Six-Thirty Report by Beamish

07/06/2025

There is a lot to be said about D-Day today as we wake up to the seventh day of June eighty-one years later. My father always hated when my brother or sisters would ask about the grand attack that led to the end of war in Europe. “Dad, did you fight in Normandy?” we’d ask in naive childish energy when we heard the other boys and girls spoke proudly in our classes about what their fathers did on the beaches of Europe on June 6, 1944. A terse and angry “No!” would greet our cheery inquiry.

We soon learned to never ask him again about what he did in the war as the memory of it clearly touched something hurting him deep inside—even little children could see it. After he died, I researched my father’s war. I learned he fought as a sergeant in the infantry—a squad leader in the 81st Infantry Division; a machine gun squad in the 323rd Infantry Regiment that fought in battle on Peleliu from noon October 16, 1944 to November 27, 1944 when the enemy was defeated.

I learned a lot of war heroes did heroic things in battles we don’t hear about. Battles that are not iconic declarations on playgrounds where little boys and girls can recall about their fathers. I learned that not all battles are memorable to the masses even though the same extra human effort is applied by the soldiers in the fight. I learned that was is sh*tty and hard to swallow. I learned about the ambush that killed three soldiers in my dad’s company in the chaos of Army boys taking over the fight from the dessimated Marine Division in the initial assault a month earlier.

The assault is likely the source of his nightmares that woke my mom.

Another thing I learned is about my father’s unique connection to D-Day. He probably didn’t even know about it, or maybe he didn’t know the significance of it. Still, there was a photographer taking photographs for LIFE magazine the day in May, 1944, when he and about eight-hundred Wildcats from the Division were awarded the Expert Infantryman’s Badge. As the group of soldiers in the photo, the photographer yelled, “Smile, boys, you’re gonna be on the cover of LIFE!”—this according to the grandson of one of the soldiers in the photo.

Dad’s Division was supposed to go to Europe. It is clear that Division leaders knew since around January 1944 when everyone came back from Christmas leave that they were headed to a different war than the one fought in Europe. Still, it was closely guarded information that they were headed to the Pacific. An indicator of this is that their photograph ended up on the LIFE cover that was highlighting the D-Day invasion.

LIFE Magazine published a story about D-Day the day before the invasion.

I think that is iconic.

—Beamish

14/05/2025

Found this in my memories today.

With two of my favorite Volvos, now "retired" in LA.. Circa '91

06/05/2025

Short note while waiting my flight in London for Stuttgart. Are you the same leader today you were when you retired? I mean, everytime you go through the gate, a young soldier will say for the rest of your life: “How are you Sergeant Major?” We have the title until death.

26/04/2025

Journalism has always gotten me in trouble.

When I was in college, I was the sports editor of the school newspaper, The Sounding Board, my freshman year. I loved to cover soccer, basketball, track and baseball. I remember spending money I could not afford for an Olympus camera with a longer lens on it so I could take photos of the games. For soccer, I would position myself near the goalie (I think they are goalies in soccer) to try to get a shot of our star scorer kicking one in. If I remember right, the same guy was our star basketball player and I would stand right up under the basket when he would shoot free throws so I could get a good shot in a game. I don’t think he liked my flash, but he usually scored anyhow. I would write columns that would cause people to respond, and one time a reader wrote to me to get my head out of the sand.

The next year I got a scholarship to serve as the editor. I remember one issue that created a great deal of stir on the campus. The school had a very strict rule about dancing, drinking and going to the movie theater. There was a Billy Graham movie coming to the local theaters and the school president decided to lift the ban allowing students and faculty to attend. There was a group of faculty and students who thought this was wrong. I listened to all sides of this and wrote a very strongly worded editorial stating that the exception was confusing, sending the wrong message to everyone about the school’s stance on movies. If the exception can be made for one movie, why not for many more that were acceptable? The editorial ran along with the news article I wrote on the exception where I quoted the school president giving his rationale.

A couple of weeks later I was at a soccer game taking photographs when the dean of students approached me handing me a letter asking for my resignation. I opened the envelop not knowing what was inside. After scanning it and realizing the serious nature of the letter, I climbed into the stands to sit and study it more in-depth. The letter was signed by the student body president and the entire council which included two of my friends I had known since I was a young boy. I learned that there had been a private meeting of the council in which my editorial was discussed. It was decided — without my input or any discussion of my rationale — that the editorial did not support the school or administration. It said, wrongly, that the school’s paper should write things in support of the school. I really didn’t know the president, but I knew everyone else pretty well. It hurt my feelings that they did not tell me about this or ask my opinion before signing the letter.

The letter also said that the school president was upset about my editorial.

I refused to resign. I went to my advisor’s apartment and let her read the letter. The next day I went to Dr. Kent’s office and asked to see him. The secretary went in to ask and came out to tell me I could go in. I showed him the letter and asked to interview him. He smiled and said sure. He said he wasn’t upset about the editorial, he was just sorry his decision had made so much controversy. He said he was proud that the newspaper could be part of the conversation. I then met with the English Department board that oversaw the newspaper. It’s a long story, but word got out that I was asked to resign over the editorial. A petition went around campus, getting about 700 signatures saying I should stay as editor. There was a meeting arranged a few weeks later with all the members of the student body council who signed the letter. After I presented all the facts, my friends on the council withdrew their opposition of me being the editor, but the student body president refused.

I believe to this day this was all a personal vendetta he had against me. The experience soured me against the school — although it meant a lot to have all those who supported me. I left the school at the beginning of the next semester. Then I joined the Army as a journalist. I never stopped standing up for what is right — even when it goes against the grain.

(Posted on my personal page on April 26, 2020)

—Beamish

26/04/2025

You see, journalism is dying.

