Commentary

Commentary Ocean City Today Oct. 14, 2022 Page 51 Stats should be put in perspective

Part of the follow-up reporting after a vehicle rally here is to list the number of arrests, calls for service, traffic violations and incidents that occurred during corresponding time periods.

The idea is to give readers an idea of how the crowd generated by the event — its participants, spectators and nonparticipants who inserted themselves into the mix — behaved.

This, however, is no precise measure of the conduct of a specific group of people, but is instead a broad look at the total population in town at that particular time. In other words, not everyone in town during a car rally, for instance, is here because of it.

As informative as these statistics might be when they are stacked up against reports from previous years, they also can be misleading, because no distinction is made between the number of event participants and the total visitor population.

If, for instance, police conducted 266 traffic stops during last weekend’s Endless Summer Cruisin’, which registered some 2,700 vehicles, that would suggest that 12 out of every 125 cars and trucks got the police department’s attention.

The problem with that is that it doesn’t account for the weekend’s other 50,000 or so motorists who were here for other reasons and undoubtedly warranted some police attention as well.

As it was, the fall car cruise this year was exceptionally quiet despite its increased registration over last year.

An even better example of this lack of perspective is BikeFest, when 60,000 or more motorcycle enthusiasts came to town. Although 76 arrests and incidents were reported in the follow-up, that constitutes no more than one-eighth of one percent of the event’s participants — again excluding the other 100,000 – 200,000 people in town that weekend.

Considering that BikeFest business saved the resort’s lodging industry’s bacon in an otherwise disastrous third quarter and that Cruisin’ was so low-key, it is unfair to look at these statistics from the bad news perspective. The benefits of these cruises and rallies are incalculable, whereas the police interactions are easy to count, but don’t present the full picture.

Ocean City Today

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EDITOR ............................................ Stewart Dobson MANAGING EDITOR................................ Lisa Capitelli STAFF WRITERS .................................... Greg Wehner, ..........................................Jack Chavez, Mallory Panuska ACCOUNT MANAGERS.......... Mary Cooper, Vicki Shrier ..............................................................Amanda Shick CLASSIFIEDS/LEGALS MANAGER .... Nancy MacCubbin SENIOR DESIGNER ................................ Susan Parks GRAPHIC ARTIST .................................... Kelly Brown PUBLISHER........................................ Christine Brown ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT ...................... Gini Tufts

PUBLIC EYE What’s in a name?

What’s in a name? I’ve been reflecting on that and have concluded that it depends on whether you’re trying to sell something, in which case a name can mean everything. No industry recognizes that more than the pharmaceutical outfits, which spend millions developing that perfect marketing moniker to get you and me to buy their product should something run amok innardwise. The drug’s name doesn’t have to be related to the actual chemical compound, which, when pronounced quickly, usually sounds like a conversation between a couple of frogs. “Ask your doctor if RightoReezy is right for you,” the script in the commercial says, but if you look at the small type under “RightoReezy,” you’ll see in parentheses (Ribbylibnabformanib), as if we know all about it.

“Oh yeah, Ribbylibnabformanib. I know what that is, it’s a variation of Ribbyliblabexatib, which is used for whiter teeth and to control galloping spleen syndrome.”

And that’s why they call it RightoReezy, because you can pronounce it and remember it, especially because the marketing company is going to produce commercials that feature a very, very happy and energetic sufferer of a chronic illness.

“Hey,” this actor in one drug commercial seems to say, “my innards have taken a hike, yet here I am bouncing through a yard sale touching everyone’s stuff, because I take RightoReezy.”

My reaction, which doesn’t count because I’m easily annoyed, would be to say to this guy if he flitted through my yard sale, “You touch my stuff one more time, and I’ll show you your innards.” But that’s how naming works. It’s show and tell. Which brings me to another point about: we’re buying cars we would normally eschew because the manufacturers aren’t calling them what they are. Here’s what I mean: Congratulations, you just bought a brand-new Ford Explorer SUV for $50,000. It has four-wheel drive that you paid an extra couple of grand for so you can use it once a year to back out of the driveway when it snows. There’s no way you’re going to take it on the beach, for at least the first couple of years.

