By: Charles Ormsby – September, 2005 NORTH ANDOVER – Alexander Milne rarely speaks of his wartime experiences, even with fellow veterans. Such conversations were uncommon even with his brother, Donald, who served on the Battleship Texas at Normandy, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and who passed away two years ago. Alex found it difficult to […]
By: Dr. Charles Ormsby – January, 2005 We have been bombarded with news stories recently detailing the abysmal state of public education in the US. It is a theme I have been preaching for decades and a disaster that I am now witnessing up close and personal. The spate of recent articles was prompted […]
By Dr. Charles Ormsby – August, 2005 Bound, blindfolded and badly injured, Captain Jim Mulligan was led through the angry crowd of Vietnamese peasants. They screamed in Vietnamese while striking him with sticks and pelting him with stones. He was then placed on a mound of freshly dug earth while a man made a loud and […]
By: Charles Ormsby – July, 2005 Charles Bruderer of Methuen is just wrapping up his military career. He will be leaving the National Guard after 33 years of service to our country and a record that recently won him the Meritorious Service Medal. Born in Ogden, Utah and raised in Brigham City, Charles found himself between jobs […]
By: Dr. Charles Ormsby – May, 2005 Andover, Mass. – “I was furious at what they did,” said Ted Cole, recalling his emotions after hearing about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Less than 24 hours later he and his two brothers were in line at the recruiting station in Lawrence. “The line was out the […]
By: Dr. Charled Ormsby – April, 2005 HAVERHILL, Mass. – Shortly after his 22nd birthday and nine months before Pearl Harbor, Michael Buglione went to his draft board and requested to be taken in the next round. Heck, he thought, it’s just “Goodbye dear, I’ll be back in a year.” Well, it was over […]
By: Chuck Ormsby – March, 2005 NORTH ANDOVER-The Eaton family has a proud history of serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. When Ted Eaton was in his early teens, he had three brothers who signed up for duty in WW II (John and Lindy in the Army, and Frank in the Navy). In the summer […]
By: Dr. Charles Ormsby – January, 2005 A boyhood attraction to trains, electronic gadgets, and Morse code earned Jeremiah (Jerry) Sullivan a ticket to see Europe by air. Actually, it was numerous tickets; they were for a B-17, and the reception wasn’t very friendly. Jerry was born and grew up in Lawrence. He graduated from […]
By: Dr. Charles Ormsby – December, 2004 I became hooked on politics in High School in the early ‘60s. My favorite bumper sticker was in support of Communist China. It read: “Admit Red China to the U.N. – Give Them Our Seat”. I’d suggest such a trade today, but I think every despotic regime is […]
By: Dr. Charles Ormsby – December 2004 Meeting North Andover resident George Henderson for the first time, you wouldn’t guess what he did during his first three years after college. Born in 1921, he graduated from St. Michaels College in 1942, approximately six months after Pearl Harbor. George immediately signed up for duty in […]
This article is being written before the election results are known. Absent more hanging chads and leftist lawyers seeking to undercut our election process, you now know who won. As of yet, I don’t. You know if we have re-elected an inarticulate, President who appreciates American principles but, all too often, is willing to compromise […]
By: Dr. Chuck Ormsby – September, 2004 Few topics are as emotionally laden as the issue of abortion. Such emotion often spills over to discussions (typically yelling matches) of the embryonic stem cell issue. Politicians see this as fertile territory for demagoguery and they attempt to take full advantage of the opportunity. It is […]
By: Dr. Charles Ormsby – August, 2004 Last month we discussed (The Valley Patriot, July 2004, Page 3, Freedom’s Laboratory) how free societies, by respecting the rights of property owners to keep their property and to dispose of it as they see fit, permit the maximum degree of rational experimentation and therefore maximize our rate […]
By: Dr. Charles Ormsby – March, 2004 If you are a parent of elementary school children, you’ve probably seen it: elaborate make-work homework assignments, cutting and pasting extravaganzas, overly complex and roundabout procedures to add or multiply numbers, estimation exercises that won’t quit, and the use of calculators in place of traditional arithmetic […]
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX By: Dr. Charles Ormsby – January, 2004 Specious: Adj. 1. Seemingly fair, attractive, sound or true, but actually not so. While “Specious” may not describe Special Education perfectly, it comes pretty close. Special Education is not fair, attractive, or sound, and any claim that it is an effective way to […]