For nearly thirty days Tommy lived in the little camp trailer that Valerie and Justin had loaned him. It sat on their ranch, the Double Cross-U with no running water or electricity.

Daily he mustered all his energy to get up in the chill of the autumn air and walk the two dozen or so yards to the ranch house for a shower and shave. It became his routine in order to get to work on time.

It was a struggle because depression had a strangle hold on his life. Mary refused to speak to him except in little spurts to say return his check book or credit card, and nightly he laid down and cried himself to sleep feeling the loneliness creeping up around him. This was mixed with intermitten drinking jags that lasted past midnight.

Tommy was certain that God was punishing him for every last sin he had committed.

One morning as he was heading in on the hour long drive to Reno he noticed that the thermometer was red lined on his car. He was in the process of passing an eighteen wheeler when the radiator exploded sending heated fluid up through the cracks of the hood and onto the windshield.

The little vehicle shuttered violently as Tommy struggled for control. Behind him was a white Ford pick up to the right the semi and on his left a concrete retaining wall. Some how he managed to guide the car in behind the large semi truck and find the only turn off available. The car ground to a halt.

The radiator cap and the valve it was attached to had sheered off and both were imbedded in the plastic liner in front of the driver’s seat. Had they fully penetrated the wall it would have been a death sentence.

Out of frustration Tommy sat down by the side of his car and started to cry. After gaining control of his emotions somewhat he decided to use his cell phone to call work. His frustration mounted again when he discovered that there was no signal to use for a cellular call.

Again Tommy found himself out of control, angry and crying. He sat quietly for a long time contemplating just hiding into the high dessert before him and never looking back. Then the thought of his son took a hold of his senses.

Instead of walking off into the dessert he started down the interstate towards Sparks.

His poor luck continued because when he reached the Mustang junction he was told that the telephone service had been interrupted since early that morning. And still his cell phone refused to pick up a signal. After a seven mile walk he was finally able to call work and get a tow truck to pick up his disabled car for repair.

That day his boss put him on verbal notice to either straighten up or he would be let go. God’s punishment continued.

The following weekend was the cross state rivalry of the University of Nevada Reno and the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Each year these two school battle it out for the ownership of the Fremont Cannon. This year the match would be fought in Reno.

To Tommy it was an amazing sight to see all five properties lived up on the sidewalk in front of the Lawlor Event Center. There was also the matter of prides that all look well and go well since he helped to coordinate the event. There were sandwiches, ribs, soda and other giveaways included in this multi station event.

“Hey Tommy!” yelled Valerie. She waived him over to her stations booth. “This is my friend Kathie and she needs a roommate. I think you’d be great together,” she said.

She introduced the pair and they shook hands. Before Tommy stood a well built blond in a sleeveless top and jeans. She peered at Tommy over the top of her sun glasses revealing beautiful blue eyes. Her hand shake was strong.

Kathi spoke first, “I need a roommate and an early morning baby sitter and I have a room for three hundred dollars.” Before Tommy could respond she handed him a slip of paper with both her name and phone number on it. In return Tommy pulled out a business card and wrote his cell phone number on the back and handed it back to her. Then he said “I’ll give you a call.”

“If I don’t call you first, “she replied. They shook hands again and she turned and disappeared into the crowd. Tommy stood there feeling smitten.

Weekends at a radio station are filled with one event after another especially during a ratings period. And this weekend was no exception.

It was Sunday morning and cold. Tommy was working the booth at the Susan G. Komer Foundations Race for the Cure. He had established his stations as a co-sponsor months prior.

The United States had been at war with terrorism for less than a month and this Sunday morning was the beginning of the bombing in Afghanistan. Shortly after the announcement and prayers were made for the troops involved. Tommy cell phone rang. It was Kathi.

She asked, “Why don’t you come and take a look at the room?’ Tommy found himself saying yes to her request.

Shortly after the race and shortly after noon, Tommy was knocking on Kathi’s front door. She greeted him with a smile and another hand shake. “Come in,” she beckoned. Then she motioned him to the kitchen table where they both had a seat. Before he knew it an hour had passed and he had yet to look at the room she offered for rent.

Kathi, Tommy discovered was easy going and even easier to talk to. She was willing to listen to his heart ache story. She shared hers as well. They had found common ground and soon Tommy found himself agreeing to move in immediately. One last time he made the sixty mile trek to Fallon and then back again. This night he would sleep in a house with running water and heat, and on a real bed.