By So, what you have, my upscale SUV-owning Stewart friend, is ... is ... a station wagon! Nooooo, you say. Yeesssssss, I say. Dobson We all know that “station wagons” were put to rest decades ago, right around the time the “Leave It To Beaver” spin-off, “The Beav Goes to ‘Nam,” failed to develop an audience. Except that’s not true. The station wagon is still going strong but is being marketed differently so upwardly mobile middle-aged people won’t feel they have become their parents. Today, we call them SUVs and Crossovers. I mean, if you’re not out climbing mountains or running through stream beds or blasting through snowbanks in your Explorer, what have you got? A station wagon. And the Ford Expedition? A big station wagon. A Chevy Suburban? A big-A.. station wagon. A Toyota Sequoia? A station wagon with twin turbos. Sure, they’re bigger and higher than granddad’s classy Roadmaster, but they’re still ... you know ... station wagons. I know this is a big letdown for people who haven’t thought about this obvious marketing subterfuge, but I do have some advice: if you’re feeling down, listless and disappointed, ask your doctor if RightoReezy is right for you.

Continued from Page 50 know we will be in constant and transparent communication about the timing and location of our ocean activities as we develop Skipjack Wind.

Commercial fishing boats should review our weekly online Mariners Briefings , which can be found at https://us.orsted.com/wind-projects/mariners.

The briefings include information on Ørsted survey vessel schedules and maps and are distributed via email to the local fishing community.

We support commercial fishing within our lease area. We want offshore wind survey activities to occur without any interaction with fishing gear and will work closely with the fishing community to achieve that goal.

I encourage local mariners to contact me with questions they have about our plans and schedules for Skipjack Wind.

While we are not conducting ocean surveys at this time, we have and will continue to keep our survey areas as small as possible and to complete surveys as quickly as possible.

We have a Fisheries Liaison Officer assigned to survey operations to communicate with commercial fishermen and advise mariners of the location of our activities.

Survey activity will only be conducted during daylight hours and in fair weather.

Skipjack Wind will create thousands of jobs in our region, power nearly 300,000 homes with clean energy, and usher in a new American industry in our community. But we are also committed to honoring those who have fished our waters for generations and ensuring their livelihoods remain strong for decades to come.

Dana Nelson

Mid-Atlantic Marine Affairs Specialist for Ørsted, developer of Skipjack Wind Sports complex could be asset to community

Editor,

I am writing to express my support, and encourage others, in voting yes to question A for the proposed sports complex in Worcester County.

A number of years ago, I was involved in amateur soccer organizations. First in the Baltimore metro area, and then statewide in Maryland, and then nationwide with the United States Soccer Federation.

In my travels to various meetings and conventions across the country, I have met numerous organizations that have complexes built in their areas.

These facilities have proven to be very successful in providing safe and convenient areas for competition, while being a source of fundraising for their communities.

The fact that this complex would be closely located to Ocean City, a popular family destination, and the area nearby, should help in its overall success and sustainability, and would attract teams and competitions from various areas of the country.

I certainly understand concerns such as startup costs and traffic. Any project this large will have an initial price tag that gets your attention.

However, to be as successful as possible, a plan like this must be large in scale. As far as logistics such as traffic concerns, these can be worked upon and, with proper scheduling, can be minimized.

I truly feel this project would be a huge asset, financially and sports accessibility, to our area. Again, I encourage my fellow voters to vote yes to question A. Thank you for your attention.

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Martin Branagan Ocean City Looking at details ahead of Sportsplex vote

Editor,

We have all heard the expression, “the devil is in the details.” Now and until Nov. 8, Worcester County residents are going to be asked a ballot question.

Question A will appear on the Nov. 8 ballot as well as the mail-in ballots people are starting to receive.

Question A titled, “Local Referendum by Petition Bond Issuance for Design and Construction Costs of a Worcester County Sports Complex.”

It will read, “The purpose of this question is to determine whether the County Commissioners may finance a portion of the costs of designing and constructing a Worcester County Sports Complex by issuing a bond.” Then, for or against.

Doesn’t this sound so reasonable? Why not some will ask, we need a sports complex in our county, a place where our children can safely play. Well let’s look at some of the details surrounding this sports complex. 1) Our children will not be allowed to go there to play at will. Its purpose is to host teams competing from out of town. 2) The use of public funds to build a fantastically expensive project at the northern part of our county is wrong-headed. The northern part of our county is congested enough. It should be built in the southern end whose economy needs a boost. 3) The 95 acres just off Flower Street will cost taxpayers $75,000 an acre or $7.1 million. Land is available in other parts of the county far, far cheaper. 4) This sports complex located next to the high school will benefit the hotels and restaurants in Ocean City and West Ocean City greatly. 5) Once again, a project being considered and approved by the same four commissioners with no business plan, no total transparency reminiscent of the Black-Eyed Susan River Boat fiasco in Snow Hill. 6) It is estimated that a government-owned sports complex requires approximately 25 percent subsidy to operate, not including debt service and capital reserve funding. Where is that money coming from?

