I’ve noticed that some people don’t seem to know how to edit a Facebook post or comment.
In this blog post, I’ll demonstrate how to do a simple edit of a Facebook post.
Earlier today, I noticed I misspelled a word – puppie instead of puppy – after I shared a web page on Facebook.
I decided to edit the post to correct the misspelling. To edit the post, you click on the 3 dots on the upper right side of the post. This will open an option menu.
I selected “Edit Post,” which opens the post to allow editing.
When a post like this is in edit mode, you can do two things. (1) Edit the text, and/or (2) delete the article reference by clicking on the x in a circle on the upper right.
I edited the text…
… and saved it.
Clicking on any of the pictures will take you to the page with the Boston Dynamics Robo Dog.
We’ve never had any inclination or desire to “camp” overnight in a Walmart or any other commercial campground. We feel the same about stopping overnight in rest areas. We’re uncomfortable with even the idea of it.
There are a lot of people who do, however. Some of them put in long hours on the road and, when its time to stop, pull in to an available parking lot and spend the night. Some even go so far as to extend their slides, set up their lawn chairs and pull out the barbecue.
We stayed once for a few hours in a rest area in the Texas panhandle in the mid-eighties. It was our first trip towing a camper, a small Play-Mor travel trailer, and we had put in a fairly long drive, stopping well after dark. With only two weeks vacation we wanted to spend as much time as possible where we were going to be exploring and as little time as needed to get there.
Thirty plus years later, I can still remember how hard it was to get any sleep. The rest area, of course, was right on Interstate 40, with its traffic noise. On top of that were the trucks that pulled in and parked for the night, most of them, it seemed, with their diesel engines left idling through the night. The parking area was well lit all night long, compounding the difficulty in getting to sleep.
We were back on the road heading toward New Mexico by dawn.
A 2016 RV Life Magazine article, Is Walmart Camping Dangerous for RVers, by Rene Agredano, says, “Every day thousands of RVers across America go ‘Walmart Camping.’” Agredono then goes on to talk about crime around Walmarts and Walmart Supercenters, citing Charles Fishman, author of The Walmart Effect.
In Time magazine’s Low Prices, High Crime: Inside Walmart’s Plan to Crack Down on Shoplifting, Fishman says that through the 1990s and 2000s, 80% of Walmart’s crime was happening in the parking lots. Today, with increased surveillance cameras and better light, crime has moved mostly into store isles. “At night, they’re the only place that’s open, and where Walmart is the dominant retailer, they’re pulling in visitors from all over. They can easily generate more traffic than the whole town. By pure numbers, the crime is going to be where the people are.”
Most commenters on the RV Life article who used Walmart for camping indicated that they had never had experienced or seen any problems and that they would continue to do it. Only one stated any actual problems he encountered, catching someone slashing tires on his 5th wheel – and he wasn’t even stopping overnight.
A retired police chief commented, from his experience in four different jurisdictions, that 85% of crime at Walmart is shoplifting offenses and that there are increased incidents of vehicle burglaries during the Christmas shopping season. Other than that, though, Walmarts are not “typically any more crime prone than other large retailers.”
Another commenter said that a police officer in Cleveland suggested they find another location as the crime rate where they were was pretty bad.
A retired police records administrator took exception to the RV Life article’s implications on crime at Walmart.
One family stayed 5 nights at their local Walmart because of fires blocking them from returning home.
Another commenter said he had stayed in a few campgrounds where he didn’t feel safe – run-down with too many long-term residents in broken-down campers, glad to move on the next morning and would have felt MUCH safer in a Walmart parking lot.
One local Walmart was mentioned as no longer allowing overnight parking because of homeless people in vans, ratty motorhomes, pickups with campershells, etc. “The trash these people left was terrible.”
While we do not offer electrical service or accommodations typically necessary for RV customers, Walmart values RV travelers and considers them among our best customers. Consequently, we do permit RV parking on our store lots as we are able. Permission to park is extended by individual store managers, based on availability of parking space and local laws. Please contact management in each store to ensure accommodations before parking your RV.
