Posted on 08/30/2014 7:12:30 AM PDT by MD Expat in PA
When retired Cpl. Lewis Alston, who was wounded during the Vietnam War, drove by Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School in Lancaster last year, he was shocked.
“I saw -- when I was coming down the street -- a student that ran in between the cars,” Alston, 63, of Lititz, Pennsylvania, told ABC News. “The traffic will not stop for the children at all.”
-Snip
So when the school year started on Monday, Alston, who is a chaplain for the Lancaster County Marine Corps League, headed to the school and saw that they didn’t have a crossing guard at one busy intersection. Because he had been at a funeral service that day, Alston was still wearing his marine uniform.
“I had my uniform on, and I thought, ‘Wouldn't it be a golden opportunity for the students to see a marine help them cross the street?’” the former truck driver said.
(Excerpt) Read more at news10.com ...
The part they miss in this is that this retired Corporal is retired because he was badly wounded in combat in Vietnam and then medically retired on what little bit Corporal's pay gives you. He gave up part of his body and his life for all of us and now he's coming to the aid of his country again in this small but inspiring way.
Some of the responders have been mean-spirited and insulting (my reading comprehension level is just fine, miss marmelstein) and that is degrading to all of us on this forum. Once again, we have people who pay lip service to us veterans but if we in any way differ with their closely-held prejudices, it's back to insults very quickly.
I hope I get the pleasure of meeting this Marine in person and shake his hand.
Phew!
Apparently, it is now unbecoming a gentleman to take a thread and riff on it. We must keep to the tenure of the poster’s reason for posting it and not deviate on to such an ill bred topic as to whether children need crossing guards or not. In fact, I now feel like a combination of Jane Fonda, Tokyo Rose, Lord Haw Haw and Vlad the Impaler - but without his good looks.
Actually, this subject has come up before with pros and cons. Happily, usually without hysteria.
Thank you!
It is not just the teenagers or the pedestrians or bicyclists texting.
Not long ago I was driving on a narrow winding country road in York County PA and being very closely tailgated by a large passenger van, one of those big Ford 12-15 passenger vans. And when I say “tailgating” I just don’t mean that she was less than a car length away but right up on me, mere inches away from my rear bumper. As I looked at her in my rear view mirror, I could plainly see that she was not a teenager but someone who appeared to be a middle aged woman and that she had a cell phone in her hand and was looking down at it the entire time and appeared to be texting. Then I saw that she was driving a school van, a private school van for disabled students!
I tried speeding up to try to put a bit more distance between us but then she also sped up and was also swerving a bit not only within our lane but sometimes crossing the center line and into the oncoming traffic. As I was coming up on my turn, I signaled far ahead of time and started slowing down a bit hoping that she’d see my turn signal and also slow down.
But she just kept tailgating me and then got even closer to me as I making my turn, she nearly rear ended me even as I had driven far off the shoulder of the road to avoid her, but I was still nearly run off the road by her and her distracted driving while texting and only because I drive very defensively and anticipated her actions and or lack thereof, did I avoid an accident that day and perhaps save her and the kids in her charge from being injured.
I tried to get the number or license plate off of her van to report it but couldn’t as she sped away too fast. I often wonder what might happen to her and to those disabled student’s she’s driving or to some other driver in her path while driving while texting in the future.
And FWIW, this was not the first time (and probably, sadly won’t be the last time) that I’ve nearly gotten into an accident or rear ended or hit head on because of a careless driver who was texting while driving.
And for anyone who thinks that texting while driving is not any big deal, they should really take the 30 minutes to watch this:
From One Second To The Next - Texting While Driving Documentary - Werner Herzog
If you are driving a car, all I can say is, put your damned cell phone away and pay attention to the road. No text or FB post or email while driving is so dammed important or so immediate or necessary to read or respond to while driving that it is worth taking a life or permanently disabling someone for the rest of their life or ruining your own life.
“It can wait.”
It’s “tenor” not “tenure”.
Two good reasons:
1. I saw a little girl killed by a speeding car right in front of her mother. I will never forget that sight as long as I live. The horror of that stays with me every single day.
2. I saw that Marine’s Purple Heart. I was wounded in combat just like him.
These are the kind of things I take seriously. I always will.
That’s fine - you’re entitled to your opinion as I am to mine. And, again, I said nothing, absolutely nothing negative about the Marine. That is in your imagination.
A wise man once told me that “opinions are like bungholes, everyone’s got one”. It fits, doesn’t it?
Not really.
The school intersection here in Chicago has three stop signs, one crossing guard and two speed bumps for the little darlings. That is how stupid the children and parents have become in the last twenty years.
Please, whatever you do, don’t relate that to some people on this thread. They want the little darlings coddled from birth to earth as Riff said in “West Side Story.”
Me? My mom forced me out into traffic at around 5 years of age. She had to make me a New Yorker in the only way she understood. Or she wanted me dead which is probably more accurate...
You were taught properly as was I. I don’t know how old you are but when I was about 6, my parents stood over me and pointed out the electrical outlets and said: DO NOT PUT ANYTHING IN THESE HOLES. In looking back to 1960, they were quite nasty about it. Oh, poor me. (They also took me into the cabinet under the sink and forced me to observe that drinking bright green liquid was not healthy.) Of course, as a dopey child, I still did weird things and by the grace of God survived. I have no memory of my parents taking me out to a two lane highway and telling me to look both ways, avoid trucks and cars manned by drunks, but somehow it got through to me. As the old NY jingle sang: Walk in the Green, Not in Between. (Bronxites added: Walk in the Red, you’re gonna be dead.)
You can ask a retired friend of mine who was a crossing guard in Shelby Twp., MI, last fall............
After the last kid crossed, he turned to return to the sidewalk when he was hit by an elderly lady who nearly killed him........He's still going thru therapy........
How the heck did we survive without baby car seats and seat belts? This coddling is sickening.
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