"CONGRATULATIONS TO DONALD LEE HARDY, KNIGHT COMMANDER OF THE COURT OF HONOR" by Steve Savage "King of the Beasts"

IN MEMORIAM Donald Lee Hardy b. November 4, 1944, d. December 28, 2010
Donald Lee Hardy, Knight Commander of the Court of Honor

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

In a special called Executive Session of The Supreme Council 33rd Degree, of the Ancient and Accepted Rite of Freemasonry, held in Washington, D.C., Donald Lee Hardy, our brother member of the Kagnew Guard Site, has been elected to the Rank & Decoration of Knight Commander of the Court of Honor.

Election to this milestone in one's Masonic career is a very significant honor. Less than one in two hundred Scottish Rite Masons are elected to receive this honor and wear the Distinctive Jewel and Red Cap of a Knight Commander of the Court of Honor.

Don's Investiture Ceremony is scheduled for Saturday Morning, October 20, 2007. This will be followed by an evening Traditional Red & White Banquet, in Don's honor.

No less a personage than P.G. "Pete" Normond, Jr. 33rd Degree, Chairman of the Advisory Conference, Valley of Houston, Ancient and Accepted Rite of Freemasonry, noted that everyone throughout all of Freemasonry is proud of Don Hardy.

I am certain that all of us who share membership with Don on the Kagnew Guard Site, also share Mr. Normond's sentiments and applaud Don's achievements and accomplishments in the World's Oldest Fraternal Order and wish him every continued success in an already very distinguished Masonic career.

"NON-VOLUNTARY EUTHANASIA" The Next Station Stop On The Death Train To Hell by Steve Savage "King of the Beasts"

[An ethical adviser to the British Medical Association has firmly backed non-voluntary euthanasia for patients who are too ill to ask for death. Professor Len Doyal, an emeritus professor of medical ethics and a member of the BMA's ethics committee, writes in the new Royal Society of Medicine journal Clinical Ethics that dignity in dying sometimes means that doctors should kill their patients.]

The 1973 U.S.A. legalization of Abortion was the first step on the Slippery Slope of the Solution to the Malthusian Problem of how to best implement "Herd Control."

"Death with Dignity" came next.

Now with a world population of 7.8 Billion and rising, we will soon witness the "Logan's Run" phenomenon, i.e., Non-Voluntary Euthanasia.

Pro-Life/Pro-Choice matters little now. We passed the "Point of No Return" when we first took Innocent Life under the guise of Constitutionality.

Can it get worse? You bet! Scream now, while you can, because when you see our "Final Destination," your Spirit will shatter like glass and the shards will be eternally frozen in a Horrific Fear no Mortal nor Immortal has ever experienced.

WELCOME TO THE FUTURE by Steve Savage "King of the Beasts"

ELOI (above) and MORLOCKS from "THE TIME MACHINE"

It has become increasingly more apparent that 19th Century London born science fiction author, H.G. Wells, author of The Time Machine, was a much more prophetic visionary than previously thought.

We have become a people symbolically divided into "Eloi" and "Morlocks."

One has only to watch any current TV Quiz Show, e.g., "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader," "1 Versus 100," "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire," etc., to see how far the general population has "dumbed down" into laziness, ennui and apathy.

We are now a nation of automatons, blank playback machines that spout drivel, false original thought that has been programmed into us through repetitive messaging via the media. At the sound of the "Sirens," we morph into "Pavlovian Eloi" and mindlessly march toward the fate the "Morlocks" have prepared for us.

There is a pervasive miasma of Doom that has infected our very Will to Survive. Somehow we believe that it's all going to mercifully end in a "George Carlinesque Pyrotechnic Show of Complete Obliteration."

Unfortunately, the fate reserved for us is "not to end with a bang but a whimper."

DEFENSE OF MAN'S BEST FRIEND BY GEORGE GRAHAM VEST (1830-1904)

[PHOTO: Susie Q is a beautiful AKC registered Red female, long-haired Dachshund. Susie Q will be three years old March 12, 2008. She loves tennis balls and will worry you to death about going out to play ball with her.
Proud Owners: Jim and Sheila Watson,Georgetown, S.C.]


[PHOTO: Ranger, a Champion Male, 3 year old, Siberian Husky. Ranger loves the water and has his own swimming pool.
Proud Owners: Captain Daniel Burch Anton and Amber Nicole Anton, Columbus, Georgia]
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When it was revealed that Atlanta Falcons Quarterback Michael Vick was not only involved in the illegal and heinous sport of Dog Fighting, but that he killed the losing dogs by body slamming them, Dog Lovers everywhere were outraged, and rightfully so. When Michael Vick comes to trial in 2008, perhaps his prosecutor should take a page out of George Graham Vest's book when he addresses the Jury.