Being retired, we usually limit our travel days to 4 to 6 hours actual travel time. That leaves a lot of time left in the day that we do not want to spend sitting in a Walmart parking lot. We usually find a state park, Corps of Engineers park, forest service campground or private campground.
We do utilize Walmart a lot in our travels. In fact, it is probably the #1 single item I search for on our GPS.
We use them for restroom and exercise breaks. We park far out in the lot, get a good stretch walk on our way in to use the restroom and then take a walk around the circumference of the store. We may walk just one time around, but usually it’s twice and sometimes even three times.
Remember… Returning is Secondary1 – from painting by Roy Grinnel.
On her first combat mission, badly damaged by anti-aircraft fire, Hell’s Wench – Consolidated B-24D Liberator 42-409942, flown by Lt. Col. Addison Baker, commander of the 93rd Bomb Group – continues toward its target in a low-level bombing run against Axis oil refineries at Ploieşti, Romania, in Operation Tidal Wave.
They were an estimated three minutes from the target when Lt. Stewart’s copilot shouted, “Look at that!” Hell’s Wench, Colonel Baker’s ship, was on fire. The plane had hit the cable of a barrage balloon and snapped it in two, but part of a wing was left shredded. A shell exploded in the nose, killing the bombardier, and at least three more explosions rocked the plane. One shell hit a bomb-bay gas tank. The flames enveloped the cockpit and spread quickly…
Colonel Baker, who had vowed to his men that he would lead them over the target, even if his plane fell apart, was doing just that. He kept Hell’s Wench flying, ignoring the flat field below on which he could have tried a crash landing…
The two men [Baker (pilot) and Jerstad (copilot)] held the plane on course even after they jettisoned the bombs. There was no need to go onto the target then, except to lead the formation there. And for that, somehow they kept Hell’s Wench going. A crewman on a nearby plane remembered:
Baker had been burning for about three minutes. The right wing began to drop. I don’t see how anyone could have been alive in that cockpit, but someone kept her leading the force on between the refinery stacks. Baker was a powerful man, but one man could not have held that ship on the climb she took beyond the stacks.
Baker and Jerstad pulled their plane up in a climb to about 300 feet. At that point, a few men – variously reported as three or four – jumped out, their bodies afire, flames spreading out in the wind. The plane slued over on its right wing and plummeted to the ground, missing a bomber in the second element by a mere six feet. That pilot saw Hell’s Wench flash by, a flaming torch. “Flames hid everything in the cockpit. Baker went down after he flew his ship to pieces to get us over the target.”
Despite the damage and resulting flames, Baker had led the formation to their targets, after which he broke formation to avoid collision with bombers from the lead group arriving from the opposite direction. Baker and Jerstad tried to gain altitude so the crew could parachute to safety, but, despite their efforts, Hell’s Wench crashed and exploded, killing all ten aboard.
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army Air Corps, 93d Heavy Bombardment Group
Place and date: Ploesti Raid, Rumania, 1 August 1943
Entered service at: Akron, Ohio
Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy on 1 August 1943. On this date he led his command, the 93d Heavy Bombardment Group, on a daring low-level attack against enemy oil refineries and installations at Ploesti, Rumania. Approaching the target, his aircraft was hit by a large caliber antiaircraft shell, seriously damaged and set on fire. Ignoring the fact he was flying over terrain suitable for safe landing, he refused to jeopardize the mission by breaking up the lead formation and continued unswervingly to lead his group to the target upon which he dropped his bombs with devastating effect. Only then did he leave formation, but his valiant attempts to gain sufficient altitude for the crew to escape by parachute were unavailing and his aircraft crashed in flames after his successful efforts to avoid other planes in formation. By extraordinary flying skill, gallant leadership and intrepidity, Lt. Col. Baker rendered outstanding, distinguished, and valorous service to our Nation.
Rank and organization: Major, U.S. Army Air Corps, 9th Air Force
Place and date: Ploesti Raid, Rumania, 1 August 1943 (Air Mission)
Entered service at: Racine, Wis.
