Battles on the homefront

By Mark Thornton

April 18, 2007 12:21 pm

— Just a few minutes after last week’s paper hit the streets, a sharp-eyed colonel pointed out a mistake in a photo caption on the front page. World War II veteran George May was, according to the caption, holding the Silver Star medal when, in fact, he was holding the Bronze Star.
Both medallions are bronze-colored, but the color of the ribbon was the distinguishing characteristic, Col. Gus Heilbronner pointed out.
The mistake backs up one part of the story — that May didn’t care about the accolades that came with being a war hero.
See, before photographer Luke Horton snapped the photo that was on the front page, May asked which medal we wanted him to hold. I asked him to hold up the Silver Star — and he held up the Bronze. We whippersnappers didn’t notice and, apparently, neither did he!
It’s been pointed out that World War II was fought overseas and on the homefront ... and the latter is what was missing in Vietnam and the current War in Iraq. Looking through our papers of the early and mid-1940s, there was plenty of evidence of the battle on the homefront.
First, because of rationing, the paper had only eight pages per edition during the war years. But even though space was severely limited — thereby severely limiting the revenue of the paper — a good one-third to half of that space was dedicated to the war effort. There were stories and photos of hometown heroes and military-produced updates along with ads and stories urging citizens to buy war bonds (anyone who saw “Flags of Our Fathers” knows the depths our government stooped to in the war-bond effort). There was even an editor’s note that no new subscribers could be added until the paper ration was over.
Can you imagine how people would react now if asked to sacrifice anything to help the war effort?
And if the draft were reinstated, Mexico and Canada would be the countries complaining about illegal immigration.
It was a different era.
That’s not a bad thing altogether, as this little nugget from the Sept. 13, 1945 edition of The Star-Herald proves: Tom Potts, Choctaw County Negro, pleaded guilty of assault with intent to kill in the shotgun wounding of Game Warden Coyt Majure ... Majure was making an attempt to apprehend Potts for shooting squirrels out of season. The Negro shot the officer as the warden was trying to make the arrest. A posse went out searching for the Negro shortly after this and when they closed in on him, the Negro cut his own throat. However, he was captured before he could do himself serious damage and hospitalized in the local hospital ...
That’s their story, and they’re sticking to it! Ummm, thank goodness they got to him before he flung down his shotgun and cut himself any worse ...
It would be understandable — not condoned, of course — if law-enforcement officials performed a little extracurricular punishment on anyone, black or white, who assaulted a fellow officer.
But to insult our intelligence like that, and to have a newspaper go along with it, shows the importance of having an independent press.
It’s also more proof of how far we’ve progressed as a society in an amazingly short time. Something like that is unfathomable these days — even if it we didn’t have Brothers Al and Jesse.

Mark Thornton is editor/publisher of The Star-Herald.