JONATHAN GOODE

The Unthinkable Dream

Jonathan Goode has a dream. His dream is for everyone to love God and love people just the way Jesus did. His present and sole mission is to tell the country about his dream. So on a cold, rainy January morning, Jonathan and his good friend, Wes Peters, packed most of their worldly belongings in Goode's 2004 gold Nissan Sentra and took to the highways with their GPS in hand to take their message of love for all to the rest of the country as they tour the biggest and the not so biggest cities in the nation.



You may know Jonathan from the days when he worked at the local Chick‑fi‑la. You may also remember him from the original Blackbird's Coffee shop in downtown Dublin. Goode was Blackbird's first manger and helped to influence his good friend Jack Walker to open the popular gathering place. In fact, Jonathan's father Mike just purchased Blackbird's from Walker. Jonathan wants you to remind his mom, Sherry Starley, that God will be with him during his travels.



Jack Walker believes in what Jonathan is doing. "When most people have a great idea, they push it for a short time until they get tired and move on," Jack remarked. Commenting on Jonathan's persistence and his future Walker said, "He's the guy who sticks to it and makes it happen. It's just a matter of time before he's speaking at Catalyst Conference (one of the country's largest gathering of young leaders)‑ you watch."

Christ came early into Jonathan's life. He struggled with the connection between being a Christian and Christ himself. The more he read and the more he prayed, Jonathan realized that if you really love God, you must love everyone, not just your family and friends, but all people, even the ones whom nobody loves.



While on their country‑wide tour, Jonathan and Wes will be showing their film, My Concrete Mattress. "The plight of the homeless in America was an easy choice," said Goode, who believes that the churches of America are helping, but would like to see the three‑quarters of the people in this country who profess themselves to be Christians do more, a lot more. "What we need is a massive God‑like movement," Goode contends.



Wes Peters, a Florida native, who met Jonathan when he enrolled in Dublin High School, discovered a new found faith in Christ as a student at the University of Georgia. Peters believes the movement is contagious and is excited to see the love blossom.

On the first leg of their national tour, Jonathan and Wes plan to travel to Birmingham, Shreveport, Dallas, Little Rock, and Oklahoma City and several smaller venues in between. After a short break to catch up on their sleep, the proponents of unconditional love for all people will start up I‑95 for showings in New Jersey, New York, and Boston or in any place any one will invite them to express their message of love. Goode and Peters hope to make permanent contacts along their path to lay the ground work for building a national organization.

In the film My Concrete Mattress, Jonathan, with the invaluable aid of Jesse Lavender and Mark Mitchell, examines the tumultuous lives of four homeless residents of Atlanta. It wasn't long before Jonathan discovered that he was forced to reevaluate his preconceived ideas of who these people are. "The first thing I had to learn was that they were people, individual people with individual stories and individual names," Goode declared. Jonathan soon realized that the homeless were not the kind of people he thought he could easily avoid while he was living in a big city.

What he did realize was they are people who had things that they were excited about and people who do have a future. They are people who come from homes where drugs and alcohol are as common as sodas and pizzas. They are army veterans, paralegals, high school graduates, and businessmen, some who made bad decisions and others who were the victims of bad luck. They are people who honestly try to break the bonds of homelessness and they are people who live in abandoned buildings in sight of the bright lights of towers where wealthy people work and where the very rich show off their athletic talents to their adoring fans. They are people who sleep in the doors of churches as they seek sanctuary from the villainous streets of Georgia's capital.



"Homelessness is not only in big cities," Goode points out. "It is in small communities where people don't see the problem, and don't think there is a problem, so they don't do anything about it," Jonathan declared. He also points out that there is homelessness right here in Dublin, Georgia. Jonathan makes it clear that it his goal and his organization’s goal to help not only the homeless but all kinds of people. "Rich people learn to love and be loved," Goode explains as to why he started with the poorest people.

