SGT Eric Newman was killed in Afghanistan October 14th of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit using an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to 1st Squadron, 38th Cavalry Regiment, 525th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade, XVIII Airborne Corps, Fort Bragg, N.C.
I have been on more KIA missions with the MS PGR than I care to count. Every time there is an out pouring of love, loss and support for the family and I know that I shouldn’t be surprised by the support a community shows for one of our fallen heros, but this time I was completely amazed. The city of Waynesboro, MS came to honor SGT Newman in a way that I have never seen before. It started at the airport in Meridian, MS on Thursday when Newman’s body arrived, and continued all along the 50 mile route to Waynesboro and the funeral home. There were officers and fire fighters from Wayne County, Waynesboro, and Meridian,as well as 47 PGR and bikers.
I don’t think there was any kind of auto moving in the city other than the procession from the time we entered till we arrived at the funeral home. I have made the comment several times that it is hard to ride my Harley with tears filling my eyes and goggles, but this time was different. There were more tears.
The city of Waynesboro had heard that “uninvited guest” were targeting this service and those same uninvited guest even had it up on their web site. I am not sure if it was one woman or several, but there were flyers being handed out as Newman’s body was being escorted through town. One concerned citizen made it a point to give the flyer to the PGR State Captain, Ed Baker and he went to work to confirm their attendance.
The “uninvited guest” have to obtain a permit to legally protest. After a bit of investigation and some phone calls, Ed sent us all and email telling us that a reporter had a direct quote from the city clerk that they had NOT gotten that permit. That allowed the PGR to focus on what we were there to do, honor a true American Hero.
Visitation was Friday evening and about 20 of us were there to stand the flag line. The city of Waynesboro sent out a message that they wanted to do something for the PGR for being there to honor it’s fallen son and the Honor Guard from Ft Bragg. Many of the churches and community members came together to set up a feast fit for a king. We ate in shifts so as to make sure there were enough PGR members there to stand the flag line and have extras to rotate out with. I was lucky enough and honored to be in the group that arrived at the firehouse while the Honor Guard from Ft Bragg was still there. What a great group of soldiers! It was an honor to meet them.
The city had invited them to attend the football game that night. As they arrived at the ball field, they announced that the soldiers were on their way in. As they entered the field, there was a standing ovation. I was told that it brought them to tear to see such a greeting.
A the end of the evening some rode home and some of us grabbed hotel rooms.
Services were held on Saturday, October 23rd. A Never Forget flag had been embroidered in honor of SGT Newman and was flown for the escort from the funeral home to the cemetery. It was presented to Newman’s mother with the hope that the Waynesboro Police Dept. will fly it in honor of SGT Newman.
There were over 100 bikers on over 90 motorcycles that came to stand the flag line, and to honor and escort SGT Newman to his final resting place.
Once again, the “uninvited guests” made a very small presents. I did not talk to her and the only time I saw her was after she had been asked to leave and had only moved her SUV to the other side of the funeral home. Once we knew she had not left, we alerted the officers there and they took care of it. When it was time for the escort to the cemitary, the officers made sure that she didn’t leave when we did.
We formed a flag line at the cemetery and presented the mother and wife with plaques in honor of SGT Newman.
I want to say thank you to the city of Waynesboro for showing such great support to SGT Newman’s family and friends and to the PGR. When a community comes together such as they did, it restores my faith in humanity.
OK, I have to admit, this was oh so cool! Today was my debut on hosting a radio show. I have been a guest on many radio shows and a guest host a time or two on others, but today, it was all mine. Well sort of! I did have Dan there to run the board since I have not been taught how to do that yet. The show will be co-hosted by me and Dan most of the time, but today, I got to sort of run the show. There were a few mistakes, but we handled them and I don’t think the listeners really knew they happened…that is always good!
To make things a bit less nerve wracking for me and to promote something that I am very close to, I had Kim Brown is as my guest. The topic of todays show was the Patriot Guard Riders (PGR) and the Help on the Homefront (HOTH) mission. Kim is not only a friend of mine, but is also the Mississippi State Coordinator for HOTH; I am her assistant. Talking about something I know so well and love so much made things a lot more comfortable for me. I think the show went well, other than the fact that at the beginning, I was a bit out of breath due to having to run across campus to get there on time. The instructor in the class before the show ran a little long. We talked about how the PGR got started and moved on to the HOTH mission and what it’s purpose is; to make sure that every Veteran knows that they are not forgotten and to make sure that all units shipping out and coming home know that we honor, respect, and love them for being willing to lay their lives down for our Country and our Freedoms.
I didn’t stop there. I heard about a record label that only records current and former military a couple of years ago and have been a big supporter of it. It is called To The Fallen Recordsand there is some great music being done by these guys and gals. So today, that was the music that was featured! We played two songs from the Vol2, Country album, “Coming Home” by Rodney Watts and “Soldier On” by Corey Perrilliux. My hope is that we can continue to feature music from these fine men and women each week on the show. There will be a little Country, a little Rock and maybe even a bit of Hip Hop. (We have to listen to each song and make sure there is no foul language in them, it is public radio after all.) There may be only two to three songs a week featured, but my hope, is that in the end, it will become a signature for the show.
I have had many emails and text messages asking if there are any archives or podcast for the show, sadly, there are not. If you want to listen, for now, you will either have to be local and listen in on 88.5 or listen in on-line at www.usm.edu/wusm if not local. The station is trying to get things set up to have podcast of some of the shows and to install phone lines so we can take on-air callers, but money is tight! I was told today my Mr Sanders that to get the equipment needed to do all that and a qualified person to install it, will cost around $5000. The station revamped the format in November 2009 and we are in what you would call a “shake down” mode. So, if you want to be able to call in and participate on the topics, we need to raise some money. (Please forgive me for putting a hand out, but it is a college radio station and funding is thin.) So, I ask that if you can, and I know times are tough right now, go to the WUSM Support page and help us “get ‘er done!” As with any public supported radio station, donations and memberships are how we get the programing that appeals to the listeners. (Besides, I want my call in talk radio show and they need the equipment before I can do that.) Even if it is only a few dollars, it will help us get the ball rolling. OK, enough of the fund raising stuff!
Next week we are going to have USM employee/student, Teresa Dalgleish, in to talk about a project that she is working to get fun, team building equipment donated to send to the Troops in Iraq. Two years ago, she and some others had enough baseball equipment donated that they were able to send it to two different units in Iraq. She told me when we chatted the other day about some of the feed back she got from the Troops that received it. It really helped their morale to have something fun and AMERICAN to do while in the desert! If interested in hearing about this great project, please listen in next Wednesday, March 10, at 1200 central time, to hear her talk about it and relate some of the feed back she got from the Troops. If you would like to help, you can email Teresa at teresa.hayes@usm.edu or call her office at 601-266-4456.
Until we get the phone lines in, if you would like to ask a question or participate in the show, everyone is more than welcome to shoot us an email at wusmrequest@usm.edu. Please reference me or the Wednesday noon show so we know who is to receive the email. If you have comments or feed back about the show or the station, you can shoot and email to wusm@usm.edu. (Personal note: thank you to those that sent emails today about how much you enjoyed my show. Mr Sanders had a great smile on his face as he told me about them. Keep them coming!!) Each week we will try to announce what the topic of the next weeks show will be so you have plenty of time to get your comments and questions emailed in to us. We will read and try to answer some of them on-air!
Again, I want to thank Kim Brown for being such a great guest today and all my friends and family that took the time out of their day to listen in. I have received many emails and comments on my Facebook page telling me how much ya’ll enjoyed the show! Keep em coming!
