Behind the Headlines

By Charles Slat
ctslat@monroenews.com
He was sitting under a canopy set up on the tarmac at Custer Airport, his white hair shielded from the heat of a late July day.
Members of the Young Marines scampered to and fro, seemingly oblivious to the historical figure that sat at a table behind a couple stacks of books.
I guess I expected a long line in front of Ret. Gen. Paul Tibbets when I showed up at one of the airport’s “Living History” days in 2001. There were only a few queued before him.
I introduced myself and Tibbets, the man who piloted the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, invited me to sit down.
Before I arrived, I had wondered if I even would be able to speak with him and, if so, what would I ask a guy who was responsible for the instantaneous deaths of hundreds of thousands of people – grandmas, moms, children and babies among them — innocently going about their lives on Aug. 6, 1945.
Tibbets was in his mid-80s when I met him, sharp and articulate.
I asked an obvious and probably hackneyed question – one that he probably had been asked thousands of times.
“Any regrets?”
“Why would I have regrets?” he replied without hesitation. “I was just a soldier doing my job.”
Clearly, this wasn’t just a rehearsed response. It was his belief.
Tibbets, who died Thursday at 92, didn’t ask to drop the bomb on Hiroshima, he didn’t want to be in a war with Japan. But he was in the Air Force, he was given a mission, and he carried it out.
At the Living History day, he was selling his memoir, “Return of the Enola Gay.” It isn’t just a chronicle of his career and the bombing. It’s a history lesson.
The lesson is this: Throughout history, good soldiers follow orders. It is their duty and most do it unwaveringly. How well they do it often is the difference in who wins and who’s vanquished.
Here’s how Tibbets put it in his book: “Fact is, in 1945, I was simply an airman, a pilot. Wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army Air Forces, I was – as I has sworn to do – following the orders of my Commander in Chief. To the best of my abilities and the limits of my strength and endurance, I was doing what I could to bring the war to an expeditious and victorious conclusion. There was nothing heinous or monstrous about that.”
I talked with Tibbets for about an hour on that July day and my thoughts occasionally would race back to the scenes at the Hiroshima Peace Park, which I visited on an early spring morning in 1986. The park is a solemn place, a lasting memorial so that no one forgets.
Tibbets, I realized, never forgot.
“It is a sobering thought that our two bombs, feeble by today’s standards, were the curtain-raiser on what many view as the supreme human tragedy,” he wrote in his book. “Mankind’s best hope is that the prologue was so frightening that the main show will be canceled.”
If that is Tibbets’ legacy, generations to come will owe him a debt of gratitude.

By Stephanie Ariganello
stephaniea@monroenews.com

I met with a woman earlier today who was using a hair curling iron when the cord separated from the unit, sending the current into her arm, through her body and out the top of her head and one of her feet. She couldn’t described the pain, but said there had been a loud noise like gunshots, the world slowed down and a wide blue arc connected her flesh to the electrical outlet by way of thin black cord.

One of the medical professionals she has been working with told her that her electrical system was overloaded and shut down, like a plug during a storm, and they just haven’t been able to get it back up and running.

Usually when someone experiences a physical trauma, we can relate. Who hasn’t fallen down, or gotten cut, or burned accidentally? We’ve all felt pain at some point - whether fleeting or otherwise and have at least vague memories of what it’s like.

This, however, was not one of those situations.

I always thought it was hilarious in the movie So I Married an Ax Murderer when they are talking about situations that would be gross or uncomfortable, mentioning things like going to eat a steak and discovering a bandaid, or drinking lots of coffee, eating a bran muffin and being trapped in a traffic jam on a bridge. One of the characters offers up - “being electrocuted” which just doesn’t seem to fit. That scene kept playing in my mind today, before going to meet with Rita and her lawyer. How would it feel, I wondered. How would I describe it to people?

There are so many things that are interelated to our electrical functioning. Think back to high school bio - electrical currents are what keep us going. When Rita was zapped by the cord, it did more than just hurt. Her entire right side doesn’t really respond and ” feels like 1,000 pounds” now. She can’t work. She can’t stand up. She can’t think of words.

When it rains, she feels the thunder and lightning. Fourth of July was excruciating, she said. She could feel each whiz and pop. It just made me think, even though the current has left her, it’s still bouncing around inside her. She said occasionally a small charge will make its way out of her skin, leaving a burn mark behind. The shocking happened in January and instead of time healing all wounds, the passing months seem to be revealing more ways the electricity has burned paths through her.

There should be a story coming in the next few days, talking about Rita’s experience as well as what her and her lawyer are now trying to do: make sure it doesn’t happen again.