G.O. No.: 72, 28 October 1943
Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty. On 1 August 1943, he served as pilot of the lead aircraft in his group in a daring low-level attack against enemy oil refineries and installations at Ploesti, Rumania. Although he had completed more than his share of missions and was no longer connected with this group, so high was his conception of duty that he volunteered to lead the formation in the correct belief that his participation would contribute materially to success in this attack. Maj. Jerstad led the formation into attack with full realization of the extreme hazards involved and despite withering fire from heavy and light antiaircraft guns. Three miles from the target his airplane was hit, badly damaged, and set on fire. Ignoring the fact that he was flying over a field suitable for a forced landing, he kept on the course. After the bombs of his aircraft were released on the target, the fire in his ship became so intense as to make further progress impossible and he crashed into the target area. By his voluntary acceptance of a mission he knew was extremely hazardous, and his assumption of an intrepid course of action at the risk of life over and above the call of duty, Maj. Jerstad set an example of heroism which will be an inspiration to the U.S. Armed Forces.
Operation Tidal Wave was an air attack by bombers of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) based in Libya and Southern Italy on nine oil refineries around Ploiești, Romania on 1 August 1943, during World War II. It was a strategic bombing mission and part of the “oil campaign” to deny petroleum-based fuel to the Axis. The mission resulted in “no curtailment of overall product output”.
This mission was one of the costliest for the USAAF in the European Theater, with 53 aircraft and 660 aircrewmen lost. It was the second-worst loss ever suffered by the USAAF on a single mission and its date was later referred to as “Black Sunday”. Five Medals of Honor and numerous Distinguished Service Crosses were awarded to Operation Tidal Wave crew members.
Lt. Col. Baker and his co-pilot Maj. John L. Jerstad, who had already flown a full tour of duty while stationed in England, would now succumb to the effects of the extensive air defense array. Continuing through the intense defensive barrage, damage to their aircraft forced Baker and Jerstad to jettison their bomb load in order to maintain lead of the formation over their target at the Columbia Aquila refinery. Despite heavy losses by the 93rd, Baker and Jerstad maintained course and, once clear, began to climb away. Realizing the aircraft was no longer controllable, both men maintained the climb in order to gain time for the crew to abandon the aircraft. Although none survived, both Baker and Jerstad would be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for maintaining their successful approach to Columbia Aquila and their efforts to save the crew of Hell’s Wench.
“They gave pep talks about getting to the target, not about getting back. A lot of talk was about “…if the target was wiped out and none returned, the mission would still be a success. Remember, returning is secondary.” – Aviation Art Hanger
Before the mission, Maj Gen Lewis H. Brereton assessed, “We expect our losses to be 50 per cent, but even if we lose everything we’ve sent but hit the target, it will be worth it.” – B-24 Liberator Units of the Eighth Air Force, by Robert F. Dorr
I wonder if Grace Jonata, machinist at the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation plant, Fort Worth, Texas, might have machined some of the parts for Hell’s Wench.
I’ve been using an old hardback journal for jotting down blogging ideas. It’s not very big, but it’s too big to carry around all of the time.
Recently, I’ve had some really good blogging ideas, but, by the time I get to the computer where I keep my idea journal, I’ve forgotten what the heck it was that I wanted jot down for many of them. Sometime I’m able to dredge up a memory and get it written down, but, more often than not, it’s lost.
Then a few days ago, I thought of a solution. I know that I could “jot” it down as a note on my iPhone, but I’ve not yet used the phone as an overpowered PDA. Even when I had a PDA, I really didn’t utilize it well. However, I’ve been using a little spiral bound note book for jotting down lists and reminders before trips to the home improvement store. Now that would be a great place to jot down ideas that I could later transfer to the blog idea journal – except I didn’t remember where it was.
I really didn’t look for it. It was still just an idea – and I knew it would show up at some point.
Yesterday, I came home and there it was.
It had apparently been in a pocket of a pair of shorts I had worn on a warm day last week. The shorts got thrown into the wash, made it through the washing machine, and this is what Karen found in the dryer.