Jonathan Goode, a 24‑year‑old recent graduate of Georgia State University with a degree in Political Science, asked for and received without hesitation the help of his old Dublin friends. Emily Taylor, Erin Wu, Jackson Head, Rolin Williamson and Ruthie Green, who joined Eric Davis and Billy Coward in making the low budget film, which was re‑edited to show the progress of the interviewees.



As for the future, Jonathan has no plans. "If I am a good steward of what I have now, I don't worry," remarked Jonathan. He takes one day at a time as he is determined to fully concentrate on his mission to spread the love of Christ. Jonathan is not ruling out going to a seminary in the future. "It has always been a part of me that wants to take this view of Christ and to make it ever present here in Laurens County," Goode wishes.



Goode hopes that everyone will be a part of the solution to the problems of the homeless and the grander goal of eradicating homelessness. He has done the math and figures that those with homes outnumber those without by a factor of at least 100 to 1. "Do something. Donate your time, food or money to a food bank," Jonathan proclaims!

If you would like to follow Jonathan and Wes on their tour or if you would like a copy of My Concrete Mattress, go to www.beunthinkable.org. The cost is up to you. Send what you can. The project could use your money. More importantly, they want your prayers. But, most of all, they want you to love everyone.

LEO FOSKEY

DOING THE RIGHT THING

Leo Foskey's dark eyes grew bigger and brighter as he opened a special thank you envelope at Thursday's Dublin City Council meeting. He meekly smiled because he knew he had done the right thing. He never intended to do anything else. And, that's what his mamma and daddy have been telling him for all of his thirteen years. And, that's where the heart warming story of Leo Foskey begins.

Back a few months ago, Leo and his father, Kelvin Foskey, were out playing basketball near their new building on the site of the old J.P. Stevens swimming pool on Nathaniel Drive in East Dublin. Leo looked down and saw something shiny in the dirt. He reached down and picked it up, wiped it off and showed it to his father. Instantly the Foskeys knew what they had to do. "Automatically, we thought we have got to find the owner," Kelvin Foskey exclaimed! Leo found the ring in a driveway. The senior Foskey operates a construction company and has many trucks traveling down the path to the old pool site which he has restored. And, there was the ring, not buried under inches of sand, but in plain sight right there in his driveway.

That's where Beth Shoemaker comes into the story. Beth, the librarian at Dublin High School, received a call from Kelvin. Kelvin described the ring as a 1960 Dublin High School class ring with the initials R.T.A. inside. Beth (right in photo)  went to the shelves and pulled out the 1960 annual and looked inside. She didn't have to look far. Right next to Buddy Adams, was Robert Taylor Anderson, the senior class's runner up for most intelligent and most likely to succeed. Anderson's father, Bob, was a local physician.

Mrs. Shoemaker, who was thrilled to help get the ring back to the family to whom it belongs, called several friends, one of whom referred her to Nan Barfoot, (left in above photo)  one of the Dublin High 1960s Mega Reunion leaders. Barfoot was friends with Robert Anderson's sister. That's when the wheels of fate began to spin even faster. Nan sought out and found Joan Anderson, Robert's widow. Sadly Robert died all too young back in 1987. Nan contacted both Joan and Kelvin. She sent a picture of the ring to Anderson's widow, who was then in Kansas at the time visiting one of her sisters when she learned of the ring's recovery.

"I was totally shocked and surprised. I knew the story of him losing the ring, but he would always say, 'Well the day wasn't all bad,'" Mrs. Anderson, a resident of Canton, Georgia, fondly remembered.

Robert had gotten a summer job as the lifeguard at the J.P. Stevens swimming pool which was built for the company's employees and their families. It was on a warm summer day in June 1961, five decades ago, when Joan Holland, a junior at East Laurens High School came to the pool's opening day. Joan had been there before. Her daddy, Quillian Holland, worked at the plant for many years. It was on that fateful day that Robert met Joan for the first time. They began to date and four years later, the young couple married. After meeting Joan, Robert had nearly forgotten that he had misplaced his ring.