A tax hike will be probable. 7) Efforts to obtain total costs for a sports complex from our County Commissioners have been unsuccessful. Why, could it be they do not know? 8) This is a fast-tracked sports complex that never appeared in our County Capital Improvement Plan until less than a year ago. 9) Given the current economic situation, is this the right time to be building a major capital project?

Vote against or “NO” on question

A.

Dennis W Evans Berlin

Voter in opposition of proposed sports facility

Editor,

Worcester County voters who have requested mail-in ballots may start to receive them any day. I encourage all those voting by mail, as well as those voting in person and by absentee ballot to vote against Question A.

Vote against: • The use of public funds for the construction and operation of a Sports Complex in the north end of the county. • Traffic congestion. • A facility with no business plan. • The disrespect conveyed to the people of Berlin. • The oversaturation of sports facilities in the mid-Atlantic region. • A project in which participation rates in most sports have shown a decline. • A fast tracked sports complex that never appeared in our County Capital Improvement Plan until less than a year ago.

Vote against Question A! Thank you.

Vincent dePaul Gisriel Jr. Ocean City

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Battle of Stalingrad decides fate of world

By Peter Ayers Wimbrow III Contributing Writer (Oct. 14, 2022) STALINGRAD! Let he who has never heard the name, or does not understand its import, hang his head in shame. For it was there, on the banks of the Volga River, in the city named for Josef Stalin, that the fate of the world was decided. It is the most famous battle of World War II, and the second most famous in history.

The battle lasted six months and consumed 1 million lives. This is almost as many deaths as the United States has suffered in all of its wars, and 2 1/2 times as many as the U.S. lost in WWII. The Battle of Stalingrad was a microcosm of The Great Patriotic War. This is the name which the Russians have given to the struggle we know as World War II.

In the Battle of Stalingrad, not only were Germans killed, but so were Croats, Italians, Hungarians, Rumanians, Slovaks, and, after the involvement of the 5th SS Wiking Panzer Division, Danes, Norwegians, Finns, Dutch, and Belgians. And, of course, Soviet soldiers from all parts of the U.S.S.R. were killed — Russians, Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Tartars, Mongols, Siberians, Turks, Kalmuyks, and Cossacks. And, the Battle of Stalingrad mirrored the war, in that, at first, the Axis forces swept all before them. But slowly, Soviet resistance stiffened and then the Red Army punched back.

Stalingrad was a city situated on the western banks of the mighty Volga River, 244 miles north of the city of Rostov-on-the-Don, and 600 miles southeast of Moscow. The city extended about 30 miles along the great river. Along the riverbank in the northern part of the city were four huge factories: the Tractor Factory, the Barricades Factory, the Red October Gun Factory, and the Lazur Chemical Factory. At the beginning of the war, the Tractor Factory was converted to producing T-34 tanks. The city was dominated by Mamayev Hill.

The city was not always, and is not now, known as Stalingrad. Prior to the Revolution, its name was Tsaritsyn, and during the Russian Civil War, Communist forces under Stalin won a significant victory there. After the Red Army finally prevailed in the Civil War, the citizens of the city of Tsaritsyn changed the name to Stalingrad to honor Stalin’s accomplishments. In the ’60s, in an effort to wash away the excesses of Stalin’s regime, the city was renamed Volgograd.

On June 22, 1941, the German Reich, and its ally, Slovakia, launched Operation Barbarossa. It was (and remains) the greatest offensive in the history of the world, and for almost six months, it swept all before it.

But, when the Japanese Empire and the U.S.S.R. signed a five-year Non-Aggression Pact, and the Japanese made their decision to attack south against the Allies instead of north against the Soviet Union, dozens of divisions of fresh Siberian troops were released and transferred west.

The combination of the fresh troops and the harsh Russian winter were too much for the exhausted Wehrmacht. In December, it was stopped at the gates of Moscow and finally pushed back. But that was only a temporary setback. With the spring thaws of 1942, Axis Armies were on the march again. The Red Army was dealt another crushing blow outside Kharkov (Kharkiv). Sevastopol was captured. Rostov-on-the-Don capitulated. Voronezh fell. Axis forces entered the Caucuses region in search of oil and captured Maikop.