It looked like that was almost all of the note book, but we didn’t want to chance a dryer fire. With the help of YouTube videos, I took off the front of the dryer and a cover plate on the suction to the dryer exhaust to remove anything that gotten past the lint screen. Fortunately, there was very little, but it was better to be sure.
As far as I know, there was nothing important jotted down in the notebook.
In these images, Grace Ann Janota1, a 21-year-old lathe operator, is shown at a lathe used for machining parts for bomber and transport planes at the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation plant, Fort Worth, Texas. Grace had previously worked at the University of Texas Tea Room until shortly after the war started, when the tea room was converted into a mess hall.
Grace Janota at a lathe2
Without a job and wondering what to do, Grace signed up with the National Youth Administration for training as a machinist at a school in Waco for eight hours a day for about six months. The students got room and board, ten dollars a month, and uniforms to wear to class. At the end of the school, June was hired by Consolidated Aircraft to operate a turret lathe in the machine shop, making various parts for the planes. The only men were supervisors – older men who didn’t qualify for the draft. For a time, she had a job as a parts inspector, but that was “boring,” so she took an engineering course to learn how to design cams for an automatic screw machine. She “got the job of designing cams and setting up the machines and did this until the war was coming to an end and we girls were sent home.”
Photographed October 1942 by Howard R. Hollem (photos at Wikimedia)
Grace Janota working at lathe3
Consolidated Aircraft Corporation was founded in 1923 in Buffalo, New York. During the 1920s and 1930s, Consolidated became famous for its line of flying boats, the most successful of which was the PBY Catalina flying patrol boat, produced throughout World War II and used extensively by the allies.
C-87 Liberator Express4
Consolidated’s Liberator B-24 bomber and C-87 transport plane construction in Fort Worth resulted from the city’s 1940 campaign to lure aircraft manufacturers to the city to build an aircraft assembly plant to support the pre-World War II massive expansion of the Army Air Corps. To meet the blackout requirements of the war, the government built and owned Consolidated plant was constructed without windows, required an immense amount of lighting and air conditioning.
B-24 Liberator “Diamond Lil”5
The groundbreaking for the plant took place on April 18, 1941 with construction of the immense facility finished in less than a year. B-24 Liberator production started in February 1942 while parts of the plant were still being built. The plant was operated around the clock with 3 shifts, women making up 23% of the workforce in 1942.
The plant is still in operation 75 years later as Air Force Plant 4. Operated by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, workers today build the F-35 Lightning II single-seat, single-engine, all-weather stealth multirole fighter.
Edging out the B-17 on most performance criteria – speed, range, bomb load – more B-24s were built than any other world War II American aircraft. The B-24s were more than bombers. B-24 crewmen claimed over 2600 enemy downed. Its great range enable it to perform anti-sub work in the Atlantic and heavy bomber support in the pacific.
Originally published July 23, 2012, this 2017 revision adds background and additional pictures. The original post of an unnamed war worker only included the head close-up at the top of the page and the larger image it was taken from, along with some of the information in endnote 2 below. Use of Google image search that picture yielded a second color image at the Library of Congress and a black and white image on Wikimedia and the National Archives site. The image was the same as the color image originally used, but the caption at National Archives yielded a name, Grace Janota.
Grace Janota at a lathe6
Searching on the name resulted in finding another Library of Congress and National Archives image which included Grace Janota and Rudolph Dolkas, and instructor at the plant. It also yielded a post, Remembering the Woman Machinists of World War 2, which includes a letter by Grace Jonata Brown that provides some background for the images.