"He looked for that ring for the rest of that summer and all of the next summer," Joan remembered. "He put out rope grids and when the pool wasn't being used, he got in the water and sifted the sand. He always thought he lost it in the water, but he must have lost it in the parking lot," Joan concluded.

From the very beginning, Leo Foskey, an upcoming 8th grader at Trinity Christian School, wanted to be the one who personally returned the ring to its rightful owner And, on Thursday, Leo got his wish.

Proclamation honoring Leo Foskey

L-R: Bill Brown, Julie Drigger, Gerald Smith,

Phil Thacker, Ed Touchberry, Jerry Davis (back row)

Leo Foskey, Phil Best (front row)

Nan Barfoot contacted Dublin mayor Phil Best and told him the story of the lost ring. Mayor Best issued a proclamation honoring Leo for his wonderful act of kindness by insuring that the ring was returned to its rightful owner." Best added, "Leo, the council and I are proud of you for doing the right thing." Then, the council and those present stood and loudly applauded the hero of the day.

The finding of the ring happened during the weeks leading up to the Mega Reunion, which was attended by some of Anderson's former classmates and friends. Anderson's old friends, appreciating Leo's act of kindness to one of their own, chipped in and presented Leo with a very substantial cash gift. That's when it began to sink in to Leo what his reward for doing the right thing was. "From the very beginning, I knew that I needed to give the ring back," Leo said.

Some of the Foskey's friends told them that they should keep the ring and sell it for its gold content. When Leo's mother, Jennifer, heard that the family of the ring's owner had been located, she wanted to test her son's sincerity about returning the ring. She already knew what his response would be. It was an answer that she and her husband had learned about doing the right thing, lessons she and her family learned at Blackville Church of God, where they have been long time members.

Mrs. Foskey said to her son, "Your daddy has found the owner of the ring." She added, "And, he's giving it back. Some people say we need to keep the ring." Leo responded, "What do they want us to do - keep something that is not ours?" "I wanted to make sure just as parents, that it was his choice to give it back and not ours," Mrs. Foskey concluded.

L-R - Joan Anderson, Leo Foskey, Kelvin Foskey, Jennifer Foskey, Beth Shoemaker

Nan Barfoot

After many hand shakes and pats on his back, the Foskeys and their allies in returning the ring posed with Joan for a group picture. That's when the Foskeys learned of their kinship to Joan Anderson's family.

Then it was off to the site of the old swimming pool where the ring had been lying for nearly half a century waiting for the day when Joan would come back and claim the ring she never got a chance to wear. For just a few moments Joan remembered that day, fifty years ago, when she met and began to fall in love with the man she would later marry. And who says that our society no longer has good young people who do the right thing? We now know there is at least one of them and his name is Leo Foskey.

GEVA ALEXANDER

The First Woman to Lead the Chamber of Commerce

Being the first woman to serve as President of the Dublin-Laurens Chamber of Commerce came easy to Geva Alexander. In a male dominated business world, all Geva had to do was what her daddy told her to do, be professional and be a woman.

A former Dublin High School teacher, Geva Alexander entered the office supply, machinery, and printing business back in 1964 in Dublin. Geva partnered with her husband Louis, a veteran Dublin businessman. Over the last forty seven years, Mrs. Alexander has worked tirelessly without any self motive other than to help build a better community for her family and friends.

So, in 1989, Geva was elected by the membership of the Dublin-Laurens Commerce as the organization's first female president. Since then Helen Harper, June Moore, and Marcia Christian have served as the female leaders of the 100-year-old league of businesses.

During her term, the chamber became a professional chamber. "It had gotten to be a professional chamber where people are actually trained to do the job a chamber should do," Alexander commented. "My greatest contribution to the chamber was to that point, our chamber directors were frequently retired businessmen," Geva added. In judging the impact of that change, Mrs. Alexander commented, "I think it helped the whole county by making us a fully professional chamber."

