was no sign of a struggle.”

Dr. Hull, one of the medical examiners, stated the blows on the head, causing congestion of the inner lining of the skull, had caused death, and there was absolutely no evidence of poison. Neither was there an odor of alcohol, which would be the case had he been very drunk.

As for Joe Miller, who she says was the chief actor in the murder, there is no such man. However, she did spend that Saturday night with Joe Healy in a San Francisco lodging house, who established an alibi covering the time of the murder.

Within days of Emma’s arrest, the Grand Jury was convened. This came after authorities found a small bottle of laudanum, about one-third full.

It became quickly evident the report Emma had made a statement to the effect that the mythical Miller had given McVicar carbolic acid was a mistake. It was now believed she used the narcotic prior to beating McVicar to death.

As Emma was reported to be “quietly, but with great relish,” eating breakfast, District Attorney Norton refused to allow anyone to talk with her.  He told the Associated Press, “I feel it my duty to protect the woman in every way possible. There is yet to be a trial, and interviews would serve to complicate matters.”

Questioned as to the motive for the crime, Norton said he only had an opinion. He speculated it might have been revenge for his having spent her money, or it might have been robbery — a desire to get possession of the furniture which had been purchased and partly paid for, or it might have been jealousy; possibly all three.

As for the identity of the deceased, a dispatch from the Cripple Creek Chief of Police Baker, Norton says there is no question that the dead man was McVicar.

Evidently, Stockton’s Chief of Police Baker has sent an inquiry to the Colorado mining town asking for information on McVicar after the card was found in McVicar’s effects showing he had been a Wells Fargo agent.

McVicar worked for the company in Cripple Creek from 1886 to 1890 before relocating to California. He was also involved in the shooting some years ago of a Colorado newspaperman by a Wells Fargo man named Russell.

The dispatch also shows McVicar‘s brother John, owned and operated the Cripple Creek Laundry. John with two more brothers and their mother still lived in the town.

Furthermore, Captain Neville, of the Rawhide Mine, where McVicar was employed, as a timber man, told the reporter, “He was a quiet, industrious fellow, who took care of his money, and he was not a drinking man.”

Finally, Norton concluded that the motive wasn’t money because at the time McVicar and Mrs. Le Doux bought the furniture, he paid $100 down; he said he had little money left, but expected $200 from Wells Fargo.

An inquiry by detectives shows he didn’t receive the money and that Emma must have known his financial condition.

Sibley, who had gone to Jackson to investigate Emma’s background claimed the family, her husband, and her mother, were “a queer crowd,” He pointed out that when Mrs. Head, the woman’s mother, was told her daughter was suspected of murder she didn’t show the slightest emotion, furthermore, the husband, Le Doux seemed completely undisturbed.

He said he knew nothing whatever about it, and Sheriff Sibley was satisfied that he had nothing to do with the murder. Le Doux claimed he had expected her home any day during the past week.

He added that Emma had been accustomed to go and come when she pleased and he never worried about her. He also told Sibley he knew nothing about the furniture.

Three days after McVicar’s body was found stuffed in the trunk; Norton reported the discovery in San Francisco that Emma had purchased a six-ounce bottle of cyanide of potassium at the Baldwin Pharmacy about the 14th of the month. He added that traces of the poisoning had been found by the chemist analyzing pieces of tissue from the dead man.

“If they have found that,” said Norton, “then they are ahead of us.”

“Isn’t it true,” was asked, “that a bottle which had contained cyanide of potassium was found, and also that a knife or cleaver was also found among the effects of the woman?”

“I am not saying anything about anything now,” was Norton’s reply.

“Will you deny that these were found?” was the next question.

“I am not denying anything at all,” replied Norton, with a smile.

It was obvious Norton enjoyed playing up his notoriety.

The inquest into the cause of the death of McVicar showed Emma had nearly been caught from the outset.  It was shortly before noon on the day of the murder and Emma had evidently placed McVicar’s body in the trunk.

Afterwards, she informed Mrs. Englehardt, the proprietress of the California lodging house that she and McVicar were going away on the 3 o’clock train. Emma then went down the street to purchase the rope with which to tie the trunk.

While she was away a person called for a room. Mrs. Englehardt took the prospective roomer to Emma’s apartments. The door was open, and directly behind it was the trunk in which was McVicar’s body.

A hasty examination of the room was made, but no attention was paid to the trunk. Emma returned in a few minutes, had the trunk tied, and carried to the depot.

Emma was charged with the murder of McVicar, on April 16^th, and immediately pleaded not guilty. The proceeding took less than a minute, but the Courtroom was crowded long before the hour arrived for bringing the accused before Superior Court Judge W. B. Nutter.