Hollem, Howard R, photographer. Lathe operator machining parts for transport planes at the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation plant, Fort Worth, Texas. 1942. Oct. Photograph retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017878313/. (Accessed November 07, 2017.) [Image on Flickr]
Hollem, Howard R, photographer. A lathe operator machining parts for transport planes at the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation plant, Fort Worth, Texas. 1942. Oct. Photograph retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017878306/. (Accessed November 08, 2017.)[Image on Flickr]
The Consolidated C-87 Liberator Express was a transport derivative of the B-24 Liberator heavy bomber built during World War II for the United States Army Air Forces. A total of 287 C-87s were built alongside the B-24 at the Consolidated Aircraft plant in Fort Worth, Texas. – Wikipedia
The Consolidated B-24 Liberator is an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. While aircrews tended to prefer the B-17, General Staff favored the B-24, and procured it in huge numbers for a wide variety of roles. At nearly 19,000 units, it holds records as the world’s most produced: bomber; heavy bomber; multi-engine aircraft; and American military aircraft in history. – Wikipedia; Wikimedia Commons image; Flickr image
Grace Janota, former department store clerk, is now a lathe operator at a Western aircraft plant producing B-24 bombers and C-87 transports. October 1942; National Archives and Records Administration; Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (NLFDR), 4079 Albany Post Road, Hyde Park, NY, 12538-1999. catalog.archives.gov/id/196370; Accessed 11/8/2017
United States Office Of War Information, Hollem, Howard R, photographer. Production. B-24 bombers and C-87 transports. Grace Janota, former department store clerk, was trained as a lathe operator by Rudolph Dolkas, who deserted the Austrian Army as a sergeant in 1913 and came to this country. He worked on the production of military equipment in World War I. He instructs women workers in a Western plant in the various tasks necessary to the production of Consolidated B-24 bombers and transports. Fort Worth Tarrant County Texas, 1942. Oct.
Photograph
accessed from National Archives catalog.archives.gov/id/196371, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Public Domain Photographs, 1882 – 1962 (Accessed November 9, 2017
Recently, as we were walking from our car into our local Walmart, Karen noticed a small car near the front of the parking lot and mentioned that she had had never noticed a Nissan Versa before, that it was smaller than our Honda CRV. I really hadn’t either until just a couple of weeks earlier when I posted an image of one in a photo post, Stop Action Note, on Haw Creek. We had noticed it, I guess, because we had talked a bit about getting a newer car that we would still be able to tow behind our small motorhome.
When we came back out, I saw a skinny young man run up to the car and get in it, which certainly didn’t seem right.
The parking spot was a handicap spot, but there wasn’t a disabled license plate on the car. A short while later, we happened to be next to the same Nissan Versa in traffic and I saw that there was an ADA1 hang tag on the mirror. I sincerely doubt that it belonged to the driver.
After some health issues, I had recently decided that I was going to be less judgmental about healthy appearing people using handicapped parking. I have never been to the point where I have needed – or wanted – to be able to use the handicap parking spots, but I can now certainly understand the need for some people, even if there is nothing visibly wrong. “Just because somebody isn’t using a wheelchair, walker or cane, doesn’t mean that they don’t need the handicap spot.”2
The young driver had spryly ran up to the car before he drove off.
In our state, the Disabled Person (DP) placards/certificates and license plates give disabled people special parking privileges in designated areas when they are the driver or a passenger of the vehicle.
“Misuse and abuse of disability permits is an issue inside and outside of the handicap community. Legally and ethically, people who have not been issued a handicap parking permit must not park in the handicap spots. That includes non-disabled friends and family. No ifs, ands, or buts. The permit owner needs to be present whenever the permit is being used. Ignoring this rule could result in fines for you and the person who borrowed the permit. Your permit can even get revoked.”2
In Arkansas, “misuse or abuse of these privileges is a Class A misdemeanor; offenders can have their vehicles impounded or fined up to $100-$1000 and/or have their license suspended for 6 months.”3
That very healthy looking young man who ran up to and got in the Nissan Versa in that handicap parking spot was likely not the person who the placard belonged to. If it was his, he must been having a really good day.
Dorothea Lange, Resettlement Administration photographer, in California, February 1936
Dorothea Lange (May 26, 1895 – October 11, 1965) was an influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Lange’s photographs humanized the consequences of the Great Depression and influenced the development of documentary photography. (wikipedia)
Dorothea Lange, Resettlement Administration photographer, in California. California, 1936. Feb. Photograph retrieved from the Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017759800/. (Accessed November 04, 2017.)
Call Number: LC-USF34- 002392-E [P&P]
Notes:
File print filed under “Lange, Dorothea” in the Biographical File in the Prints and Photographs Division Reading Room at the Library of Congress. Print formerly filed in the FSA-OWI classified file under C34.