Geva Alexander never thought too much about being the first woman to head the Chamber of Commerce. "I truly believe if I was put in a man's world, I had to obey their laws and rules," she contends. It was Geva's sole goal to achieve as a professional. Her father installed one rule in her mind. That rule was "always be a professional and be a lady while you do it."

Just a week ago, Geva and Louis celebrated their 47th year in business in Dublin. Working with her parents is their daughter Nannette. Geva has instilled her father's core beliefs in her own children just like her father did in her.

Geva Alexander accepts no credit or accolades for her election to the presidency of the chamber. "I had lots of friends in high places. I don't flatter myself," she explains, "There are a lot more assertive women who could have done a better job." In summing up her tenure as president, Mrs. Alexander stated, "It is my hope that I planted a seed for professionalism in the business community and in the Chamber of Commerce.

Geva Alexander was the first woman to serve as president of the Dublin-Laurens County Chamber of Commerce. She won't be the last. Whether intentionally, or not, Geva Alexander has set the standard of the professional business woman in our community for generations to come.

DUBLIN SCOUT PRESERVES COUNTY'S HISTORIC PAST

Sam Green had seen it many times while he was paddling down the Oconee River at Blackshear's Ferry, but only when the water was low. He knew what it was, but he couldn't quite figure out how to get it out of the river. Sam thought to himself, why don't I take it out and make it into something for my Eagle Scout project. So, with the aid of his father and several friends, Sam carefully lifted out the visible portion of the old abandoned ferry boat and went to work. When he finished his project, Sam graciously donated his project to the people of Laurens County. Today at the Dublin-Laurens museum, you can see the result of historic preservation at its best.

Sam Green, son of Randy and Pam Green, is busy playing soccer, going to school, and getting ready to graduate from Trinity High School later this month, before attending Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in the fall. He started his project a year ago, but had to wait when his busy schedule caused him to miss the rising waters of the winter. Then on the first day of February earlier this year, Sam was finally able to bring a portion of the old boat ashore for the first time since the county stopped operating the ferry after the use of motor vehicle bridges at Dublin and Ball's Ferry made the service obsolete in the late 1940s.

"The challenge was that the water was deeper than we thought," Sam recalled. "The biggest challenge was fighting the elements," Sam's father Randy said. Finding the boat buried deep in the silty mud, digging it out became an impossible task. Then the Greens enlisted the aid of Mickey Baker, who furnished a pump to literally wash it out of its watery grave. Friends Andrew and Eric Eck lent a hand too.

Sam and his friends were able to secure about twenty boards, some usable and others too far disintegrated to be of any use. Sam had gotten the idea for a bench while visiting Don Thompson's store. The first order of business was to dry the boards. Jake Dean helped to saw the boards and Phillip Morris planed them into just the right thickness and width. After three months, Sam presented his bench, which includes a storage compartment beneath a hinged seat, to Scott Thompson, Director of the Dublin-Laurens Museum. The bench will become a part of the museum's permanent collection and will be part of the featured exhibits during the celebration of Dublin's bicentennial beginning in 2012.

And, there's still more. For good measure, Sam placed an original board inside the storage compartment. And to say thank you to those who helped him in the project, Sam asked Dublin attorney, Judge Johnny W. Warren, to finely craft ink pens made from the wood of the old ferry boat, which thanks to Sam will be preserved for many generations to come.

LAURA DARLEY

You have never seen Laura Darley's picture on the front page of the Courier Herald. People like her rarely wind up on the front page of any newspaper. That doesn't mean that you won't recognize her if you see her. Many of you have eaten lunch with her. You may have seen her in the lunchroom at Northwest Laurens Elementary. But, if you don't know who Laura Darley is, just go over to Chick-fi-La for lunch and you'll find her patrolling the place, policing up the fallen crumbs and abandoned trays, and keeping the whole place tidy and neat, just like your grandmother would.


