In the course of any given week, you hear a lot of stuff.
There’s the usual sniping about who’s responsible for our problems.
“The city misspent the casino money.”
“No, the county did.”
“It was your mama’s uncle.”
“I’m taking my ball and going home.”
You know, that sort of thing.
There’s the press conferences and the meetings and the complaints about roads and decrepit houses and crooked politicians.
There’s the uneasy feeling that for all the blustering and yelling and screaming and pointing of fingers, so little seems to be getting done in terms of actually fixing the problems.
It’s enough to drive a man to drink, if he were into that sort of thing.
Occasionally, there’s a story like the one involving Mark Stets Jr.
These are the ones that give you perspective. They add a little more focus. They make you want to go home and hug everyone in your family.
Stets Jr., a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army, died last week when a roadside bomb detonated outside Islamabad, Pakistan, killing him and six others.
I drew the assignment of talking to his aunt, Lewiston resident Mary Ann May.
We talked for 15 or 20 minutes or so about Mark, his life and his death.
Mary Ann talked a good deal about what a proud soldier he was and how there are so many other ones out there just like him - working hard in far off places with funny sounding names, trudging through sand, trying to convince people they didn’t know to trust them and to believe in American ideals.
One day they are preparing to celebrate with their new-found friends in the foreign country where they are stationed.
And then, in an instant, they are gone.
This is reality for military families.
They start everyday knowing that they could lose a son or a daughter, a father or a mother, a niece or a nephew.
I imagine it being a feeling of mixed emotions, a cross between intense pride and concern.
I don’t imagine it being easy.
Mark Stets Jr. was a soldier, a husband and a father of three.
He lost his life serving his country.
His death reminds us to remember others like him who are willing to do the same each day.
His story is important — the most important of the week, by a wide margin.
Columns
CITY BEAT: Putting things in focus
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BRADBERRY: Bond stirred, never shaken
I have been playing tour-guide for two of my sisters since they arrived back home in Niagara Falls from Florida last week for an extended visit, one of them had not been home for nearly 30 years. Cruising the city streets, landmarks and our old neighborhood we quickly realized that we have a lot of catching up to do.
It’s funny how we remember things. -
Bob Confer: Learning about our Constitution
In a recent column for the Greater Niagara Newspapers in which he addressed constitutional amendments that he’d like to do away with, Scott Leffler began a paragraph with this thought: “For those of you without a pocket Constitution (in other words, everyone but Bob Confer)…”
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CITY BEAT: How to run a public agency
If I ran an organization that relied on the use of public funds, I’d do one thing right off the bat.
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HIGGS: Visiting a few of Niagara’s treasurers
On Oct. 2, the Niagara Arts and Cultural Center will be hosting a tour of six celebrated homes in the City of Niagara Falls. The tour will begin with registration and a reception at the 1924 landmark Niagara Falls High School, now the home of the NACC.
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HAMILTON: Paul and Hattie’s lost Garden of Eden
By the fence at the edge of his property, there on a corner of the quiet Tennessee Avenue, the 80-year-old Paul Lowery sat in his mechanized wheelchair and gazed out past the Henry J. Kalfas Magnet School.
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BRADBERRY: Lessons learned from Hurricane Hazel?
I cannot directly recall much about that year, but as I look back at it, 1954 was a year to remember for a lot of different reasons with Hurricane Hazel, and the lessons we should have learned from her, among them.
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CITY BEAT: Reason to be proud
It’s not something any of us set out to do. It just kind of happens sometimes.
In the course of our daily lives, we get complacent.
At times, we forget to remember. - Cambria recalls another TV suspect
- HAMILTON: Scott, Bond and Billy’s basketball
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GLYNN: 9-11 attacks have no place in campaign ad
Rick Lazio, a former Long Island congressman and lightweight GOP contender for governor, has obviously run out of issues to capture voter attention.
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