Then, in July, the Sixth Army, under the command of Gen. Frederic Paulus, and the Fourth Panzer Army under the command of Gen. Hermann Hoth, were directed to capture Stalingrad! The assault on Stalingrad was actually an afterthought. The defense of Stalingrad fell to the SixtySecond Army under the command of Gen. Vasili Ivanovich Chuikov.

But the Sixty-Seventh Army had only recently been soundly trounced by Gen. Paulus’ Sixth Army near the village of Ostrov, 20 miles west of the Don River. With the aid of Gen. Dr. Baron Wolfram von Richthofen’s Luftwaffe, the Germans took 57,000 prisoners and destroyed more than 1,000 tanks during the first week of August.

On Aug. 23, 1942, units of the Gen. Paulus’ Sixth Army reached the Volga River, north of Stalingrad. Also that day, the first bombs fell on Stalingrad. By the time the first bombing attack was over, 40,000 of Stalingrad’s citizens had died. During the bombing, the offices of the Stalingrad Pravda were destroyed. Orders were sent to continue publication, so Mikhail Bodolagin made his way to the Tractor Factory, where he was able to print 500 single-sheet copies of the newspaper, with an editorial which proclaimed, “WE WILL DESTROY THE ENEMY AT THE GATES OF STALINGRAD.”

As the Germans continued their advance toward Stalingrad, surrounding it on three sides, Gen. Chuikov’s Sixty-Second Army withdrew into the city. Now, the German advantage of mobility would be nullified, and the fighting would be block-to-block, street-to-street, building-to-building, room-to-room.

That kind of fighting was perfect for snipers. The Soviets were only able to supply and reinforce Gen. Chuikov’s Sixty-Second Army by ferrying men, weapons, and food across the Volga, and then usually only at night, because otherwise German artillery and the Luftwaffe took too heavy a toll.

On Sept. 20, 1942, the 284th Division was ferried across the Volga and moved into the line against the Germans. One of the soldiers in that division was Vasili Zaitsev (played by Jude Law in the movie). Zaitsev had grown up in the village of Elininski, in the foothills of the Ural mountains. In the summers he had worked as a shepherd and had become an expert shot while hunting deer in the forest around his village.

Within 10 days of his arrival at Stalingrad, he had killed almost 40 Germans. The Soviet press, eager for a hero, trumpeted his exploits, and his fame spread. Zaitsev began training others in his art. One of them was a pretty, 19-year-old blond, named

Victorious Soviet soldier waving Red banner in Stalingrad

Continued from Page 54 Tania Chernova (played by Rachel Weisz) from New York, who was in Belarus to rescue her grandparents when the Axis invaded. After they were murdered, she began fighting as a partisan in Belarus, but made her way to the city on the Volga, because it presented a greater opportunity to kill the hated Germans, which she called “sticks.” Soon the two became lovers.

In the meantime, Zaitsev’s fame had spread across the line to the Germans. It began affecting morale. To combat the problem, the Germans summoned the head of their sniper school in Zossen outside Berlin, Maj. Erwin König (played by Ed Harris, in the movie). König was the top sniper in the world at the time, with almost 400 confirmed kills.

The Soviets learned of his presence at Stalingrad from a prisoner. The commander of the 284th Division, Col. Mikali Batyuk, said, “I think that the German super sniper from Berlin will be easy meat for us. Is that right, Zaitsev?” Zaitsev responded, “That’s right, comrade Colonel.” But first Zaitsev had, “ . . . to find him, study his habits and methods and . . . wait for the right moment for one, and only one, well-aimed shot.”

Unfortunately for Zaitsev, the German had the advantage. The Germans had been studying the Soviet leaflets describing Soviet sniper techniques and reading the newspapers, and, of course, getting reports from German front-line troops. Although Zaitsev had killed many of the German snipers, he had only been able to accomplish that by patiently studying their habits for days. In the case of Major König, he knew nothing of his habits.

For several days, Soviet shooters watched the front lines through their field glasses. Then quickly, two Soviet snipers — Morozov and Sheykin — were killed with single rifle shots in that same area of the city. The Soviets knew the German killer was on the hunt!

One afternoon, Zaitsev and a friend, his spotter, Nikolai Kulikov, (played by Ron Perlman) crawled to the edge of no-man’s land between Mamayev Hill and the Red October Plant, near where the two Soviet snipers had been killed, and waited. At sunset, they saw a German helmet, but Zaitsev held his fire. It could have been a trap.