Laura Darley has lived in Laurens County for almost all of her eighty-five years. She grew up on a farm near Rockledge. Life was tough for Laura's parents, Ashley and Tiny Stewart, during the Great Depression. After she graduated from Wilkes High School, Laura married Johnnie Darley. They had seven children, five boys and two girls. Johnnie died way too young in 1970.

During her four decades of widowhood, Laura Darley kept on working. She worked in and outside of her home. Despite the fact that she had seven of her own children, Miss Laura took in at least five foster children, including a six-month-old baby. When she was looking after her own children, Mrs. Darley worked for almost two decades in the lunchroom at Northwest Laurens Elementary.

After leaving the school, Laura took a job at Quincy's Restaurant in Dublin. She worked along with her son Doyce, who was the one who cooked those fabulous, triple-buttered yeast rolls that put a smile on our faces and inches on our waist lines. "When I worked there, my family would always ask me to bring them some home when I got off work," Mrs. Darley, who only worked at Quincy's for a short time, fondly remembered.

Then in the middle of April in 1999, Laura's life took a change for the better. She took a job at Chick-fi-la. "I went over and applied for a job and Mr. David Roberts hired me," Laura recalled.

Roberts had a plan for Laura. "When she came in, I thought how wonderful it would be to have her as a greeter for a while, to be a grandmother to everyone," the manager recalled. She wouldn't work in the kitchen or in the drive through a window or even the front counter.

Laura's shift starts at lunch and lasts only three hours. It is her job to keep the place neat and tidy. She really doesn't mind those who leave their tables and booths in a mess. After all, it's her job to make the eating areas so clean that you wouldn't know anyone had eaten there in a while. One customer, who requested anonymity, keeps an eye on his drink, careful to move it every 20 seconds or so, to make sure Mrs. Laura doesn't come by and pluck it up. And, she does that six days a week. She reserves the seventh day for the Lord and her family.

David Roberts once thought that when she first came to work that Laura would work for only a short time. "Now, she's been here for about 12 years, and " She has only missed a handful of days and her work ethic is unmatched," Roberts continued. On some days, Mrs. Laura has to work up to the strength to get over the normal aches and pains of someone her age just to make it in to work. "She is always in a good mood. She has been a blessing to us," Roberts observed of his longest serving employee.

Laura Darley will celebrate her 85th birthday on Thursday, March 31. Unless her boss gives her the day off, Laura will be working the lunch shift, just as she has for the last dozen years.

Laura Darley has no plans to quit working. "I love the people who come here," she says. "And, I will keep working as long as I can," she continued.

So, if you want to wish her a happy birthday, stop by at lunch and there you'll find Miss Laura, doing what she does best, being a grandmother who picks up your crumbs and your trash and never fusses at you.

SHANE HARDEN

War on Terror News
Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Relics of Defeat: Marines uncover insurgent caches


Regimental Combat Team 1



03.28.2011 Story by Sgt. Jesse Stence

MARJAH, Afghanistan - Like tomb raiders, the Marines unearth the deadly treasures of those who no longer rule Helmand province. Scouring dry creek beds and abandoned compounds, they collect caches of AK-47s, Soviet era grenades and homemade explosives buried by the Taliban.

Capt. Walker Koury, the commanding officer with Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, said his troops find caches every day as citizens of Northern Marjah warm to the Marines.

“I think this makes it much more difficult for them to return,” said Koury, addressing the possibility of a Taliban spring campaign in the area.

For Fox Company, weapons cache finds are the most tangible evidence of the Taliban’s woes in Northern Marjah. The company has averaged three per day over the last three months, accumulated more than 240 since the beginning of their deployment almost five months ago, and accounted for more cache finds than any other Marine company in Afghanistan, Koury said.

Koury, from Nashhville, Tenn., said the increased rate of cache finds is a byproduct of the growing support for Marines in Northern Marjah.

