Vietnam War Veteran

"Good Morning Vietnam"

Oral History Interview with Flavie Hugh Ellison II, Vietnam War Veteran

Summersville, West Virginia

By:  Betty Dotson-Lewis

What are some of the lasting effects of fighting a war, in your opinion?

            I used to be a big hunter but I don't even own a gun now, I have got deer and rabbits running all over my property and I can't even shoot one, because I was in a war. I was in the Vietnam War.  I don't own a gun.  I saw so much killing.  I got a five gallon bucket of rocks I throw at rabbits and deer because I can't shoot anything.  I can't do it.  No war movies. I can't watch any war movies or any movies where people get killed.  I just can't do it.  When I was young, I watched all those vampire movies and everything but after the war, I can't do it.

            Now about half the guys over there, you know, I remember all their faces, but not their names.  All the guys had nicknames and mine was "Crazy L" (L was for Ellison).

            A good friend of mine that was over there-I haven't got a hold of since then. His grandmother was still on the reservation I think, Okalahoma.  She was full-bloodied Cherokee, and his nickname was "Fast Eddie."  Damn, all those memories.

What was it like growing up for you?

            See, my parents died when I was young and I walked to grade school.  It was back in those days when there were no buses for grade schools kids.  I walked three miles one way to school.  It was a two room school and the last half of my eighth grade year, I was the only one in the eighth grade.  "Talkin' small."   Yeah, I was the only eighth grade student.  The other family moved away.  There was two of us at the beginning of the year and they moved down south, so that left me the only one in the eighth grade.

How did you parents die?

           

            My Dad-a car ran over my Dad.  Three years later, my Mom died of cancer.  I may have been ten at that time.  I lived with my one grandmother on and off for awhile.  There were seven of us kids.  My one aunt, mom's sister up in Ohio, took the three youngest, my oldest sister and my oldest brother were on their own.  The other aunt took my other brother just out on Cranberry Road in Craigsville.  My grandmother took me.  I had to cut the grass, work in the garden.  They didn't like for me to go anywhere, and she was raising another child who had living parents.        

    Grandma Bessie was getting some kind of check for me, but I never did see any of it.  I worked in the hay field for Wade Bailey and Paul Cooper for fifty cents per hour.  Then finally, things just kept getting worse where I was staying with my grandmother.  I just took off.  My senior year in high school-do you know where Curtin Bridge is, between Craigsville and Richwood? I lived down there. I gathered up an old blanket and a pillow from somewhere and I slept out in the middle of a river on a flat rock.  I ate a lot of fish.  I fished every evening and every night.  I was a senior in high school.  See, that is why I didn't graduate, things just got to the point where I couldn't buy my cap and gown and stuff, the last two or three weeks I didn't go.  Half the kids didn't go.  We weren't doing anything and I already had my report card but they wouldn't let me graduate.  They said I dropped out which was a crock.  I just didn't go the last two or three weeks, and when I went up there for graduation they wouldn't let me in.

            Shortly after that, I was, I think about nineteen, see I already had two older brothers in the Service and I was tired of not having anything, Hell, I thought I will just join the Army.  I couldn't pass the physical because of the rheumatic fever I had when I was five and six years old.  I was in the first grade that is why I had to pull two years of the first grade.  I didn't go to school enough.

            Anyway, I went up to Ohio, I had aunts and uncles and relatives, I figured Hell, I will just go up there and get a job and I did.  That would have been in '62 or '63.  I worked up there a couple of years, then I figured well, Hell, I will just go and join the Army.  I failed again.  The same thing.  So then I went to Southern California, Pasadena; my oldest sister was out there.  I went to work out there and I lived with them awhile until I got me enough money gathered up to rent my own place.

            Well, it was out in the Sierra Madre Canyon, a beautiful area, at that time after I lived there awhile.   I had five or six vehicles.  I had license on every one of them and the last day of December in '65 I bought a brand new motorcycles; I always loved motorcycles.  It was an English Bike, 750 Norton and I just had a good time.  I got in a little bit of trouble with the law, something they call "hit and run," but the guy hit me.  He was on a 125 Honda.

            I still remember his name and where he was from.  His name was Abraham A.... and he was from  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and he was 41 and weighed 220 lbs.  He looked like a monkey on a football.  A big guy on a little cycle like that.  He went clear over my car.  He hit my front fender.  I had a '51 Ford convertible and he went over my car slid down the street.  I jumped out and ran down there.  The traffic was swerving trying to miss him.  He knocked one of his shoes off. I am trying to get him up and out of the road and he took off up the street running, screaming that he couldn't walk, he couldn't walk.  I could get a hold of him but he wouldn't stop I couldn't hold him back.  I chased him about five blocks and I walked back down the street.  The law was there and the ambulance.  They wanted to know where the guy was.  They didn't arrest me but they put me in the car and we drove down the street.  So we went door to door looking for this guy; somebody got him stopped had him stretched out on the bed in there.  He was screaming, crying; he was in bad shape.

            The cops said if I would sign papers covering his motorcycle, ambulance  bill and hospital bill and  give him a $100.00 per week, they would not press charges.  I paid for the motorcycle and the ambulance.  They told me he would only be off work a week.  So, at the end of the week I went down to where he was staying.  He was still on the bed.  He said he would have to be off another week.  That went on five weeks.

             I went down there to pay him at the end of the fifth week and the neighbors came out and said, "Man, don't you know what is going on?"

            I said, "What are you talking about?"

            They said that guy is a con artist.  He had a '66 Cadillac convertible.  His wife had a 66 Buick convertible and the three weeks I had been paying, he was off on vacation from the post office.  He delivered mail on foot.  So, I quit paying him.   I just quit paying him.  Two or three weeks went by and the law came up to where I worked about the middle of the week.  They told me they would give me till Friday to come up with the rest of the guy's money.

            Friday was payday and I realized I had been taken all that time for my money, so I said, "You know I am not going to pay that."

            I sold my '51 Ford convertible to my oldest brother who lived out there and I sold my '33 Ford pickup truck and my other vehicles I just left the key in the switch, the registration up over the sun visor and left them in the parking lot and I jumped on a motorcycle and headed for West Virginia.  That was July 22, 1966.