The instant information in social media is killing it in you and me.

It is a damp and stormy morning here in the Rockies. The nation is reeling from news rocking the football world: Nobody’s picking the kid quarterback with diamonds to play of their team. Read the headlines on the soaked newsprint stuck to the wet sidewalk. “Shedeur Sanders gets punked by the NFL.” Then: “Greatest draft slide in league history makes little sense as Colorado start quarterback still undrafted.” Even the President of the United States weighed in from Italy where he waited for the Pope’s funeral, making a comment about “phenomenal genes” the young man inherited from Deion.

I don’t know how any of the younger generations can even contemplate life without newsprint. How else would you get the visual metaphor of wrinkled, wet paper stuck to cold, damp concrete bricks that make up a sidewalk announcing what must be a bone-chilling reality to the young man and his dad? The truth is, I would not even be writing about this had I not walked up on the scene of the windblown Colorado Springs Gazette on the ground and discovered this single metro-sized page perfectly glued down to the ground.

My story is about wet newspapers. There’s a big debate fueled by Shedeur’s great draft slide about anonymous sources and untrue narratives—or narratives partially true—that stick. This is really why I am writing this little essay. You all know the emerged story: Bad interviews by a extremely talented but privileged, arrogant, and spoiled athlete. And there is the problem. That story has not been fully examined, considered with critical thought, and determined if true.

—Beamish

25/04/2025

Do you know this guy? His name is Whalen “Butch” Wehry. I am in search of information about his career in Army as an instructor at the Defense Information School, reporter for Stars and Stripes, and employee at the Air Force Academy. He died years ago. He was a good man.

Here is his short bio that he wrote with his book called “The Yobo” long ago:

“I left the farms and coal fields of Pennsylvania and was assigned to the U.S. Army as an infantryman and combat correspondent in the hostile fire zone north of the Imjin River in 1967. I traveledd around the country a lot and early on realized that Koreans were well worth defending and knowing.

“I had to stop by the U.S. Forces Korea at times and every time I went into the lobby I saw these stoic photos of generals who commanded since the war started in 1950.

“I was raised around the sons and daughters of immigrants to the coal region, and I loved the crossing of cultures.

“I sensed there was much more to the Korean-American story and spent the next 15 years researching, reading reports and talking to old-timers.

“What I discovered prompted me to write Corean Dawn, which I hope you will enjoy. It is my sincere hope that the book can help with understanding of how Korea came to be what it is today.”

W.M.

12/04/2025

If you are in the area and need a professional headshot portrait, here is your opportunity to get one for free.

07/04/2025

Take a look at this. Hans is dead now, but he is the center of one of the books I am writing.

https://www.facebook.com/1148223908/posts/10224823860360995/?

07/04/2025

A reminder from ten years ago. It is a reminded of our roots. Soldiers doing soldier things.

Archive Photo of the Day: On the radio in Vietnam, 1966.
Details: http://www.stripes.com/blogs/archive-photo-of-the-day/archive-photo-of-the-day-1.9717/on-the-radio-in-vietnam-1966-1.338911

06/04/2025

Wake up America, snow melted on the dead rabbit carcass’s fir over on the sidewalk by the Safeway store on Highway 115. It is Sunday morning here in the middle and I have something to say. I hope you don’t mind that a man peed in our canteen cup—probably for all of our collective lives—and we are just now realizing it. I mean the world—our world—is simply turned upside down. Isn’t it about time we all just sat down for coffee—or a beer or wine or perhaps a glass of whiskey or tea, maybe lemonade. Sorry, I don’t do specialty drinks. I do do talks on religion, jigsaw puzzles, and how rebuilding a two-eighty-nine engine for a sixty-seven Mustang when you’re seventeen years old living on the wrong side of the tracks relates to building a Dog Run Fence (Dog Not Required) in a nice over fifty-five neighborhood of uppity-ups when you yourself have turned the magic age of sixty-seven years old with nothing to do but write a book.

It’s a long talk about a play on numbers. And reality. Sense of security too. Don’t forget aesthetic appeal—a Dog Run Fence (Dog Not Required) looks much better with ten fifteen-inch square stucco columns in it than without. Jealousy, power, and simply poor governance all have a play in it. The four-thousand pounds of concrete they put on the fence posts and privacy panels on the deck has hardened to a whitish-gray. Soon they will have their color and I my sanity. Still, there are the books I want to write inside that fence. You see, I have said the minister lied. He did. I suppose this is really the heart of all that I write: The human condition versus nature. Oh, I will write about war and politics and romantic love and murderous jealousy. I will tell you stories you do not yet know. So, it will be my sanctuary that you can share with me in the words that I will write.

Easter approaches. It strikes me. Easter Bunnies symbolize fertility, new life in the springtime and Christianity’s power over death in the resurrection of Jesus after his friends betrayed him—the minister lied—contributing to his brutal murder on the cross. I thought of those things as I looked at the decaying rabbit fir on the carcass still on the concrete this morning. All of my stories are rooted in what my father planted in me as a young boy. He is long dead. I saw the artistry in that thought the other day as workers smoothed out the heavy coat of concrete on my fence posts. The crew foreman went from post to post pressing his gloved hand against the wet cement to get a sense of things. Soon the handprints disappeared with the stroke of the hand trowel.

Stay with me and you will see my father’s handprint.

—Beamish

16/09/2023

I should remind you — you would be disappointed if I did not — that the battle on Peleilu began mid-September 79 years ago. This is when the Marines assaulted the beaches of Peleilu while the Army boys in the Wildcat Division stayed on the ships to watch before going to Anguar, Ulithi and other places. But it starts here and all comes back to Peleilu in September, 1944.