A cowboy with his hoss in tow,
Was at the local fair and rodeo,
Eye-ballin’ the strangers
And avoidin’ the dangers.

He said ‘Howdy’ to a certain young filly.
She fired him up like a bowl full of chili,
With her blue eye’s and blonde hair.
And a visit and a beer they did share.

That when his ol’ hoss up and bit him
As hard as he could on the closest limb.
That cowboy could see the crimson place
Where that pony had jus’started to graze.

It was plain as the nose on his face
Why his old cayuse jus’ taken that taste
Turnin’ his shirt sleeve plum’ red,
Jealousy had reared its ugly head.

The helicopters flew close to the tree line as the group of warriors sat, feet dangling from the doorways. It was early morning and the sun had not yet presented itself, but already the unit had been sent into the field to deploy a counter-strike against Communist forces operating in the area.

Tommy was in the third helicopter as it banked hard to the left and settled momentarily in the break within the jungle. For him, as the corpsman of this 24 man team, the jungle looked like one solid canopy.

“It seems too thick to move through,” he had complained once.

The military had proved him wrong. Tommy had been sent out three times to try and make hostile contact with the Communist. However each time the enemy was gone. Instead they left a wake of death and destruction in their retreat.

The helicopter lifted away and disappeared over the dense jungle. The green leaves dulled then blocked the sound of the aircraft as they moved farther and father from the landing zone.

Quickly each team member moved to the edge of the jungle, setting up a defensive perimeter for the next incoming flight. It was less than five minutes for each helicopter to drop off its armed cargo.

Once the last six man team was dropped and had moved to the edge of the jungle and out of the clearing, the unit’s mission changed. It was always like this, each step was a change in the mission. It ensured a smooth flow within the operation and each team member knew this.

Tommy was assigned to the second element which moved through the center of the team’s field of operation. This way he could go to either element if needed. He hoped that he would not be needed at all.

The jungle was quiet at first. This was natural as the life that it held had to become accustom to the presents of humans. It took another five minutes for the first of the birds that remained in the upper canopy to start calling out to each other.

That’s when the separate elements moved into the thick undergrowth towards their destination.

This was Tommy’s fourth time out since being temporarily transferred to this unit. He had been assigned to a Company that operated clandestinely in a desert area half a world away. There he was also fighting the Communist.

“We’ll move in this direction,” signaled a young lieutenant.

Quietly they advanced towards what was believed to be danger and possible death. Each man carried only an M-16, a knife and what provision he could stuff into his butt-pack. Only Tommy and the radio operator carried more equipment.

The radio was a PRC and much smaller than the older radios that where packed in previous conflicts. The radio operator stayed within steps of the commanding officer, a graduate of Annapolis and Major.

Tommy was close enough to hear the slight hiss of the PRC radio as it worked to maintain contact with the nearest firebase some twenty miles away. The jungle’s growth was no problem for the radio waves; however the multiple valleys and other shallows that the unit flew over and beyond made the radio nearly useless.

The company had been making steady progress for nearly an hour when the signal to “stop and hold,” was passed down from man to man. Soon the Major and radio operator were called forward.

“Something must be up,” someone whispered to Tommy.

It was less than two-minutes when Tommy was called forward. He quickly trotted up to where the commanding officer stood. The older man had a pale look on his face as he directed the young medic to a place were two Marines stood looking down.

Before Tommy could reach the two Marines, he was overwhelmed by the odor of death and decay. Then he saw the source. It appeared to be a man, who had been left to fester in the jungle.

The rotting body had been stripped and beaten. Eventually, the corpse had been reduced to a pile of meat and bones. It was obvious to Tommy that the human being had been tortured and then hacked up on purpose.

“What do you make of it?” the Major asked.

Tommy replied, “He’s been here about three days. There’s evidence that wild animals have been gnawing at the corpse. I’d say that this must be some sort of warning, sir.”

“We need to push on towards the river and make contact if possible,” the Major told a Captain.

The Captain nodded in agreement.

The remains of the body were covered by an O.D. green poncho. It was hidden from the sight of the other Marines who would soon pass by.

However the smell could not be avoided. It was pungent and nauseating, filling the heavy jungle air within twenty-five feet of the corps. There was no effort made to hide the smell.

It was less than 2 miles to the river and soon there was no hiding the fact that something awful had occurred in the area. The odor of death and decay was every where and men started to gag on the smell.

There were bodies left in the low lying vegetation as the two elements pushed on through towards their objective. Tommy soon realized that the bodies were those of the indigenous tribe of Mosquito Indians.