            That was a fun trip.  So I came to Craigsville where I was born and raised.  I fooled around there for awhile.  I remember I got there on Sunday.   I left California on Friday evening and I was in Craigsville on Sunday-2650 miles.  Wednesday I figured I will just go to Florida.  I had an older first cousin that lived down there so I went down.  I got there about 10 a.m.; she was starting to fix dinner so I stayed and had dinner and I drank some coffee with Junior and jumped on my bike and headed for New York.

            I had been up there before.  I had worked up there.  I spent the night up there and I started back to California and I got to some little one horse- town in Texas and changed my mind and came back to West Virginia.

            I was in West Virginia for awhile then I wound up in Ohio.  Beautiful country, a wide stop in the road.  That was where I was working when I got drafted.

 You were drafted after failing the physical two times?

            I stopped at a little post office every evening to get my mail.  I got a long white envelope (about the last part of June, 1968) that said "Greetings, Uncle Sam Wants You!"

            I had two weeks or so.  I had to go to Cleveland about 100 miles to take the examination and in those days that took all day.  At the end of the day, I realized I had done passed that physical and I just asked him, "Man, you know what is going on?"

            He said, "You call me sir" and I said, "I am not in the Army yet," and he said, "You will be."

            So, I asked him how could that be; I took two of these examinations before and failed both of them so he looked in my records and found my name and he said, "I see you tried to enlist."

            "You have passed this one, we are making exceptions.  You have been drafted."

Where did you go for Basic Training?

            Ft. Knox, Kentucky, that is where I went for Basic Training.  That was eight weeks. Graduation was on Friday and on Monday morning I was to report for AIT (Advanced Individual Training) at Ft. Polk. Louisiana. That was nine weeks.  I have a picture of me standing in front of a sign which reads: Ft. Polk. Louisiana, Birthplace of Combat Infantrymen for Vietnam.  I guess I lost the picture in the fire.  It took everything I had, all my clothes, my woodworking shop, nearly everything I owned that is how I lost one half of my ear. (He asked me, "Did you notice one half of my right ear is gone?")  He showed me his ear.

            I had two weeks time from graduation at Ft. Polk to be at the Seattle, Tacoma Airport in Washington State.  I was going to Vietnam.

What type of special training did you receive to prepare you for military action in Vietnam?

            I went over there.  We touched down at Cameron Bay, South Vietnam.  I was there three days they had what they called three day training on the ways and customs of the people.  Then they decide where everybody is going to go.  I got orders to go up north-about 300 miles.

Did they fly you to Vietnam?

            The plane came down to pick us up.  It was a C130, a cargo plane; about 150 of us got on there.  He had lost an engine coming down , the pilot did. (Flavie asked me, "Do you know anything about a C130?")  It had four engines.  He lost one coming down but all the Army had was junk.  The pilot told us, "I think we can take off," and we did.

            We got up there about half way and I could notice a change in the sound of the airplane. The co-pilot came back and said "Boys,that is what you are, if you get out of this you might be men."

            We lost another engine on the same wing. It won't stay up with two engines.  We are ten or twelve miles inland, and we were going to try to make it to the South China Beach.  I will never forget what he said, now mind you, we are heading north, he said, "We are going south and that means down."

            Viet Cong all around.  We didn't have any weapons.  My God, the pilot was good. We just barely cleared that mountain range.  He dipped it real hard to the left and put it down on the South China Beach.  We hit the beach and it kinda skipped.  We hit the beach again, hard, and it skipped and we hit it again and it tore the right wing off and water was coming in.  That was the third day in the country.  That was the day my oldest son, Scott was born, December 12, 1968.  (Do you know my boy?)

What is the truth about the War in Vietnam, "were we prepared?"

            Eight or ten years ago I started to write a book and I finally just gave up on it because I figured no one will believe it anyway.  Four or five years ago, I sorted through everything from the fire, I wrote a song, when we crashed on that C130 on the third day; the song says, "The next nine days on the run, my year in Nam had just begun."

            The pilot had got hold of back-up forces by radio and they sent some helicopter to pick up some of us.  They brought weapons and sea rations.

            I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time; I got volunteered.  Someone was going to have to stay there and guard that C130, so they picked five of us and then we hid out up in the woods, in the jungle on the side of the mountain.  We hid out for nine days.  They finally come down and carried that crashed C130 off with those big monsters they call a flying crane; two  of them hovered down over and picked it up. Then I wound up going up country about another 150 miles where I had started in the first place.

            The Army didn't make any sense in those days because I was infantry and got assigned to an aviation battalion, 14th Aviation Battalion. Now this was all 14th Aviation Battalion and I was across the swamp with the 14th Security Platoon but I was assigned to 170th Aviation.  Hell, I am infantry what did; I know about airplanes?  Well, I found out not too long after that.

What are some of the details of being in Vietnam, like living conditions?  Were things as bad as we heard?

            Mercy, mercy,  in the beginning we just had the regular bunkers in the ground.  My old 1st sergeant, good old guy, he reminded me of my dad; he took care of me; he took care of me, that old boy did.  He saw it somewhere-got some papers on it or something-prefabs, prefab bunkers about twenty feet off the ground and the walls and the floor and the roof were a foot and one half thick filled up with sand.  The idea-being up above the ground you can see better up there looking down.  So, I worked with him, me and some of the other guys and we built twelve and by that time I am already making some rank; I think I am Spec 4 by then.

            I was the oldest guy there twenty five except for the Sergeant and the lifers and I am from West Virginia.  Everybody knew I was from West Virginia.  He put me in charge of the bunkers. All the city boys knew I was from West Virginia.  That is what got me in a lot of jams I got in over there.  They just assumed if you lived in West Virginia, you lived under a rock cliff.  I lived on a rock, but Hell, not everybody did.  A lot of times they would send me to places they would not send a city boy because they just figured I could do it.  They knew I was coming back.

            They came to me one day and said that they were going to make me Acting E5,  meaning I had temporary stripes and all the responsibilities and duties of an E5, but not getting paid for it.  After about a month I told them, "If I am going in to these damn hell holes and you are expecting me to come out, I am going to start having to get paid for E5."

            They said, "You can't quit."

            Orders came down from the battalion and I made Permanent Party, E5 Sgt. E5 gets you about $25.00 or $30.00 extra a month ( went over as E1 and within 24 hours if you are in combat zone, you go automatic E Deuce).

            That was about after nine months.  You see if I am not on them bunkers, I had another job there too.  I done eight hours a day RTO (Radio, Telephone Operator). It was in the Command Bunker underground.  I pulled twelve hours a night on the Bunker Line, then eight hrs a day in that Command Bunker, RTO.  That is twenty hours a day.  That only leaves four hours.  Plus all the same time, I am having to fly with these yo-yos across the swamp to 176th.