By May 5^th, only seventeen days remained before Emma’s trial. Both sides were hard at work gathering evidence

Norton and his assistant George McNoble were spending all their time working on the case. Defense Attorney Hugh McNoble, the brother of George, Attorney Fairall, and Attorney Crocker were as busily engaged framing up their side.

McNoble and Sibley were in Arizona gathering evidence in regard to the former life of the defendant.

“I know where my brother and the Sheriff have gone. It won’t do them any good, though, as they will not learn anything new.” Hugh said. “I would willingly tell them all they wanted to know about the matter. Yes, it’s a wild goose chase.”

As the trial began that June 5^th morning, the courtroom was crowded. By this time the case had attracted widespread attention and reports of the murder had even been printed in the foreign press.

Two weeks prior to the trials beginning Hugh McNoble was forced to drop from the defense team when his partner, Fairall accused the two brothers of double-dealing.  It took the remainder of the second week to sit a jury.

It was made clear from the onset that the defense intended to show that McVicar committed suicide. The prosecution, on the other hand, claimed to have a clear case of murder in the first degree.

When the Court was called to order, Fairall immediately objected to the Sheriff and Coroner being called as witnesses, on the grounds of bias and prejudice. However, Nutter overruled the objections.

Then Dr. S.E. Latta, who helped conduct the autopsy on McVicar’s body, was given a rigid cross-examination. Attorney Fairall reportedly used more technical terms than Latta and he finally asked the Court for assistance.

“Why didn’t you take the temperature of this man?” asked Fairall.

“Because he was dead,” answered the witness.

“You assumed so,” Fairall shot back

“I know it,” was Latta’s emphatic reply.

Other doctors testified regarding the relative action of various poisons, ante and post-mortem bruises, the blood, and other matters. Their testimony was introduced to support the contention of the defense the deceased came to his death from cyanide poisoning, self-administered, and that he was dead when placed in the trunk.

Prosecutors Norton and McNoble wasted no time in laying out the facts of their case. They pointed out that McVicar evidently never dreamed that Emma had married another man.

More damning evidence was presented showing McVicar’s death was planned some time in advance. They showed Emma had telephoned a San Francisco plumber with whom she had associated named Ed Healy, and who had been engaged to marry her, just three days before McVicar was killed saying “Poor Al is dying of miner’s consumption.”

They were quick to direct the jury’s attention to the fact Emma was even a known bigamist, though she was never charged with the crime. With this information, the pair was able to tie the crime together by concluding that when Emma realized McVicar would learn of her marriage to Le Doux, she decided to poison him, place his body in a trunk, and ship it to Jackson.

Soon the trial was turned over to the jury.

After being out six hours and twenty-five minutes Saturday night, June 25^th, the panel returned to the courtroom. The document containing the verdict was presented to Nutter, who looked at it, handed it to Clerk Comstock with instructions to read it.

Comstock read it slowly and distinctly, “We, the jury in the above entitled case, find the defendant, Mrs. Emma Le Doux, guilty of murder in the first degree.”

Emma, whose eyes were fixed upon the table in front of her, straightened up and emitted a short groan, then placed her handkerchief to her face for a moment.  Mrs. Crocker, wife of her attorney was seated beside her, and placed her arms around Emma, kissed her many times, and told her that the fight for her life had just begun.

Neither Fairall nor Crocker showed signs of disappointment.

Nutter then set the date of judgment for July 9th at ten in the morning. Whereupon the two defense attorneys announced that they would move for a new trial and if their motion was denied would appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

Fairall wasted no time in filing an appeal. He added the applause indulged in by the jury when they reached their verdict is an element he’ll make use of in his appeal.

“In case the Supreme Court grants a new trial,” he told the newspapers, “I will apply for a change of venue to Calaveras County.”

Meanwhile, Sibley permitted a Catholic priest to visit Emma.  Her attorneys scoffed at the idea of a confession and strongly maintained her innocence.

After a number of delays and postponements, Emma was sentenced on August 7^th to be hanged on October 19^th.  The convicted woman heard her sentence with calmness as there was neither fear nor defiance in the expression on her face as she heard her doom pronounced.

Her attorneys presented affidavits intended to impeach the character of Juror Ritter, but Judge Nutter deemed them Insufficient as a basis for the motion for a new trial.

Six months later, on January 14^th, 1908, Fairall, found himself before the Supreme Court. He argued Emma’s case should be “reversed for many reasons, the principal one of which was that the Jury at her trial had been greatly prejudiced against her by the newspaper accounts of the murder published at the time of the finding of the body of McVicar.”

The Supreme Court took the case under advisement.