George Graham Vest (1830-1904) served as U.S. Senator from Missouri from 1879 to 1903 and became one of the leading orators and debaters of his time. This delightful speech is from an earlier period in his life when he practiced law in a small Missouri town. It was given in court while representing a man who sued another for the killing of his dog. During the trial, Vest ignored the testimony, but when his turn came to present a summation to the jury, he made the following speech and won the case.



Gentlemen of the Jury: The best friend a man has in the world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has, he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most. A man's reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us, may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads.

The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog. A man's dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer. He will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings, and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.

If fortune drives the master forth, an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies. And when the last scene of all comes, and death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by the graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad, but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even in death.

George Graham Vest - c. 1855

"DEJA VU" by Steve Savage "King of the Beasts"

November 12, 1977. Two weeks before my Trial in the Philadelphia Federal Courthouse was to begin, I experienced a dream that greatly disturbed me.

THE DREAM

I was in New York City, on the second floor of a building, located at the northeast corner of 43rd Street and Fifth Avenue, in the space that had previously been occupied by Radio Station WNEW.

I walked down a flight of stairs to the street below to the Deli.

Someone, for some unknown reason, handed me an umbrella just as two burly "cop-like" men moved toward me.

I opened the umbrella, grasped the handle, and found myself floating upwards, like Mary Poppins, away from what I sensed was a certain danger.

As quickly as the umbrella had lifted me to the safety of "beyond reach," it as slowly lowered me into the grasp of the "Fedora'd Faceless Wearers of XXL Trenchcoats."

"Let's go!" one of them said, "You're going to Candlewood!"

For days, because the dream was so vivid, I asked everyone I knew if they had ever heard of, or knew where "Candlewood" was. No one seemed to know, and as the days wore on, it began to fade from my consciousness because there were more immediate problems that demanded my attention.

November 29, 1977. The Trial in Philadelphia was over. I was given a maximum sentence of 65 years in Federal Prison.

As soon as the words of the sentence had been pronounced, I walked over to embrace and kiss Anna who had been in the Courtroom every day of the Trial. I was then led away to begin serving my sentence immediately.

I knew, at that moment, why it was that I had spent that year in the Kagnew Stockade twenty years earlier. It was to strengthen me and to prepare me for this time.

My sole possession, which I was allowed to retain, was my Lockman Foundation New American Standard, Leather Bound, Thumb-Indexed Bible.

Imprinted on the cover, in Gold Lettering, is the enigmatic name "THEOPHILUS;" someone who was unknown to the people of the time that Luke wrote his eponymous Gospel and The Acts of the Apostles.

After several weeks of Odyssey through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, shackled and chained hand and foot, on bus rides that went nowhere, caged with murderers, rapists, drug dealers, and addicts, I was brought to the Metropolitan Correctional Facility in New York City.

Several more weeks later, I was chained and shackled again and, once more, "Put on the Bus." After several hours ride, I saw signs that read "Welcome to Connecticut."

Soon, thereafter, the bus slowed down as it approached the large imposing facility that was Danbury Federal Prison.

The Prison Guard assigned to the bus stood up and turned to face and address his seated, shackled prisoners.

He began to look and sound, for all the world, like a Beverly Hills Tour Bus Guide, before a "Captive Audience," enthusiastically naming all the Celebrity Inmates with whom we would be sharing company: G. Gordon Liddy of Watergate fame, George Hurst, inventor of the Hurst Shifter, Sonny Wortzik, the Bank Robber played by Al Pacino in "Dog Day Afternoon," among others.

As the bus was about to enter the private road that led to the prison, I glanced to the right and saw a large sign, upon which were written the words:

"WELCOME TO CANDLEWOOD ESTATES"

"OCTOBER 4, 1957" by Steve Savage "King of the Beasts"

Me, Rt., AGE 20, GHINDA OUTPOST, ERITREA, SEPTEMBER 1957


GUARDHOUSE, KAGNEW STATION, ASMARA, ERITREA

[NOTE: The purpose of writing this story is not to portray a "Poor Me!" "Look what they did to me!" rant. I wouldn't change one iota of my life if I were offered to be able to do so. In the 84 plus years that have been given me, my life has been filled with every adventure and excitement imaginable. My Lord God has been with me every step of the way, guiding me, protecting me, and strengthening me in every way. Without this experience and the dozens of others with which He has blessed me, how could I have ever known who I was, and why, in spite of all my past sins, He loves me stil.]

The world changed sixty-four years ago.

October 4, 1957, is the day the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I, the world's first artificial satellite. It marked the beginning of the Space Age.