What are some of the events you consider major that occurred while you were in Vietnam?

            My God, if I told you everything it would take all day.  I am going to tell you about this.

We went way up the country somewhere, me and those guys from 176th and, Hell, rather than the co-pilot on a helicopter, they called him a Peter Pilot.   I am the oldest guy rather than the pilot and Peter pilot and I was given the responsibility of being Crew Chief and Door Gunner.  That was with a M60 machine gun and a 50 caliber machine gun and we went up with a full rocket load, (we were carrying all the rockets we could carry) I think seventy eight and aired off all those rockets on a village, a known Cong village. We are on our way back-everybody drank beer- and we never did drink going in.  Coming out is we when would drag our beer out, pilot and peter pilot are in the cockpit; me and the other guys are in the back.  Hell, we are jut drinking our beer and proud of ourselves for getting out of there and swapping stories about our girlfriend or wife back in the world (that is what we called back home, "the World").

            Here comes the hard part; sometimes I can get through this, sometimes I can't.

            Anyway, we thought we was in the clear, but we weren't.  We took a rocket in the nose, right in the front belly, and it killed the pilot; drove him right out of his seat.  A mess, blew him to pieces.  The peter pilot was sitting to the pilot's right.  It blew his left arm off (he showed me on his arm and it was even with the shoulder) and he jump up with no arm and came to the back yelling; everybody else was crying.

            I was the oldest, these guys are crying, it is starting to fill up with smoke and mind you I am infantry; but these other guys are crying and squalling. I knew they couldn't do it, so I went to the cockpit and moved what I could of the dead pilot; he was blown all to pieces and the Peter pilot.  His name was Jeff; I don't remember his last name.  Anyway, he started telling me which lever does what, which petal does what, what gauges to keep an eye on, what switch to flick if this happened or that happened, first time I had every been in a cockpit in my life in a helicopter.  In a situation like that you had to fly at treetop level.

            Now, he said enough to me, he taught me how to go up or down, left or right, then he passed out, I thought he died.  I am trying to fly this damn thing and trying to take care of him; he passed out. I thought he died.  We are running just about 120 miles per hour.  I don't know how many miles per hour by air.   It was 100 miles from back to where we were headed south, back down to the 176th and these guys in the back are still crying. I think the peter pilot is dead, (he wasn't but I didn't know that).   I think it was about 120miles per hour we were flying which is something less than one hour to get down there so I start getting closer and I am starting to recognize the country.  Then, I realize I don't know how to slow the thing down, hydraulic oil spraying everywhere, smoke everywhere, I am getting closer and closer and I know where I have to put down.  I started working levers, pulling switches and kicking petals. I got it slowed down to 70 or 80 miles per hour.

            I knew where I was going to have to put it down because if I missed we would wind up in that swamp and there was alligators in the swamp.  So, I hit the ground at 70 or 80 miles per hour and it just went to flopping; it finally stopped and I realized I wasn't dead and the guys in the back, they ain't dead; they went off squalling, cussing and running off in the woods.

            I got the peter pilot out and what body parts I could find of the pilot-got them and we may have been as far as that garage over there (showing me how far by pointing to a garage across the street) and it blew up.

            About a week later I was in military court because I was not supposed to be flying that Huey.  I was infantry.

            It is just like a civilian court except it is all military.  The guy was the Judge.  He was Sergeant Major, something like that.  They was going to court martial me because I crashed that thing and it burned up.  They was going to charge me $250,000.  That is about less than half of what it cost new, but it was junk in the first place.  They was going to make me sign papers to the effect they was going to take all my check except of twenty percent.  They was

going to take eighty percent of my check and make me sign papers to the effect that I would stay in the Army until that thing was paid for or I died, whichever one came first.

            I told him, "Hey man, your Honor, I haven't had time to get Counsel yet, you know a lawyer?"

            He said, "I will give you two weeks."

            In two weeks I hadn't found anybody.   I didn't have time to go too far so I went back down there by myself and they were going to make me do all that stuff, like they said; so about that minute this peter pilot, his name was Jeff; he found out about it someway; he showed up, the one who lost his arm.

            He told them, he said, "No, you are not going to do anything like that."

            He was talking to a superior officer and he didn't know my name, he just knew "Crazy L." My nickname, that is all.

            He told them, " I just want this whole thing thrown out, forgotten about.  If it had not been for "Crazy L," we would all be dead.  It was junk anyway.  They turned me loose; I was tickled to death.

            I went back up and right on the Bunker Line and right back in the Command Bunker doing all the other too.  This part here is kinda funny and I want to tell you about it.  I didn't think it was funny then.

            We had been out somewhere with this 176th again, only this time we are on what is called a fixed wing, 123:  we get hit with a rocket a mortar or something and the co pilot flew the door open out of the cockpit and started throwing parachutes at everybody-only five of us in there. I had never seen a parachute, you know.

            I said, "Man, how does this thing work?"  Mind you, this airplane is coming down and that pilot grabbed his and he said, "Watch me; you have one chance."

            He said, "We are leaving this."

            I was the last one out because I just couldn't get that thing on.  I was the last one out.

            While I was still in high school, I had jumped off the top of Curtin Bridge (a very high structure) nineteen times one summer and hit wrong seventeen times in the river and it is way high too. You know where I am talking about, don't you? So when I jumped out of that airplane in the parachute and I pulled that ripcord, I was ticked to death when it opened.  Then I got to thinking about jumping off Curtin Bridge and hitting wrong all those times and I was thinking, I hope I don't hit wrong this time.  Well, I hit wrong because I saw I was going to come down in the trees and I came down right in the top of a big tree and skinned myself all up.  It is funny now, but it wasn't funny then.

            If I had known what I was doing, you can steer those parachutes, I didn't know it then.  Luck is what I am talking about.  Another time over we got into some trouble and had to jump out of a helicopter and there are no parachutes on a helicopter but were lucky we were over a rice paddy.  We was probably up a 100 feet and jumped, cause it was on fire, and I am thinking the same thing.   I hit just right, straight up and down, just right.

            There was one guy, who didn't hit right; he was tipped forward and he was out of commission for about three weeks because of his eyes.  All that stuff hit him in his eyes.

What was it like returning to the United States?  Did you know about the controversy over the War in Vietnam?