He had not only read about the native tribes in the area, he had also been out to them, offering medical aid. It was part of a campaign to win the friendship and possible loyalty of the people who lived in the region.

In less than an hour, nearly sixty bodies, mostly men in varying stages of torture and dismemberment had been uncovered. The men within the two elements of the Company were unable to avoid the thought of what had happened to the once living, breathing beings.

“Breathe through your mouth,” Tommy told one man next to him. Then he added, “It’ll help you keep from gagging on the odor.”

Soon every Marine was breathing through their mouth. But soon this procedure would prove to be useless.

The Company was suddenly confronted by an opening in the jungle. The opening contained the half burnt remains of a village of ten or twelve small huts. There were no Native movements in or around the area.

The Major sent three Marines forward to investigate the village. Tommy watched as each man disappeared into the mist that also filled the air. In the distance he could hear the rush of a river.

“We’re close to our objective,” Tommy thought.

Minutes later, a Marine trotted up to the Major. He appeared to be agitated and out of breath. Quietly, he recounted what he had seen and how he left the other two Marines in the village as a precaution.

The two elements were directed to spread out and maintain a visual distance from each other. Tommy was directed forward with two more Marines and the Marine that had reported to the Major into the village.

There were bodies strewn all about. Some had been simply shot and left to die, while others had been bound by the hands and feet and tortured to death.

“It looks like they were peeled alive,” Tommy said aloud.

“Yeah, and notice how the one’s that were tortured haven’t been shot or anything,” replied the Marine who returned to the village a second time. “We’re going to have to set up a burial detail”

Tommy and the Marine moved towards the village, locating the remains of a mud-hut. Its wall had been caved in on three sides, only the back wall was left standing.

“This was a church of some sort,” Tommy pointed out.

Inside laid the dismembered remains of a priest. His head had been removed by several blows of a machete and picketed to the remains of a wooden cross still hanging on the back wall.

It was about that time that Tommy realized that all the elements of the Company were moving into the village. He stopped and waited for the Major to catch up to him.

“I can’t believe this,” he said. He stood still with both hands on his hips.

Tommy suddenly saw the youthfulness of the Major. He realized that the “Old Man,” as he was called wasn’t much older than he was and that he found the situation as appalling as the medic did.

The scouting party that had been sent to the river’s edge came back. They reported that they had found a number of women and children drowned along the banks of the river.

“They all appear to have been bound hand and foot before being tossed into the water,” said the reporting scout. His complexion was an ash-gray.

Tommy felt helpless. There wasn’t a person alive in a count of two-hundred men women and children that he could try and save. They had all been killed either out right or tortured.

“There doesn’t seem to be any young women,” a Marine said.

That’s when it occurred to Tommy that there were missing people among the wiped out village. He reported the findings to the Major.

“It seems that we’re dealing with people that will stop at nothing to ensure that their drug trafficking business continues,” the Major said.

Tommy knew that he was right. The drug cartels were financing the Communist party and now they knew that their enemy was also dealing in the slave trade as well.

Overhead was the familiar sound of the helicopters as they approached the clearing. There muffled sound differing from the noise of the details set-up to collect the dead.

The Chinook lowered a small bull-dozer into the area. Its blades caused the grass and loose earth to swirl into the faces of those below it’s down wash. It rotated to the right and moved away once the dozer was on the ground.

The remainder of the day was spent burying the dead in a massive grave created by the bull-dozer. Slowly the dozer pushed the dark red dirt over the mangled bodies until only a swathe of naked earth remained.

Then one by one the helicopters swept into the once inhabited village and picked up six Marines at a time. Tommy was in the fourth and final helicopter to leave the area.

He looked down on the lifeless village and strip of bare earth that was a mass grave of innocent civilians and wondered aloud, “And no one knows what were fighting for or against back home.”

It occurred to Tommy that soon even the jungle would hide the truth.

He came ridin’ up the canyon draw
When he heard more than saw
Two university-types communin’ with nature,
Smoking cigarettes and drinkin’ beer.

They took one look at him and cussed
As they choked on his hosses dust.
The Cowboy said not a word
As he frown at what he heard.

They said he was killin’ the environment
And to Hell’s rim-rock he should be sent
For wreckin’ their Mother Earth
Without knowin’ what she’s worth.

And like all real Cowboys will do
When faced with people who
Know nothin’ about the Lord’s plan,
He turned and rode across the land.