“If the people support the Marines, they’ll tell them that the Taliban are coming,” explained Koury. “Who’s going to spot the Taliban? Not us. The people. Because they’re going to see the Taliban moving with the weapons, so that’s [why the Taliban] are having to hide all of this stuff … What they’ll do is hide the weapons where they’re going to conduct the attack.”

“So therefore,” concluded Koury, “I’m literally attacking their ambush position, but they’re not there; their weapons are.”

First Lt. Shane Harden, the Fox Company executive officer, noted a significant decrease in Taliban small arms attacks since the beginning of the deployment. Harden said firefights used to be a daily occurrence. Now, he said, more than two weeks have passed since their last engagement with the enemy. Harden, from Dublin, Ga., believes the decrease in violence is directly related to the increase in cache finds.
Koury, whose company supports 3rd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, said the turnaround in Northern Marjah is the byproduct of a change in command philosophy. The former battalions focused more on destroying the enemy, whereas 3/9 and Fox Company have concentrated more on building relationships with the locals, Koury said.

Harden noted that Fox Company and 3/9 face a weaker enemy than past Marine battalions in Marjah – units that adopted a more aggressive approach by necessity, he said. He conceded that Fox Company's approach wouldn't have been possible in the spring of 2010, when local Taliban forces were a more formidable threat, and he credited previous battalions for aggressively pushing lingering Taliban out of Marrjah and setting the conditions for more sophisticated counterinsurgency operations. Nevertheless, he said, Fox Company saw no progress until a point early in the deployment when they shifted their focus from killing the enemy to embracing the community.

Koury illustrated the problem Marines have had in the past. “Say you get attacked, and you go through – you break people’s stuff,” he said. “You point weapons at people, and every time your [base] gets shot at, you return with machine gun fire. Now what are the people going to think about you? You can see it however you want, but they’re not going to like you.”

“The next day, the Taliban come by, and they go up to these people and say, ’Hey, you know the guys who broke your door? The guy who just pointed that weapon at your kid? That guy who searched your house? He’s coming down the road in 15 minutes. We’re going to put this bomb in the road, and don’t you say anything to him.’”

Koury looked up, breaking off the narrative. “Would you say anything to him? Would you tell him there’s a bomb in the road?”

In Northern Marjah, the people will, asserted Koury, because the Fox Company Marines have avoided endangering the civilian population in pursuit of insurgents.

Sgt. Gerry Cariaga, a squad leader with Fox Company, said he’s surprised at how much of the deployment he’s spent talking to people and searching for buried weapons. He said departing Marines from the last unit warned that violence would resume with the changing of seasons.

“They said, ‘Hey, once it gets hotter, it’s going to get worse.”

Cariaga, from Solsona, Ilocos Norte, Phillippines, said he’s sometimes disappointed by the unfulfilled prophecy. He sometimes misses the excitement of the firefights, he admitted, but overall, he’s glad that his company has found a safer, more effective way to operate.

“If you treat people with respect, they will respect you,” Cariaga observed.

Koury attributes the company’s success – the uncovered caches, burgeoning public support and reduced hostility – to Marine discipline. Marines prefer the gallantry of combat to playing the role of neighborhood watch, but they will always restrain their natural aggression for the sake of mission accomplishment, he said.

“You can kill every Taliban, but if you don’t have the support of the people, it doesn’t matter,” Koury said. “In fact, you don’t have to kill any Taliban, and you can win.”

LEONARD BURKE

America and Erin Go Bragh

Leonard Burke is used to wearing green. After all, his parents were Irish. And, he just celebrated his 93rd St. Patrick's Day. Although Leonard may look green on the outside - he wore the olive drab uniform of his country for six years too- on the inside, Leonard Burke bleeds red, white, and blue. So, at this Saturday's St. Patrick's Parade, look for this passionately patriotic veteran, one of the many grand marshals we salute for their service to our nation.