            When I came home, back to the USA, I had a little old cheap camera.  I took pictures out the airplane window-the clouds and all-and happy to be alive and I met three guys on the plane that I didn't know when I was over there but this was leaving there and coming back here back to what we referred to as back to "The World," "The Freedom Flight."

            I met these three guys on the plane and we was going to land at the Seattle Tacoma Airport, (same place I took off from) and me and these other guys had our mind made up that when got off the plane, off the black top in the dirt, we were going kneel down and kiss "Mother Earth," bend over and throw dirt in our face and scream and holler and have a big time, a celebration.

            Well, when we started doing that a whole mob of people men and women together, started throwing rocks at us and called us baby killers and hit one guy in the head and hurt him.

            Boy that made me mad I had a notion just to fly into them.  That was our homecoming. Back to our homeland.

What did you do after returning from Vietnam?

            Then I was going to have six months left in the Army yet, at Ft. Ord in northern California and while I was in Vietnam they offered me a chance after I got to Ft. Ord, I was Sgt. E5 they offered to waive my time and grade as E5 if I would extend my tour of duty thirty days.

            If I had of done that I would have qualified early out, five month drop, if you had five months or less left.  After I got to Ft. Ord, I wish I had because they put me in to training men to go to Vietnam.   I taught three two hour classes every day on how kill and how to survive in the jungles of Nam.

            When I got out of Vietnam, hell, I was happy, when I got out of the Army I celebrated. Then I moved back to Ohio and then I came back to West Virginia in 1975.

What about the Vietnam War?

            I don't know, you really didn't know what to think.  It has had a lasting effect on me, on my life.   I still have flashbacks and nerve problems. I learned to speak their language. My second wife said that the reason she left me, I was beating her up at night and speaking in Vietnamese and calling her Nam names.  I didn't know I was doing that.  I have three appointments at the VA Center in the next couple of months all related to the war.

Who were the victims?

            Supposedly, it was just like our Civil War in one respect the North was Communist; the South was not.  Down where I was some of those villages (supposedly friendly villages) because they were North Vietnam Army   (NVA), Viet Cong (VC) didn't uniforms but they were worse that the NVA.

            I have two doctors' appointments this month at the Veterans hospital because of nerve problems.  I have had to have counseling because of the war.  He has got me on some nerve pills.

            I was up there at the Recruitment Center and talked to Newt McCutcheon, "Do you know Newt?"  He wrote down some stuff about what happened.  I brought it for you to look over and read.

I asked Flavie if this information could it be included in his oral history?  He said, "Yes."

Description of a life-threatening episode that caused nervous condition - details as to the nature and severity of the episode and when it occurred

(Post Traumatic Stress)

            "While stationed with the 14th Security Platoon, Cho, Lai, Republic of South Vietnam while on duty in the guard tower over watching the parameters of our compound I was scanning my section which was my responsibility while using my "Starlight Scope" (ANPUS-4) I suddenly noticed that there was a clump of something moving outside the parameter.

            I quickly called the Tower to my immediate left and right to see if they could confirm the same thing.  They saw movement as well.

            I then called back to the CP and reached the ISG.  I explained to him what I had seen and told him that towers confirmed the same thing.

            ISG said, "You know that you are in a "No-Fire" zone."

            Suddenly the Company Commander walked in the CP and asked the ISG what was going on, the ISG turned the phone over to him and I explained what was going and that the "clump" was getting closer and closer.  The Company Commander also told me that we were in a "No-Fire" zone as well.

            I asked him what to do, and he replied, "I know what I would do if it were me."

            I acknowledged and said, "Roger Out!"

            I then phoned and told them to get ready, "We are going to give whatever is out there all we got!"

            I was the squad leader at the time and I was in Tower #9 (Lucky #9).  I always took #9 because I felt that it was the most crucial due to the fact that we could be hit by sea or land.  The guys in Towers 8 and 10 asked me who authorized me to engage the "Clump," and I said, "Nobody move," I am taking responsibility of this my own damn self.  I then said that we are going to open up at the count of "3" and we did.  I initiated fire with my M-60 machine gun, Tower #8 cut loose with the M79 grenade launcher and Tower#10 with a M-14 crap began to blow up everywhere.  The engagement lasted approximately ten-twenty seconds and then silence.

            I then looked through my "Starlight Scope" and saw nothing.

            I was on end the rest of the night.  When daylight finally arrived we checked the perimeter and found pieces of bodies everywhere.  The best I could tell there was about five of them and the body parts were painted the same color as the sand.  There was a lot of blood too.  I was relieved from my watch.  I went directly to the CP and worked there for eight hours and then caught some sleep.

            I was scared and nervous and really couldn't sleep because of what had taken place.  This is how I earned my Combat Infantryman's Badge!

            Flavie said, "I brought you a letter from a close friend of mine, I want you to read it and tell me what you think, when you have a minute here.  It is pretty personal. "   He handed me the letter. I read the letter and I asked if he would like to have it made a part of his oral history and he said, "Most definitely"

Craigsville, WV

To Whom It May Concern;

            I was asked to write down what I thought were changes in Flavie Ellison's personality after the Vietnam War.

            He went into Service a nice young man and came out a person without purpose.  He attended church practically every Sunday.  Now he drinks - lives to drink, has a mouth full of 'swamp' talk that can embarrass and hurt and he doesn't understand why.  He brought back something in his mind that won't let him leave that place.

            Over the last two years he has been through two marriages, several jobs, lots of alcohol and living alone in a very isolated place.  His isolation is self-inflicted.  He doesn't want company.  He has become anti-social, can't hold a job, can't hang on to relationships and says that just gets in the way of the past.

            He was in a motorcycle accident several years ago and when he woke up after being unconscious, he had reverted back to Vietnam - didn't know his wife at that time.  But he knew his ex wife's name and spoke Vietnamese as his training had taught him to do.  His doctor, who was a Veteran, recognized the language and could communicate with him.  Yet, today I'll bet he couldn't consciously speak any other language but American English.

            This, this horror of that war has touched every aspect of his life and it still does to this day.  I personally feel that it will keep affecting him the rest of his life.

            He was a "country" boy who was given a rifle, trained, and told to KILL!  And being a patriotic young man, did just that.  It went against his passive nature, but he had been trained, so he now lives with what he saw and did.  Somewhere in all the blood and death and warm beer, he put himself away to be brought back at a later time.  But he could never do it.  So Sad.

