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
- Columns
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CONFER: Time to end the NFL’s blackout rule
Long ago, in a much simpler time, ticket sales accounted for the majority of revenues for professional football teams.
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CITY BEAT: Stuck on traffic
Sometimes I feel like the traffic signal reporter in Niagara Falls.
Traffic signals have been making a lot of news around here lately. There’s the whole flap about what to do to improve public safety near the Como Restaurant in the 2200 block of Pine Avenue. -
HIGGS: Discussing crime and punishment in the Falls
Have to take a detour off Pine Avenue in 1956 this week to report on an event held by the Niagara Falls Block Club Council for its member clubs and other interested citizens.
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GLYNN: Hotel Niagara plan exciting for the Falls
It all sounds like a re-run of a TV program you’ve seen a dozen times. This time, however, there is every reason to believe that the landmark Hotel Niagara on Rainbow Boulevard will be restored to the splendid atmosphere that guests enjoyed for decades.
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HAMILTON: BOE and kids, or the SPCA dogs?
There is example after example of otherwise qualified Niagara Falls’ board of education members and staffers lending their time and efforts to organizations outside of the school district’s core business.
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GLYNN: Trust in SPCA shelter must be restored
Stories about the operations at the Niagara SPCA shelter shape the image of sickening and disgusting treatment of animals.
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BRADBERRY: Old medicine and new challenges
Having suffered and recovered from my fair share of illnesses and injuries over the years, I have come to believe that sometimes the treatment and the cure of my condition can seem to be far worse than whatever I may think is ailing me at the moment.
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CONFER: Federal spending derailed by Amtrak
We’ve been inundated with news reports about the fiscal woes of the U.S. Postal Service. Why is it that we never hear anything about another federal enterprise facing ongoing losses -- Amtrak?
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CITY BEAT: Worthwhile change is never easy
When I was a much younger and thinner reporter, I got a call one day from a particularly irate gentleman who asked me “if my newspaper knew what it was doing?”
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HIGGS: Family stories and a slow start to the 1800 block
I heard from a couple of my readers who added a few tidbits that I did not know about their families.
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