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Not all of us can say that we knew a US President, before or during their presidency, but my uncle, Jim Wolfe could say that. Uncle Jim was in the army during World War II, and was on his way to England on a ship. Being the kind of guy who liked to see how things worked, Uncle Jim was laying on the back end of the ship watching the propeller go in and out of the water. Ike came up behind him and asked him if he was sick. Uncle Jim said, “No, I was just watching the prop.” Ike said, “Lord, man I would be so sick it would kill me and I’m on ships all the time.” He told Uncle Jim to come with him and they were going to go to Officers Mess and have coffee. Dad said “I can’t go there I will get in trouble.” Ike informed Uncle Jim that as long as he was with him, they wouldn’t say anything to him.
In the Officers Mess, Uncle Jim and Ike talked for a long time and then went their separate ways on the ship. When they got to England, Uncle Jim saw him a few times and then on D-Day, they found themselves on the same ship again. When they disembarked, they were under heavy fire, and my cousin Shirley Cameron tells me that Ike got a hold of her dad, my Uncle Jim and asked him how his shooting was. Uncle Jim said that it was good. Ike said, “See that guy in that tree way up there.” Uncle Jim said that he did, and Ike asked if he could hit him. Uncle Jim shot, hit, and killed the man. Ike said for Uncle Jim to stay with him. They were together for quite a while before they got separated. At that point, Uncle Jim was sent to another area.
Uncle Jim ended up opening up some of the concentration camps. That was probably the worst part of his service. He said the men were like the walking dead. They were sick, weak, and skinny. All they could do was grab hold of him and thank him over and over for getting them out of that horrible place. Shirley tells me that he saw little wooden sheds that had bodies stacked from bottom to top, There were also pits that had bodies stacked in them ready for the heavy equipment to push the dirt over the top. She told me that experience gave him nightmares for years. He used to have pictures of all of that and the people that they helped out of the camps, but unfortunately they were lost in the fire that destroyed his home a number of years ago. After his time there, Uncle Jim was sent to France to help with the Liberation there. I’m sure he came home with many stories of the war, but as far as I know, that was the last time he ever saw the man who would later become our 34th US President, Dwight D Eisenhower…aka Ike.
There is so much controversy these days concerning guns and gun control, and while I don’t usually write about political events, this one hits close to home for me and my family. For many years, my Uncle Bill was a gun dealer. He and his family had always had guns. He became interested in antique guns at some point and began to collect, deal, and show the guns at gun shows all over the north central part of the United States, and possibly even in the north west part, as well. Uncle Bill and my dad, as well as their sisters were raised around guns, and yet not one of them ever killed someone.
My family and my husband’s family have been around guns all our lives too. Our parents have hunted, as have many of us children and our spouses. If you live in Wyoming, as in many other places, owning a gun is really not so unusual. It doesn’t, however, give any indication that the gun owners here, or anywhere else are likely to commit murder. And, while people who torture animals, often move on to killing people, hunters usually do not. Legal hunters have a respect for the animals they hunt. It is to provide food for their family, that the hunter hunts.
For centuries, people have owned guns, and during all those years, mass school shootings were unheard of…until recently. Christians, like myself, mostly agree that it is largely because we have kicked God out of our schools. That makes so many people angry, because they think we are talking about God being angry at the schools because He was kicked out, but that isn’t it at all. In my opinion, when we removed God from our schools, we stopped teaching morality. Generations of kids have grown up with a changed view of right and wrong. Then those same kids are out there making television shows, video games, writing books, creating pictures, and so many other things that our impressionable kids are viewing. Wrong has become right…if it seems right to the person doing the wrong. It has become a matter of “the devil made me do it” or simply a matter of not allowing anyone to step on our feelings. It has become a good thing to be bad, and a good show is called wicked.
I think, that is we want to change things in this nation, we need to change what we are teaching our kids in school, and in life. Guns don’t kill people…people kill people, and very often, guns are not the weapon of choice, in fact, guns are used the least amount 
of the time. We can’t remove every possible weapon for the hands of people, unless we want to live in a Nerf world, and even then, people will use their hands, or they will just use rocks. We have to start teaching our kids and our adults the value of human life, and to respect each person’s right to life. We have to realize that few people intentionally set out to hurt the feelings of others, and as with bullying, the ones who do need to be swiftly punished. We need to stop looking at others as less important than we are, and treat each person with respect, no matter how the look, talk, and no matter what their race, gender, or age is. Our ancestors carried guns for many centuries, and did not shoot up schools or other public places in order to make a point, possibly because of the values our nation started on. Maybe we need to work to make all people feel like they are a person of value, because it isn’t the gun that kills, it is the person bent on revenge who kills people.