His Friend,

Shirley Farley

The Girl From Stretchneck Holler, "Inside Appalachia"

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The Girl From Stretchneck Holler "Inside Appalachia"    by Betty Dotson Lewis  and Kathleen Colley Slusher
Price: $5.99 USD. 72560 words. Published by Brighton Publishing LLC  on April 15, 2012. Fiction.
A heart-warming, heart-wrenching collection of short stories of moonshine, cock fights, domestic abuse, Holy Rollers, coal mine thugs and the simple yet complex lives of people up the hollers of the Appalachian Mountains. Coal mining provides a livelihood which is colored by violence, and the rape of mountains has forced an independent people into subservience.

authors’ profile http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Lewisslusher 

Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/152040 

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Stretchneck-Holler-Inside-Appalachia-book/dp/B007UIYD8A/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334540832&sr=1-1

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com

Excerpts from The Girl From Stretchneck Holler: Inside Appalachia

Coal Miner’s Son

“J. C., here’s your mason jar of milk and bread for your dinner,” my mother said. She wiped her forehead wearily. She’d been up since before daybreak building a fire in the wooden cookstove and fixing breakfast for her four boys. I was the oldest, seventeen years old, and today was my first day to work in the mines.

I noticed Dad’s hard hat and work boots by the door; he was still in the back bedroom. Mom touched my shoulder briefly as I got my stuff and stepped out on the porch to wait for him.

“Take care, son,” she said softly. She turned away quickly, but not before I caught the tear in her eye. Mom hated the mines; she’d lost her father and two brothers during a cave-in ten years ago. She’d wanted Dad to quit then. She didn’t want me to start now.

This was a temporary job for me. I wanted to go to college (the first of our family to do so), but even with the bank loan I managed to get, I needed more money for books and clothes. Dad got me hired at his job site—a deep mine five miles away. We’d walk there and back and eat our milk and bread so as not to have to spend our fifty cents’ pay on food or gas.

I heard Dad’s voice and he came out the door; his eyes were ringed with the black soot residue that scrubbing couldn’t get off, and he was rolling his Prince Albert. “Ready, boy”? Before I could answer, he inhaled deeply and immediately his thin body was wracked with harsh coughing. He continued to smoke as we started to walk rapidly. “You’re almost a man now son… by the end of this summer, you will be a man.”

God help me, I worked hard that summer. A pick and a shovel, crawling on my hands and knees, too tired at the end of my shift to barely talk; but if hard, dangerous work was the measure of a man, I became one.

By the end of that first week, my knees were bloody and raw from scrabbling on them for hours on end when the roof wall was too low for a man to stand. I coughed short, hard coughs and spit up gobs of phlegm streaked black; even the snot from my nose and the tears from my eyes ran black.

The men had taken to calling me Junior, and after seeing that I aimed to stick it out, they treated me good. Dad worked deeper than I did, with the experienced old-timers, but he heard tell of how I wasn’t no quitter. He was happy with me then.

When I’d first told him how I wanted more schooling, he’d snorted and said, “Are you afraid to work for your living?” I needed to prove I could work at what he thought was a “real” job, but I also aimed to show him I had further ambitions than to work in the mines all my life. On our walks home, I told him of my plans to travel and see the world. He said, “Yep, I had them plans too. Best you settle down and marry some little girl from these hills than take off to God knows where, son.”

I kept talking every day, and I wore him down. He began listening, even asked questions about college. That summer, my dad and I actually talked at length for the first time I could remember. I found out that he’d dreamed of going to Texas when he was young. “Out there is wide-open spaces so a man can breathe,” was what he said. My dad had emphysema and black lung, also a touch of TB, but couldn’t afford medicines or doctors; ...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Beautiful People of Stretchneck Holler

I remember seeing my grandfather on my mother’s side. I was scared to death of him. I saw him a few more times when I went with my mother back to visit after we moved across the mountain. His image remains vivid even today. I may have gotten my height and coloring from him.

He was tall, big and blond, with white and pink baby-looking skin. He was a violent man. His work: a union organizer. He called men out on strike by shooting a pistol in the air near the mouth of the mine.

He carried his money in a large leather wallet chained to his belt. His job afforded him good money. He drank heavily and everyone up and down Knox Creek, where he lived, knew he had another woman. She was young and beautiful with fair skin, red hair, and pretty clothes. That’s where he spent his time off from work. She got his money—what he did not spend on moonshine. He would walk up the road, staggering back and forth, on payday. Sometimes falling down by the road and lying there until he came to, then back up to stagger towards home and my waiting grandmother. Once he made it home to his tarpaper shack, he hung up his wide-brim hat on the wooden peg by the front door. After making sure his white shirt was open down almost to his waist and adjusting his shoulder holster, he sprawled out on the feather tick bed after he checked the chambers, making sure the Smith & Wesson pistol was fully loaded. When he was roused up by cars and trucks speeding up and down the road and blowing their horns as they passed his house, he’d get out of bed, pull his pistol out of his holster, throw the door open and shoot up in the air yelling, “You scabs, damn you. You sons-of-bitches. Go to Hell.” Then he would slam the door shut and sprawl back down on the feather tick bed until the cars and trucks came again. He guarded the United Mine Workers of America on Knox Creek with his very life. His allegiance belonged to the miners’ union, and anyone who did not swear by John L. Lewis was in danger of my grandfather’s wrath.

His wife, my grandmother on my mom’s side, was my favorite person in the world. I knew her best because my mom talked about her constantly. A battered and abused woman, she fought off my grandfather with a hot poker when he tried to beat her while he was drunk. He cursed my grandmother and left her mostly penniless except for what little bit she could lift from his wallet while he was in a drunken stupor...

