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Clara Ashley
TUESDAY, November 13, 2018 / Vol. 4 Issue 46 / 75 cents
Local contest results
Honoring the veterans - A Clinton kindergarten class made Veterans Day wreaths for local veterans. Some were given to residents of the nursing home and some were presented to local veterans.
4 veterans remember World War II By Freeda Baker Nichols
In Remembrance of Four Van Buren County Vets — Story, Bonds, Bolden and Lewis Back in 1980, four Van Buren County veterans of World War II traveled to Oklahoma City for a reunion of the 90th Division Association. This Association is made up of veterans who were assigned to the 90th Infantry Division during both World War I and World War II, and it has held a reunion every year for 62 years. At the 1980 reunion, bus tours were conducted to the Cowboy Hall of Fame and to other points of interest in the city. Among the 600 men attending that reunion were Virgil Story, Kelley Bonds, Johnny Bolden, and Joe Lewis, all of Clinton. In 1942, these four men along with 17 others from Van Buren county were inducted into the Army on the same day. Story, Bonds, and Bolden were assigned to the 357th Infantry regiment and Lewis was assigned to the 359th regiment, of the 90th Division, U.S. Third Army, which was later commanded by General George S. Patton. In the service of their country, these men participated in five major campaigns of the war: Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Ardennes, and Central Europe. After the war, these men returned
Bonds to Van Buren County bringing with them the bronze arrowhead for the Normandy Invasion, and a star for each major battle in which they had participated. They came home to a country that they, and others like them, had helped to keep free. They returned with the scars of war within, and three of them had received the Purple Heart. The following is their account of the 1980 veterans’ reunion along with their memories of the war: “That didn’t look like the same Army I left,” said 60-year-old Virgil Story, referring to the other veterans at the reunion in Oklahoma City. For Story, the reunion started when he signed the register. “Where do I sign my name?” he asked. “Hello, Story,” came a reply from the man in charge of registration. The man speaking was the platoon sergeant Story had not seen since the war. During the war, Story served in Communi-
cations as a radio operator. Recalling the Normandy Invasion, he said, “I went ashore at Utah Beach. Not the roughest beach.” A shell hit the water near him, as he helped to take supplies on shore. “There were boats all over the sea and the sky was completely full of planes,” he said. (That armada, which was the largest military force ever assembled, had sailed from England. It landed at Normandy on the morning of June 6, 1944. The Allies scrambled onto the Normandy beaches under heavy fire. After a day, they established a beachhead. The invasion was a success and Hitler would eventually be defeated.) Story’s other memories of the war include: being on the front lines for 54 days continuously, river crossings in the freezing rain, walking until they were “give out” and then sleeping from exhaustion while one man stayed awake on guard. Story also recalls one incident when he crouched alone in a field beside a road as German troops went by at night . . . and he remembers the foxholes that he and a buddy could dig so quickly that they became known as the Gold Dust Twins. “There are times you cry, times you cuss, and times you have a good time,” Story relates.