How is it that October 4, 1957, is so indelibly etched in my mind? It's because it marks another event that initiated a dramatic change in my life that would remain with me forever. It's the date I began serving time as the first Prisoner of the newly constructed Kagnew Station Guard House shown in the photo.

I was 20 years old, with only a handful of days left after a 30 Month Tour of Duty at Radio Marina, Kagnew Station, Asmara, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and had just been convicted by a Special Court-Martial and sentenced to 6 Months at Hard Labor for whatever legal terms are used to describe being in a fight in the downtown streets that bordered the "Bosh" of the city.

There were only two of us who went to town that fateful night, celebrating the waning days of a tour that had seemed to last forever. We were the last of the mid-'50's era Guards who, until we first arrived at FS 8604 DU, had absolutely no idea that we would be cast in the role of Military Police Officers. We were Warriors costumed as Enforcers.

Everyone else of our kind and time was gone now in mid-1957. We were dinosaurs. I remember how we used to laugh that the "Army" had come to Asmara and found us stranded there.

Army Rules and Regulations, and enforcement of the Uniform Code of Military Justice had also arrived.

What we of Radio Marina called C.I.A.A.O., was now the new Kagnew Station. MOS Military Police Officers had replaced Infantry MOS Guards. There were barracks now, instead of shacks. They even had a school for dependent children complete with a School Bus and a School Bus Guard. After two and a half years of working the Main Gate, I was that School Bus Guard.

The French have a word, "Bouleversement," which means a complete reversal from the way things were. The New Kagnew Station of 1957 was "Bouleversement" made manifest.

The days of the Post Commander, a Signal Corps Colonel, in exile for screwing up at his last Post, Ft. Monmouth, NJ; drunkenly lying on the grass below the Three Towers with his Austrian mistress who worked at the PX; shooting out the lights with a Thompson Submachine Gun; then sending House Boys up the Towers to replace the lights so they could be shot out again; Guards and Operations guys sneaking Kathy, Asmara's "Nymphomaniac du Jour," into the Barracks; Junior Officers playing "Grab Bag" car keys at the Officers Club and racing out the back gate of Tract A with a "Brown Bagger" prize not their own; and hundreds of other insane behaviors that would rival the best of the comedic episodes of the MASH TV series, had come to an apparent end.

Though I wasn't the one who started the fight that night, such as it was; I was there, and easily identified as "the one who speaks Tigrinya," because I was the only American fluent in the language.

In almost an instant, what began as a late-night knocking on the door of a local bordello, near the "Bosh," turned into the two of us being surrounded by dozens of "Ethies."

Outnumbered, and after getting whacked a few times by those olive wood clubs the "Ethies" carried, while getting in very few punches of our own, we ran like Hell to escape to a nearby local restaurant. We entered, sat down, and ordered Calamari as calmly as though we were at our destination and not our refuge.

We recognized another familiar face in the restaurant. He was a slightly intoxicated Major from the Post who was a frequent "downtowner" for whatever "sins" Asmaran nightlife had to offer.

We quickly engaged him in conversation so that he would think we had been at the restaurant for longer than we actually were. He didn't know it then, but he was to be our alibi for not being at the trouble scene.

Of course, no alibi, no matter how air-tight, could substantiate a miracle of bi-location. I was the only American who could speak Tigrinya and could not possibly be in two places at once.

The next morning was "Gotcha" time. We were arrested and charged for something that would have been laughable only a few months earlier. No Guard ever arrested another Guard for the very things they were doing themselves.

But We Were In The Army Now!

For whatever reason, the two of us were Court-Martialed separately for this same incident. Though we both shared the identical birthday, March 28, 1937, thus of the exact same age, he was allowed to not serve time "because of his extreme youth" and permitted to go home. I was sentenced to 6 Months at Hard Labor. Another sentence to 6 Months at Hard Labor was soon to follow.

I remember the sound the cell door made closing after me that October 4, 1957, as I walked two paces ahead to the barred rectangle that framed the freedom I could see, but not touch.

I looked up into the night sky through the bars on the cell window, straining to see if I could catch a glimpse of reflected light from, what was then, man's greatest scientific achievement, the Space Launch of Sputnik I.

Under normal circumstances, I might have been excited that modern man had made such a giant leap forward.

But "looking" was just something perfunctory to do to distract my awareness from the sickening reality that overwhelmed my senses.

What was to become of me?

So many thoughts flooded my mind.

How could I explain this to my family who hadn't seen me in more than two and a half years and were expecting me home "any day now"?

What would the kids from the school bus think, when they saw their Guard as a prisoner?

At 20 years of age, my life seemed to be over before it had barely begun.