Leonard Burke was born to Joseph Patrick Burke and Sarah Jane Eckert Burke in Pennsylvania on the tenth day of the tenth month of 1918. Six weeks after his birth, Joe Burke began making preparations to come home from World War I. Leonard Burke grew up in the Great Depression on the back streets of a West Philadelphia neighborhood, where most of the residents were Irish or Italian. Leonard never finished high school, opting to start working instead. He worked at Dewey's Restaurant on 13th and Market streets for $18.00 a week, keeping $5.00 for himself, and giving the rest to his mother as long as he was living at home.

When the war with Japan broke out, Leonard left his managerial job at Dewey's and took a job as a ball bearing grinder at SFK Ball and Bearing Plant, where he made bearings for ships, tanks, and trucks. When called into the service in 1943, Leonard, at the age of twenty-five with a wife and infant daughter at home, enlisted in the Army. Naturally he was assigned to an engineering unit. After training for many months in the states, Burke and his unit arrived in Liverpool, England in mid-May of 1944, just weeks before D-day.

Leonard was assigned to the 300th Combat Engineers. For eighteen months, Leonard built roads, mine fields, bridges, fortifications, and anything else the Army needed to build or blow up as it slowly moved across France and Belgum into Germany. During the bitterly cold winter of 1944-45, Burke's unit saw service just north of the Battle of the Bulge. One of the highlights of his service was the day Leonard literally bumped into Gen. George S. Patton. When Burke saw whom he had bumped into, he apologized. The immortal general excused the momentary brush. Leonard never can get out his mind the sight of piles of bones in the killing ovens of the concentration camps he saw near the end of the war. During his tour in Europe, Burke was awarded five bronze stars, a meritorious unit award, and various other awards. Seeing it as a jinx, Burke turned down a Purple Heart instead telling his general to give it to the guy in the bed because he was in worse shape.

After the war was over, Burke was one the lucky ones when he got old job back. But, after six months, Leonard decided to join the Army Air Corps to ensure a steady income for his family. Among Leonard's highly prized memorabilia of his years in the service is a certificate issued to him by Col. John R. Kilgore. Burke participated in Operation Sandstone at the Eniwetok Atomic Energy Proving Grounds on the Marshall Islands. The project was a three-detonation series of atomic bombs in 1948 to test the effects of nuclear fall out on the atmosphere and naval ships and aircraft.

After the war, Burke married the love of his life, his wife Thelma, and moved to Florida. Eventually, Leonard and Thelma moved to Moultrie, Georgia, where he lived and worked until he recently retired. Yes, Leonard worked up until the age of ninety. Burke began working at Lear-Signer in Moultrie in 1951 and kept on working full time in the aviation industry. At the age of seventy-three, when most people his age have already retired, Leonard took a new job at Maule Air, Inc. He would work there for almost 17 years. At the age of 89, Leonard was honored for his work as a quality control inspector as the Older Worker of the Year in Southwest Georgia.

Today, Burke lives with his step daughter Elaine Goolsby on Walke Dairy Road. His memories of his life in World War II are still vivid in his mind. He treasures the friendships he made and the good he was able to do on behalf of his country. I imagine, if the U.S. Army called and needed his help, Leonard Burke would put his green uniform back on, stand at attention, and salute the flag of the country he so dearly loves.

The Dublin Civitan Club invites all veterans of military service to serve as grand marshals of this year's parade. If you are a veteran and would like to walk or ride in the parade report to the head of the parade column at S. Jefferson Street and Martin Luther King Dr., this Saturday morning between 08:30 to 09:30 hours. If you can't make it, the Civitan Club thanks you for your service to our country. To those who come to watch the parade, bring your flag to wave as we honor those who risked their lives to give us the freedoms we enjoy today. For further information, please call me at 478-279-2514.

Leonard Burke riding aboard the VA float, St. Patrick's Parade, March 19, 2011.