He was always “glad to get anything to eat from home.” Once, during battle he was hit by shrapnel. Kelley Bonds, who drove a supply truck for the Medics, removed the piece of shrapnel from Story. Bonds, who recalls removing that piece of shrapnel, also recalls how he felt at the time of the Invasion at Normandy. “I was scared,” he said. “I didn’t dream it would be that rough.” Bonds’ truck was parked on the barge in a position that it was the first vehicle in his group to leave the barge, after dark, on the evening of June 6, 1944. Other memories that Bonds shared about the war include: sleeping in trenches with water in them, the muddy ground, and not having his shoes off for 54 days, except to change socks. “Clean socks were provided for the soldiers,” he said. In a company of 200 men, Bonds was one of four who was not wounded. In one instance though he had parked his truck behind an old concrete building to keep it safe from an artillery attack. He got out and ran for the basement. A mortar shell hit and the hood of a truck slammed into the basement door just as he closed it. “There goes somebody’s truck,” he said to the other soldiers. When he emerged from the building, he found
his truck demolished. And Bonds remembers the weather conditions at the Battle of the Bulge, the battle where his buddy from home, Johnny Bolden, was seriously wounded. Bonds said, “Snow was 15 inches deep. Johnny went through a lot more than we did,” he added, referring to the battlefield experience of Bolden as compared to himself, Story, and Lewis. Bonds recalls another time when the troops were in a holding position and were short on K-rations. He caught two turkeys and boiled them in a dishpan, adding salt and pepper. The Company commander ate with them. After the war, Bonds had the opportunity to see a house “where Hitler sat as he made plans to conquer the world. It had a large, round table in it,” he said. “It was high on a hill. We had to travel by truck.” (Hitler’s plans apparently did not include being invaded by the Allies at the Normandy Coast.) Recalling the Invasion, Johnny Bolden states that the goal of their Division was “Take the Normandy.” Remembering when he first went ashore, he said, “I didn’t know what we were getting into. It looked rough. It was rough!” See Veterans on page 2
Challenger Dale James ousted the incumbent county judge and the third time was a charm for sheriff candidate Lucas Emberton. James, currently a justice of the peace, received 3,651 votes while County Judge Roger Hooper received 2,482. Tony Soyani got 172 votes. Emberton, currently a Greenbrier Police officer, topped Eric Koonce and Paul Rice to win without a runoff. Emberton received 3,426 votes; Koonce got 2,050; and Rice got 826 votes. Mistie Wilson will be the county’s next Treasurer as she defeated incumbent Kim Hunley, 3,837 to 2,371. Emma Smiley defeated Ginny Stone for Assessor, 4,763 to 1,445. In the coroner’s race there will be a runoff between incumbent Joe Tsosie, 2,982 votes, and John Galbraith, 2,766 votes. Finishing third in the coroner’s race was Ron Henson with 502 votes. In the JP races, Sarah Brown defeated Darla Privitt, 418263 in District 3; incumbent Brian Tatum topped Billy Fosko by 6 votes, 317-311 in District 7; and in District 6, challenger Virgil Lemings ousted incumbent Kevin Housley, 420-230. There will be a runoff in District 9 between Wes Newland and Ester Bass. Newland received 292 votes; Bass got 223; Judy Wells finished third with 130 votes; and Tracen Wheeler got 58 votes. Clinton City Council incumbent Jeff Pistole defeated challenger Mike Curtis, 376496, and for a seat on the Shirley City Council, Randall Gardner defeated Brandy Kimmons, 68-49.
Clinton man faces child porn charges
Caleb Bowman rumbles down the field in Clinton’s lopsided playoff win. More football, Pages 6-7. (Photo by Robert R. Gaut)
A Clinton man has been charged with 40 counts of distributing, possessing or viewing matter depicting sexually Underwood explicit conduct involving a child-first offense, a Class C felony. Jason Paul Underwood, 47, of Gentry Road in Clinton was confronted at his place of employment on Oct. 30 by Homeland Security Special Agent Earl Cranor and Sebastian County sheriff’s investigator John Hicks. Underwood was advised there was a search warrant for his home, according to an arrest affidavit. Earlier in October a peer-2-
peer investigation had revealed numerous images of child pornography from Jan. 19, 2018, through October 28, 2018. A summons was issued to Arkansas Telephone Co. requesting account information on the IP address. Special agents and Van Buren County deputies executed the search warrant and confiscated a laptop computer, the affidavit states. On Oct. 30, Cranor explained the probable cause for the search warrant to Underwood and asked if he would speak with investigators, according to the report. Underwood, on advice from his attorney, declined. According to jail records, Underwood is being held on $500,000 bond.
National degree Clay Franklin Evans, a member of the South Side FFA chapter in Bee Branch and currently a student at Southern Arkansas University, has been awarded an American FFA Degree in recognition of his years of academic excellence. Evans was presented the award at the National FFA Convention in Indiana last month.