Note – This image has been digitally adjusted for one or more of the following:
– fade correction,
– color, contrast, and/or saturation enhancement
– selected spot and/or scratch removal
– cropped for composition and/or to accentuate subject matter
– straighten image
Revised and updated; Originally published June 22, 2012
We’ve been talking about it for quite some. After the area’s damaging wind storm last week, we decided to get a quote and have some of the trees closest to the house removed. These are all trees that are outside my ability to take down, even if I were in shape enough to do the work. The estimate was very reasonable and the tree service company has good recommendations.
The branches of the biggest tree, the one with the orange-red leaves in the above picture, spread far out over the roof of our porch. Because of the perpetual shade on that part of the roof, we’ve had problems with moss and lichen growth on the roof.
It’s a wonderful old shade tree that was quite young and slender when we moved here in 1981. At that time it was one of just a few hardwoods in a yard that was full of tall skinny pines. Unfortunately, it is now a hazard to the house that needs to be addressed.
There are four other “smaller” trees that will be removed. Three are tall pines, two of which have a slight lean toward the house, looming over the camper when it is parked next to the house.
The last tree is an ash that has been leaning toward the driveway and power lines for it’s entire life. It’s already lost all of its leaves. (I photo-edited the image to make the tree stand out from its background.) It was more of a threat to the house’s power and phone (DSL) lines that to the house. The tree service owner pointed out at the back side of the tree that it looked like its weight was causing it to lean even more. The tree service is going to cut this one up in 14” lengths for us as ash is a nice, slow burning firewood.
We’re not sure when the tree service is going to be able to get to us. They have a lot of business right now with trees down from last week’s storm. We’re hoping that they’ll be able to fit us in between some of the larger jobs.
This young lady, Lois Adolf, is #004 in the series Eyes of the Great Depression
In 1939, Lois Adolf’s family was “on relief.” Her father had borrowed money from the Farm Security Administration (FSA) for rural rehabilitation, “$2,138. 80 acres of Indian land, on three year lease.” In August, a photographer from FSA doing documentary work visited. That photographer was Dorothea Lange.
“One of Chris Adolph’s younger children. Farm Security Administration Rehabilitation clients. Came to the Yakima Valley in 1937 from Bethune, Kit Carson County, Colorado. He owned his own farm there and he had lived there all his life. Drought forced him out with his wife and 8 children. His wife had been a school teacher …. ‘I’ve broke thousands of acres of sod. The dust got so bad that we had to sleep with wet cloths over our faces.’” 1
Besides the photo that became one of the iconic images of the Great Depression, Lois appears in several other photos Lange took on her brief visit with the Adolfs.
Bill Ganzel located Lois in 1979 and interviewed her for “Dust Bowl Descent,” a grant project administered by the Nebraska State Historical Society.
“Lois didn’t remember the photograph being taken, let alone why she might have felt sad. She remembered being close to her mother. But she also remembered how terrible the dust storms in Colorado were. She remembered how hard it was to make a living. That was why they left the plains for Washington. She loved Washington and never wanted to move back.”2
Lois’s father, Chris Adolf, told Ms. Lange, “My father made me work. That was his mistake, he made me work too hard. I learned about farming but nothing out of the books.” 3
[Question:] “Tell me about what was it like in Colorado?”
[Lois Adolf Houle:] “It was terrible. [Laughs.] We had dust storms and droughts. We survived back there as long as we possibly could. I can remember one dust storm back there. We were coming from my grandparents’ in Straton. And as we got closer to home, you could see this big gray matter up in the air. And the minute we got home, we had a storm cellar built with things to eat and everything else in it. We were all taken to the storm cellar right away, and they went in and closed the house all up good. And we stayed down there until the storm was over. It just came to the point where we couldn’t live any more back there. And we had relatives out here already.”
[Question:] “Did they write back or anything?”