Meanwhile, Emma was interviewed for the second time by a group of independent reporters. It was at the request of Sheriff Sibley that after rumors surfaced Emma was being mistreated.

This allegation angered Sibley and he courted an investigation. The rumor’s persisted though so he asked for the meeting.

Emma met with the reporters in the jail’s reception room. She quietly surveyed them; remaining still until Sheriff Sibley introduced her.

She shook hands with them and then took a seat among the small group to answer their questions. Emma at once informed them she had never been mistreated, and it was a surprise to learn people could be so uncharitable to her.

When asked it she still lived in hope of her life being saved from the gallows, she answered “Why, I never worry — of course I have hope — while there is life there is hope.”

“A wedding ring upon the finger and a small gold cross holding a golden image was the only jewelry that bedecked her person,” writes one reporter. “She was neat, in tact, richly attired, but withal there was a peculiar something which impressed a person with the fact that she was convicted and condemned — that she was still just plain Emma Le Doux.”

More than a year after the gruesome discovery of McVicar’s body crammed in the trunk, the Supreme Court on May 20^th, 1909, handed down its decision.  It ordered that Emma be granted a new trial.

Associate Justice Henshaw wrote the decision granting her a new trial with Associate Justices Lorigan and Melvin concurring and Chief Justice Beatty writing a concurring opinion.

After several cases are cited, the opinion continues as follows: “Thus it is seen that all of the authorities agree upon the principle and announce the rule that where the principal is disqualified his deputy is likewise disqualified and process served under these circumstances is voidable. Therefore the challenge to the panel should have been allowed.”

Her new trial date was set for February 2^nd, 1909.

Wasted away, Emma was brought before Judge  Nutter, and her second trial was set for February 2^nd, 1909. She was accompanied by County Health Officer Dr. C. L. Six, who had attended Emma for over a year.

There it was learned Emma had contracted, tuberculosis, commonly called “consumption,” or the “white plague.”  Nutter decided to postpone her trial until she was once again well.

However, that second trial would never occur. Instead on the morning of January 26^th, 1910, weak and rather frail, Emma Le Doux pleaded guilty to the charge of having murdered Albert McVicar and was sentenced by Nutter to life imprisonment in San Quentin.

A slowdown has prompted a Carson City business to lay off 100 workers. Chromalloy Nevada officials say the layoffs come after reductions in military spending and the flat economy in Europe and Asia.

Chromalloy provides high-tech repairs and engine components for commercial airlines and the military at its two Carson City facilities. It’s at least the fourth announcement of layoffs the company has made over the last four years.

The latest layoffs cut the company’s total workforce to about 280, down from a high of 540 in December 2008. The layoffs affected both hourly and salaried positions.

Nevada’s unemployment rate sits at 12-percent, up 0.4-percent, since June. Reno and Sparks is up from 11.7-percent to 12-percent. Carson City is up half a point to 12.2-percent.  Las Vegas saw the largest uptick from 12.2-percent to 12.9-percent. Even Elko County saw its unemployment rate jump up to 6.3-percent from 6.7-percent.

Meanwhile, Senator Harry Reid will speak at the Democratic National Convention, where he’s expected to talk about President Obama’s job performance, Mitt Romney’s tax returns and the impact the Tea Party has had on the Republican Party.

While Progressives continue lambasting Clint Eastwood for his speech during the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, Conservatives are applauding the speech and its humor. For many, the improvisational speech more than made up for the Chrysler commercial he voiced-over during Superbowl XLVI.

Either way, it’s safe to say Eastwood’s been in tougher spots.

Drafted into the U.S. Army during the Korean War in 1950, and stationed at Fort Ord, his certificate as a lifeguard got him appointed as a life-saving and swimming instructor. Eastwood excelled as an instructor and received a promotion to corporal.

But to supplement his $67 a month Army salary, he held a part-time job on a loading dock for the Spreckles Sugar Refining Company. When discovered by the Army, he had to quit the job.

In October 1951, Eastwood was aboard a Douglas AD-1 Skyraider that crashed into the Pacific, north of San Francisco’s Drake’s Bay. The plane had departed from Seattle, bound for Mather Air Force Base in Sacramento.

When the intercommunication system failed, the plane ditched into the sea at dusk, two miles off Point Reyes. Eastwood and the pilot escaped serious injury, and swam to shore.

The crash was headline news on October 1, 1951 in the San Francisco Chronicle. There was an immediate investigation into the crash, where Eastwood testified.

This kept him from going to Korea with the rest of his unit. He was Honorably Discharged in 1953.

He later reflected on the crash, “I thought I might live. But then I thought, other people have made it through these things before. I kept my eyes on the lights on shore and kept swimming.”