The moral to this story must be:
Experience is the real key,
And a sip at the trough of college
Won’t irrigate the fruits of knowledge.

At stringin’ fence I’ve done my share,
I’ve chased down cows and branded some,
At doin’ hard work, I’ll claim I’m fair,
But at throwin’ rope, there ain’t no hope.

I’ve missed my target all but once
While helpin’ Daniel shearin’ sheep.
Ol’ Charlie and I plowed into those runts
He’d cut them fine, I twirled the twine.

“Jus’ got lucky,” I say to myself now
As I recall the loop and the fatal jerk.
Ol’ Charlie must have thought he had a cow
And I’ll be damn, if we didn’t kill that ram.

So the moral to this story is this:
If you go ropin’ sheep, rams or ewes
It’s best if your mark, you jus’ plain miss
Unless you’re a gutton for nothin’ but mutton.

A cowboy pard’ner of mine,
Gave up his hoss for a bike,
When he moved to the city so fine
‘Cause his hoss, the city didn’t like.

The first day that he was there,
He was thrown in the city jail.
His hoss left droppings everywhere,
And cowboys don’t carry a scoop or pail.

So now that he’s finally free,
He rides that bike all about.
With his hat and boots you can see
He’s a cowpuncher without a doubt.

At first he was sad to the bone
When he gave up his jinglin’ spurs.
But he had to go that city alone
‘Cause hosses don’t wear no diapers.

It was Christmas Eve, snow coming down
The Army was halted on frozen ground.
Soldiers on half-ration, coffee, hard tack.
Supplies were short, such an awful fact.

Lieutenant commands some season cheer,
Men wishing for barreled buttered beer.
Alas, he orders a squad deep into the trees,
Snow so deep, they thought they’d freeze.

Once they returned, behind them in jolly tow
Was pine tree for camp, their Christmas show.
Green was its beauty against glittered white,
Bringing them hope amid the coming fight.

Ever so gently it was decorated by hands,
Rough from living by any means they can.
A found ribbon here, color paper from there,
Carved figures, hand painted, hung with care.

All that was missing was Angel on top.
First Sergeant bellowed all work to stop.
Demanding feathers, chicken or ostrich plume.
If not, work details, to each man their doom.

It was a Corporal, who suggested the idear,
One both Privates and Captains like to hear.
They gathered as one, though it quite unusual
For Officers and Enlisted to break such a rule.

The Corporal said, “There’s a pair of boards
In camp on which to top the tree. They affords
Broad wings of silver and rest upon our Colonel’s
Shoulders.” Three cheers went up, hurrah, eternal.

Yet the Colonel had other thoughts so clear,
A single tin-type, his family, truly so dear,
Those more precious, where love dwells.
Ones he calls his God given living angels.

Come the morning, that Christmas Day
Company broke camp to make their way
To distant battlefields, leaving for all to see
A hundred Angels atop their Christmas tree.

There is one thing in my life for which I have been strivin’.
It’s somethin’ I’ve wanted since I was jus’ a little kid.
When I die, I wanna go in my sleep like my Grandpa did,
Not screamin’ like my Grandma, in the truck he was drivin’.

I do not understand this metaphor
That crashes and smashes and thrashes
Through my waking daydreams.
I see him plain as a cloudless day,

The bronco buster cowboy man
With kack and tack and on hoss back,
Rolling with Hell-bound abandon.
It is like a child frolicking at play.

And I can never be like this one,
Just as free, just to be, just me,
For I do not comprehend myself
Wanting a time that has died died away.

Senator Harry “Pinky” Reid has been in the headlines of Nevada the last couple of days. A recent statewide poll shows he would be defeated if elections were held today and if someone with solid name recognition came up against Pinky.

This comes after having received Reid latest book entitled, “The Good Fight: Hard Lessons from Searchlight to Washington,” and giving it a read through, one needs to ask has he ever been in a healthy state of mind? It appears not.

The book comes with pictures. They fall between pages 116 and 117.

One of the photographs shows Reid in his Capitol policeman uniform, next to the Nevada Cherry Blossom Princess. Next to her is Nevada’s Democrat Congressman Walter Baring. 

Jus’ so you’ll know Baring was Nevada’s only Congressman at the time, since it was such a sparsely populated state. Baring Blvd. in Sparks is named after him, though I doubt anyone but old timers know who he was to Nevada.

Anyhow, Reid claims that on the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated Baring told him it was good thing as JFK was leading the U.S. into Communism. Obviously, Reid believes making the long-deceased Baring look bad, makes him look good.