“Oh, yes! Oh, yeah! Everything was ‘beautiful’ out here. [Laughs.] This was the land of milk and honey out here.”4
__________
1 Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits by Linda Gordon, W. W. Norton & Company, Oct 11, 201, Plate 16. 2Bill Ganzel 3Library of Congress 4Oral history excerpt, Lois Adolf Houle, Living History Farm, York, Nebraska
Dust, Drought, and Depression 002. Originally published April 9, 2013
Click on images for background information at Flickr and links to original images at Library of Congress.
It seems all too common these days, but this happened almost 16 years ago.
Robert McNiel (not his real name) was arrested at work in Arkansas. He pled guilty in Wyoming and was sentenced to three years and two months on Federal charges.
I didn’t know McNiel well as he worked in another part of the facility. However, I had worked with his wife – who was a lot younger than him – on a couple of projects. Both had worked there for several years. McNiel, a Naval Academy graduate, had started at the facility soon after resigning his naval commission.
McNiel had tickets to events of the XIX Olympic Winter Games, held in Utah from February 8th through February 24th, 2002. His planned route would take him through Wyoming on Interstate 80.
McNiel’s arrest resulted from a Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) undercover operation. A DCI agent posed as a 39-year-old Cheyenne, Wyoming woman in an internet chat room where people interested in sex with preteens gathered to trade photos and solicit contact with children. At some point, McNiel contacted the agent and, within a few minutes, was discussing the possibility of a sexual encounter with the agent’s fictitious 9-year-old daughter. As the conversation continued, McNiel started sending images depicting children engaged in explicit sexual activities, eventually sending 10 pornographic images as well as an image of himself to help the woman he was corresponding with – the undercover DCI agent – decide if she wanted her daughter to have sex with him.
Robert McNiel is now a registered sex offender living in an isolated mobile home
on the windswept plains of eastern Wyoming.
The agent and McNiel agreed to meet in Cheyenne in February, 2002, when he was planning to travel to Utah. FBI and DCI agents arrested him at work in Arkansas on January 22nd.
McNiel pled guilty to interstate transportation of child pornography in May 2002 and was sentenced in August. During the sentencing, the judge stated that he never would have imagined he would have been called on to sentence a Naval Academy graduate for a child pornography offense.
The Victims.
It would be easy that there were no victims in this case, that McNiel was caught through an undercover internet sting. However, that would be wrong.
Even if McNiel didn’t take the pictures, the kids in the images are victims of a perverse underground system that exploits some of society’s weakest. McNiel had to have gotten those images from somewhere. More than 80% of sexual abuse offenses against children are committed by people they know.
“In a sense, every viewing of child pornography is a repetition of the victim’s abuse.” – from the Supreme Court majority opinion in Paroline v. United States et. al.
There are also other victims, victims in all crimes that all-too-often are never considered, never mentioned – the families of the perpetrator.
I have known two women who were at one time married to men who became sex offenders. One was McNiel’s wife. The other was an internet blogging friend. These women are, for the most part, unacknowledged victims. They have had to accept that a person they had once completely trusted has done, or planned to do, morally reprehensible and criminal acts. They have had to deal with the horror that the person they thought they knew could even think of going down that path.
Then, of course, there are the children. The wife – or, probably, ex-wife – has to deal with what to tell the kids about where daddy is gone and why. The kids, of course, have lost their father, sometime temporarily, sometimes, where the criminal penalties are severe, permanently. While my parents divorced when I was quite young, I can only imagine the trauma of having one’s father go to prison.
… Monsters are real.
As a convicted and registered sex offender, former engineer Robert McNeil has limited employment opportunities.
Then a few days ago, I thought of a solution. I know that I could “jot” it down as a note on my iPhone, but I’ve not yet used the phone as an overpowered PDA. Even when I had a PDA, I really didn’t utilize it well. However, I’ve been using a little spiral bound note book for jotting down lists and reminders before trips to the home improvement store. Now that would be a great place to jot down ideas that I could later transfer to the blog idea journal – except I didn’t remember where it was.
It seems all too common these days, but this happened almost 16 years ago.
McNiel had tickets to events of the XIX Olympic Winter Games, held in Utah from February 8th through February 24th, 2002. His planned route would take him through Wyoming on Interstate 80.