Doc Watson

Links: Hatfields and McCoys Feud
http://hatfieldsandmccoysf.blogspot.com/
Hatfields and McCoys Reality Show link:Hatfield-McCoy kin sought for reality TV show

Novel: The Girl From Stretchneck Holler, "Inside Appalachia"

http://www.amazon.com/Stretchneck-Holler-Inside-Appalachia-ebook/dp/

Doc Watson's Cure for the Blues
by Betty Dotson-Lewis, WV Writer and Regional Historian

A dark February weekend lights up thanks to a drive into the mountains for Doc Watson's music and a good cause. Make that two good causes.
By Betty Dotson-Lewis, co-author of The Girl From Stretchneck Holler
Michael Wilson Doc Watson took North Carolina mountain music, blended it with blues, jazz, classical and whatever else he heard, and came out picking and singing like nobody else.
How to avoid the Friday night blues? Indulge in more blues. Two weeks ago I made my way north to Statesville, North Carolina, then due west to North Wilkesboro.  Snow was blowing hard and it took longer than expected to reach my destination, but I was seeking a remedy, and Doc Watson had the cure. 
My mood took a surprising upswing once I made the westward turn. Out of Statesville, heading towards the Blue Ridge Mountains, the stress of the urban world shrank to a speck of dust in my rearview mirror.  I wound around the two-lane highway, past cow pastures and barns, the homes spread apart, farm animals on either side of the road, These simple gifts of rural life are often overlooked in our fast-paced attempts to find little pleasures.
I was heading for a benefit concert hosted jointly by Doc Watson and the Kruger Brothers, a trio from Switzerland who have settled in Western North Carolina. Joel Landsberg, bassist for the Kruger Brothers, explained they wanted to do something to help the people of Haiti after January’s 7.0 earthquake. (Talk about the Blues!) They decided to use their musical talents to raise money for the Wilkes-Alleghany Chapter of the American Red Cross, funds that would be sent on for the Haitian relief work. When the Kruger Brothers contacted neighbor and 8-time Grammy award winner, Doc Watson, he was all in for this event.
The 86-yearold Watson is legendary performer. He has blended traditional Appalachian music with bluegrass, country, gospel and blues, creating a unique style and an expansive repertoire.
He was born in Stoney Fork, Watauga County, North Carolina, into a musical family.  His mother sang songs around the house while washing and hanging the clothes out on the line, and at night she sang to her children as they went to sleep.  His father, a farmer and day-laborer, led the singing at the Baptist church they attended.  They often sang from a shape-note book published in 1866, The Christian Harmony. 
Doc took up playing the harmonica when he was six, stringing a piece of steel wire across the woodshed’s sliding door for bass accompaniment.  When Doc was about eleven years old, his father made him a banjo using a cat’s skin for the head (discovering that groundhog hide didn’t have a good tone).  Some say that banjo was the best thing Doc’s father ever did for him, but Doc would disagree.  He says that the greatest gift he received from his dad was a job at the end of a crosscut saw when he was 14.  “He made me know that just because I was blind, certainly didn’t mean I was helpless.”
Events in Music The Watson family of Stoney Fork, NC. Son Arthel (a.k.a. "Doc") stands at back, second from left Doc’s musical roots were family, church and neighbors.  After the Watsons acquired a used wind-up Victrola and a stack of records , he listened to the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, The Carolina Tar Heels, Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers. His parents sent him at age ten to Raleigh to school, where he was exposed to classical music and jazz.  A friend taught Doc a few chords on the guitar, and he learned to play his first song: the Carter Family’s tune “When The Roses Bloom in Dixieland.”
“The banjo was something I really liked” Doc says, “but when the guitar came along, to me that was my first love in music.” Starting out, Doc used a thumb pick but soon turned to flat picking, which has become his signature style.
Doc and his brother began playing for local events. By age eighteen, Doc was playing with Paul Greer at a remote control radio show broadcast out of Lenoir, North Carolina. The announcer told “Arthel” Watson that his name was too hard to announce on the radio: he a shorter name that people could remember. A woman from the audience yelled out, “Call him
Doc.”  That has stayed with him.
Doc married Rosa Lee, daughter of a friend and an old-time fiddler name Gaither Carlton, in 1947.  Their son, Eddy Merle (named after Eddy Arnold and Merle Travis) was born in 1949.  Their daughter, Nancy Ellen was born in 1951.  To support his growing family, Doc tuned pianos.
In 1953 he got a job playing electric lead guitar for Jack Williams and the Country Gentlemen, a country and western swing band.  It was during his eight year stint with the Williams band that he began to flatpick fiddle tunes on his guitar for the square dance group at local dance halls, favorites like “Black Mountain Rag,” “Old Joe Clark,” “Sugarfoot Rag,” and “Billy In The Lowground.”
In 1961 Doc, Gaither, Tom Ashley, Fred Price and his neighbor Clint Howard performed in New York City and word soon spread of this talented group. They then were invited to perform at colleges, folk festivals and clubs. In time, Doc Watson was paired with Bill Monroe, thrilling audiences with hot fiddle tunes and duet singing.
Son Merle had shown no interest in guitar playing as a kid.  But at about age 15, his mother showed him a few chords while Doc was on the road.  When Doc returned and heard his son playing guitar for the first time, he said, “Son, you are going to California with me.” That was the first show Merle performed with his father, the Berkley Folk Festival in 1964.
Although Merle listened to his father play all his life, he developed a style all his own.  He loved the blues, especially as played by Mississippi John Hurt and Jerry Ricks.
In 1972 Doc Watson was invited to record Will The Circle Be Unbroken with The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Roy Acuff, Mother Maybelle Carter, Earl Scruggs, Merle Travis, Bashful Brother Oswald, Norman Blake, Jimmy Martin and others.  Doc almost turned the invitation down because his son Merle was not invited.  Merle told his father that his feelings were hurt but this opportunity would put their music out to audiences who had not heard them before.
After the release of Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Doc and Merle’s musical career picked up.   They formed The Frosty Morn Band which played together a year or two.  After that group disbanded Doc and Merle were joined by T. Michael Coleman on bass, a trio that toured world in 1974 and   recorded 15 albums between 1973 and 1985.
In October 1985 Merle Watson was killed in a tractor accident.  Merle was only 36.
Doc didn’t want to go on making music.  He didn’t think he could go on without Merle by his side.  Doc is quoted as saying he not only lost a son and a partner but, “the best friend I ever had in this world.”
Doc has said that on the night before the funeral he had decided to quit playing music but that night he had a dream.  Though Doc has some light perception, he’s said that in this dream it was totally dark.  “I could hardly stand it.”  He felt like he was in quicksand up to his waist and he wasn’t going to make it out alive.  “Then, suddenly this big old strong hand reached back and grabbed me by the hand and I heard this voice saying, ‘Come on dad, you can make it.  Keep going.’”
Doc interprets this dream as the Good Lord telling him to continue on with his music.