Before dawn on the next day, they were back at their position. At sunset they returned to the Soviet lines, not having fired a shot and having seen nothing of the German sniper. On the third day they were joined by Commissar Igor Danilov, (played by Joseph Fiennes) who had come to witness, and publicize, Zaitsev’s victory.

Shortly after dawn, Danilov spotted the German sniper and raised himself up, shouting, “There he is. I’ll point him out to you.” With that, the German shot him in the shoulder. Unlike in the movie, he was not killed. But Danilov’s sacrifice had allowed Zaitsev to zero in on the German’s position.

In front of him, to his left, was a disabled tank. To his right was a pillbox. Between them was a sheet of iron resting on a pile of bricks. Zaitsev didn’t think it was the tank, and the firing slit in the pillbox had been sealed up. Zaitsev suspected that the pile of brick was the German’s position.

To flush him out, the Soviet soldier hung a glove on the end of a piece of wood and slowly raised it above his position. When the German rifle cracked, Kulikov hissed, “There’s our viper.” The next morning, the two Soviet soldiers moved their location so that they had the afternoon sun at their backs. And there they waited for the rest of the day.

As the sun dipped below their backs, Zaitsev noticed the light reflect off a piece of glass under the sheet of iron. He motioned to Kulikov to raise his helmet over the top of the parapet. The German fired and Kulikov rose screaming. Falling for the ruse, the major relaxed, thinking that he had bested the Soviet super sniper in the ultimate duel. He lifted his head slightly, to see his “victim.” Zaitsev squeezed the trigger on his Mosin Nagant Model 91/30 rifle and shot him between the eyes.

By the end of October, Zaitsev had killed nearly 100 Germans and been awarded the Order of Lenin. His lover, Tania, had broken almost 40 “sticks.”

One day, at the end of the month, she and several student snipers had assumed a position on the top of a building and zeroed in on targets. But Zaitsev had forbidden them to fire without his approval. Meanwhile the Germans came and went before her very eyes.

Losing patience, when a column of German infantrymen burst into the open, she screamed, “Shoot!” When the firing had ceased, 17 Germans lay dead. But all the Germans weren’t dead. Within minutes, German artillery had zeroed in on their position, killing the students. Tania survived, and when Zaitsev heard the story, he slapped her to the ground for her stupidity, and told her that she was responsible for the deaths of her friends.

In other respects, the battle wasn’t going well for the Soviets. The Germans drove inexorably towards the Volga, and by now, controlled at least 95 percent of the city. Ice floes on the Volga prevented the ferries from crossing. Food and ammunition were running low. The wounded could not be evacuated. Losses could not be replenished.

But Marshals Zhukov, Vasilevski and Stalin were planning a surprise. And on Nov. 19, they sprung it. That day a half-million Soviet troops under the command of Gen. Konstatin K. Rokossovski assaulted the area held by the Third Rumanian Army, commanded by Petre Dumitrescu, on the left of Gen. Paulus’ Sixth Army. Gen. Dumitrescu’s Rumanians were stretched too thin and were ill-equipped to face the masses of T-34s crashing in on them.

The next day, the Fourth Rumanian Army, commanded by Constantin Constantinescu-Claps, to Sixth Army’s right, suffered the same fate. The two pincers met on Nov. 23, at Sovetsky, west of Stalingrad, surrounding Gen. Paulus’ Sixth Army, elements of the Gen. Hoth’s Fourth Panzer Army and elements of the Gen. Constantinescu-Claps’ Fourth Rumanian Army.

In mid-December, Tania led a patrol of three other snipers on a mission to kill Gen. Paulus. However, one of the members stepped on a mine which ripped a gaping hole in Tania’s stomach. Zaitsev rushed to her side and carried her to a hospital. The next morning, she was transferred across the Volga, ending her participation in the battle.

In her three months at Stalingrad, she had broken 80 “sticks.” She was eventually transferred to a hospital at Tashkent in Uzbekistan. Although she would live, the wounds that she received would prevent her from ever bearing children.

After the surrender of the remnants of Gen. Paulus’ Sixth Army, on Feb. 2, 1943, she received a letter from a friend who informed her that her lover had died in an explosion near the Red October Plant in the final weeks of fighting. She was crushed.

In 1969, she learned that, although Vasili had been grievously injured in that explosion, and for a while, blinded, he had recovered completely and married someone else. Once again, she was crushed.

Zaitsev finished the war as a lieutenant and was awarded the Hero of The Soviet Union star. He was cred-

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