 
CM Sims Snowy cow pastures near North Carolina's Blue Ridge Parkway
I’d drive over an hour through snow and rain to see and hear Doc Watson. And did. And I would do the same to see and hear The Kruger Brothers. They are that good. The night of the Haiti benefit, they played for almost 600 guests who had braved the winter weather in western North Carolina on a cold, snowy February night.
After their performance for the standing-room-only crowd, Doc Watson, blind since he was one year old, was escorted on stage.  He took his seat, center stage, in a straight back chair, and the Kruger Brothers came back out to introduce him. They told the audience that once they had heard Doc Watson perform, their dream was to perform with him -- and that dream had come true
Accompanied by Charles Walsh, guitarist, vocalist and longtime friend,  Doc opened his show with “Solid Gone.”  Next, came a couple of blues tunes.
Let it rain, let it pour,
Let it rain a whole lot more,

'Cause I got them deep river blues.

Let the rain drive right on,

Let the waves sweep along,

'Cause I got them deep river blues.
Doc is a man of music not just a musician.  It is his heart, soul and life.  He told the audience he was so happy to be able to contribute in some way towards helping the people of Haiti.  He also said that there on stage performing with the crowd, it was as if he were sitting in his living room and talking or singing to only one of us. There is a softness about him.  He is sincere and humble,and a natural born storyteller.
Near the end of our concert Doc told the audience that he wanted to give testimony and hoped that no one would mind.  He said that he was a born again Christian.  He said he had been baptized when he was 14 years old but that it was the wrong kind of religion.  He had listened to the wrong preaching and was baptized out of fear.  He told us that four years ago he was listening to the song “Doctor Jesus” sand by Randy Travis  and when the chorus came around the third time:
Doctor Jesus, Will you help me?

Make me better, make me whole
.
Doctor Jesus, Lord, I need you

To mend my heart, and save my soul.
Doc Watson said that he prayed the prayer and became a born again Christian.

Courtesy Betty Dotson-Lewis Doc Watson explains Rockabilly to author Betty Dotson-Lewis, cured of the blues after the benefit concert for Haiti in North Wilkesboro, NC, Feb. 12, 2010
When the concert was over Doc remained on stage. Fan after fan came up to where Doc sat and said, “We love you Doc.  We love you.  We love you Doc.  We love you.”
I asked Doc, “Doc, what is Rockabilly Music?” I climbed up on the stage to sit on the floor near him and he explained:  “Goodness, goodness, Rockabilly Music is the music I heard back in the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s.”
Those who missed the benefit for Haiti in North Wilkesboro may want to mark their calendars for MerleFest, Doc’s annual concert named in honor of his son. The festival, held every April-May at Wilkes Community College, features a vast array of folk, bluegrass, blues and old-time music. It’s one of the most popular acoustic music festivals in the world.

Upper Big Branch Mine - 2 years later

Statement from Goose and Mindi Stewart

“First, my wife Mindi and I would like to express our sadness that another family is being impacted by the tragedy of April 5, 2010. We're certain Mr. May's family is suffering tremendous fear and sadness at this time. 

That being said, we would also like to express our gratitude to the Federal Prosecutor and his staff for pursuing justice in this case. Nothing can bring back the wonderful and brave men who were murdered and injured on April 5th and our hearts still go out to the families of those miners. The best outcome of this entire investigation would be the indictments, trials and prosecutions of all those who were responsible for UBB's explosion from the upper Management at UBB up to and including Don Blankenship. 

Everytime an event occurs that has to do with the tragedy at the mine, our family suffers the pain of reliving that horrible day. I ask you to respect our family and our need for privacy. We will not be releasing any further comments regarding this story.”

This message from Goose and Mindi Stewart posted on WSAZ News Channel 3 website on March 29, 2012

                                                       ***

Stanley “Goose” Stewart worked 34 years in the coal mine, 15 of those at Upper Big Branch mine.  Goose testified before the Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives, during the Hearing held May 24, 2010 in Beckley, West Virginia regarding the  the Upper Big Branch mine tragedy. Goose made the following statement at the Hearing; “There wasn’t no air. It’s hard to ventilate a place when you ain’t got nothing to ventilate it with.  A ticking time bomb because the ventilation system they had didn’t work.”

                                     

We are on the 2 year anniversary of the Upper Big Branch mine tragedy this Easter weekend. For family members, loved ones and all coal field residents  Easter weekend holds a different meaning from the normal festive occasion of Easter egg hunts, beautiful spring dresses and the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.  On Monday, April 5 of the 2010 Easter weekend  at approximately 3:02 pm a powerful explosion tore through the Upper Big Branch mine, owned by Massey Energy and operated by its subsidiary Performance Coal Company. The mine was located at the convergence of the Boone and Raleigh Counties in southern West Virginia. Twenty-nine miners were killed and one seriously injured. The blast rocketed through more than 2 miles of underground workings tearing apart everything in its path nearly 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Coal River.  So, Easter weekend will forever serve as a reminder of the horrible tragedy at UBB.

 Once again Easter weekend is upon us two years later and we have yet another family impacted by the tragedy of the Upper Big Branch mine where 29 miners were killed and one seriously injured. This is my story written March 29, 2012:

I’m so sad tonight, simply heartbroken that our coalfields have suffered another deadly blow; claimed another casualty.  Is it not enough  we lost 29 coal miners and another one seriously injured on Easter Monday in April 2010 at Upper Big Branch Mine Explosion in Raleigh County, West Virginia owned by Massey Energy.  The latest heartbreaking  news all over the newspapers, internet and television stations is that Gary May, former mine superintendent at Upper Big Branch mine, has entered a guilty plea to conspiracy to prevent MSHA from doing their job.  I don’t want to think of what this may entail—we are family in the coalfields caring and looking out for one another.

This news is too hard to bear.  How can residents of the coalfields comprehend much less accept the possibility that those hired and empowered to provide and enforce a safe work place, to look over our miners, serve as their guardian angels, their underground brothers voluntarily give up that control at the miner’s expense. It was a well known fact the Appalachian coalfield’s native son,  former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, born in Shopover, Kentucky, raised in Delome, West Virginia and a graduate of Matewan High School,  pushed coal production at all costs. He made no bones about that as evidenced in a memo Blankenship sent in October 2005 to all deep mine superintendents, "If any of you have been asked by your group presidents, your supervisors, engineers or anyone else to do anything other than run coal (i.e. - build overcasts, do construction jobs, or whatever) you need to ignore them and run coal. This memo is necessary only because we seem not to understand that coal pays the bills." Reported in the West Virginia Record.

To make a long story short, after this explosion at Upper Big Branch mine, the worst disaster in the US since 1972, Blankenship, head of the UBB mine operation, retired after almost three decades at Massey. He left practically in the middle of the night. The announcement of Blankenship’s “retirement” came late on a  Friday after the markets closed – a sure-fire sign that the ouster was abrupt and awkward. It came one day after a West Virginia judge ruled against Blankenship’s motion to dismiss  two lawsuits holding him personally responsible for the Upper Big Branch mine explosion.

While family members of the men killed were tossing and turning—grieving in the night over the loss of their loved ones and their painful deaths, in the event Blankenship suffered from any nocturnal unrest, he left the company with enough funds to pay for sleep therapy for a long time.  CBS Money Watch reports Blankenship left with $12 million cash, health insurance including dental, five years' use of an office with secretary, free use of a house and land that formerly were Massey property, and reimbursement of taxes on the free house and land and the title to a1965 blue Chevy truck previously transferred to the company.

Cecil E. Roberts, President of the United Mine Workers of American characterized Blankenship’s  retirement as bringing to a close a long and difficult chapter in the history of the coal industry, one that has all too often been associated with human tragedy.

The small, remote coalfield communities in Appalachia are close knit and Bloomingrose in Boone County, West Virginia where Gary May lives is less than 25 miles from Montcoal, Raleigh County, West Virginia where the Upper Big Branch mine is located. That’s a rock’s throw away. That’s like family.  One of my questions as a life-long resident of the coalfields is; what could Massey Energy run by Don Blankenship possibly offer Gary May to entice him into this web of deceit which led up and ended with the loss of 29 lives. Was it money, threats, power...please, will someone fill in the blanks for us. Did he cross the line from protector of his workers to protector of Massey Energy and CEO Don Blankenship?

According to reports, May has agreed “to be named as an unindicted co-conspirator and unindicted aider and abettor, as appropriate, in subsequent indictments or informations,” and will also appear again before a grand jury. May faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when sentenced on August 9, 2010.  

Five years doesn’t seem that long in comparison to what 29 miners received-death.

 U.S. Attorney for  the Southern District of West Virginia, R. Booth Goodwin, II had the following comments regarding May’s guilty plea, “People who run coal mines have a fundamental obligation to be honest with mine regulators.  When mine operators resort to tricks and deceit to keep government officials in the dark, our mine safety system unravels and miners are put in harm's way. The least we can do for coal miners is protect the integrity of the laws designed to keep them safe" (WSAZ Channel 3 news website)

 Under the conspiracy charge, “May, together with others known and unknown, unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly combined, conspired, confederated, and agreed together with each other to defraud the United States and an agency thereof, to wit, to hamper, hinder, impede, and obstruct by trickery, deceit, and dishonest means, the lawful and legitimate functions of DOL and its agency, MSHA, in the administration and enforcement of mine health and safety laws at UBB,” according to court documents.

May told court officially  that he was responsible for tipping off mine managers when U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration inspectors were coming. The person receiving this information-advance notice would conceal and cover up violations of mine health and safety laws to avoid citations that would  be issued. Those involved in the cover up used code phrases to pass the information along to sections of the mine to be inspected.  May stated that he engaged in acts such hanging or rehanging ventilation curtains to direct additional air to the area where an inspection was to take place. He said that if he inspectors were going to take samples of respirable dust, he would rock dust those areas. He admitted to falsifying safety records ordering an employee to omit from the record book conditions of high water that made it unsafe to travel in parts of the mine.  May admitted to telling miners to rewire a methane monitor rewired so a continuous miner would not automatically shut-off when excessive methane was detected.

 CNN reported that in a December report, MSHA found a methane ignition that set off flammable coal dust was the immediate cause of the 2010 explosion, but it also blamed the "unlawful policies and practices" of Massey Energy, which it said "promoted and enforced a workplace culture that valued production over safety."

It has finally come out that Massey kept two sets of books to mislead federal inspectors and its own workers about hazards in the mine, and had twice as many accidents as it reported to regulators.  MSHA found this company failed to conduct adequate inspections and as intimidated their workers to prevent them from reporting violations. (CNN & AP)

An earlier (state) investigation found the mine lacked adequate ventilation; water sprays on equipment were not properly maintained and failed to function as they should have; and the mining company didn't meet federal and state safety standards for the application of rock dust, a crucial tool in keeping highly volatile coal dust from exploding.

Alpha Natural Resources purchased Massey in 2011 and has agreed to a $209 million settlement to  avoid prosecution.  The deal includes payments of $1.5 million to each family that lost a member in the Upper Big Branch mine. May, became an employee of an Alpha Natural Resources subsidiary following Alpha’s acquisition of Massey Energy last year. May has been placed on administrative leave, according to a company spokesperson

The news of this breakdown in trust is counterproductive to any number of laws proposed or passed to protect the coalminer or any dollar amount paid to family members. I believe it is a necessary insult to equate the loss of a loved one to a dollar amount.  Although a sad commentary, I am interested in seeing how far up the ladder this goes.

The FBI and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General are handling the investigation. Counsel to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia Steve Ruby is handling the prosecution.

 After almost two years of investigations by state, federal and independent agencies, pieces of this puzzle are finally coming together. Whether we like what we hear or not, facts are coming out and we can only hope and pray for the dead miners, their families and the family of Gary May and trust our Justice Department to put the pieces together and give  the residents of the coalfields something to live for—that they do matter,  their lives are valuable and that the outside world recognize the dangers of coalmining.

 Men who lost their lives in the Upper Big Branch mine:

Carl Calvin Acord

Jason Atkins

Christopher Bell

Gregory Steven Brock

Kenneth Allan Chapman

Robert E. Clark

Cory Thomas Davis

Charles Timothy Davis

Michael Lee Elswick

William Ildon Griffith

Steven Harrah

Edward Dean Jones

Richard K. Lane

William Roosevelt Lynch

Joe Marcum

Ronald Lee Maynor

Nicolas Darrell McCroskey

James E. “Eddie” Mooney

Adam Keith Morgan

Rex L. Mullins

Joshua Scott Napper

Howard D. Payne

Dillard Earl Persinger

Joel R. Price

Gary Wayne Quarles

Deward Allan Scott

Grover Dale Skeens

Benny Ray Willingham

Ricky Workman

And to the man who was seriously injured in the explosion- James Woods