Newsman, PR pro joins effort to develop Ohio’s oil, gas resources

                COLUMBUS, OH –  John O. Meekins has come out of retirement to help companies “fracking” to develop oil and gas resources in the Utica and Marcellus Shale gain and keep the important support of local officials and citizens.

                Meekins, a newspaper reporter and then a public relations professional for many years, said he came out of retirement because he believes a lot of those companies need his skills to achieve those two important goals in the communities where they work.

“I say that because there is an awful lot of what I call ‘fakelore’ floating around about fracking, the process many of these companies use to extract oil and gas,” Meekins said. “Fakelore” or misleading and even untrue information about fracking can raise concerns with local officials and citizens. “That can lead to unnecessary laws and rules that benefit no one.”

A number of concerns over “fracking” raised by federal and state agencies have been addressed to assure the process is safe. In fact, one independent academic study found that only the actual drilling to reach oil and gas resources in a few instances caused problems, not the actual “fracking.” Hydraulic “fracking” incidentally, breaks up formations deep underground to free trapped oil and gas.

Meekins will work with companies developing these important resources to make sure they regularly provide correct information to local governments and citizens on what they are doing.

                “This will be information on each well to include steps taken to meet all environmental and safety concerns, the number of jobs created and the revenue poured into each community,” Meekins said. “These companies also need to let local governments and citizens know the taxes they pay to federal, state and local governments and especially to the support of schools.”

                Meekins predicted local officials and citizens will really support these companies once they understand the real value they bring to their communities.

                “Development of these oil and gas resources is important because it promises to change the ‘rust belt’ image that has depressed Ohio for so long to one of hope and prosperity,” Meekins concluded.

-          30 -

                More information on Meekins and his company, FracOhio, can be found at:  fracohio.com

He can also be reached by email at jmeek40126@aol.com or phone at 614-436-0027.

FracOhio - Helping develop Ohio’s Marcellus and Utica Shale oil and gas resources

Was the 1st soldier killed in the Vietnam War in the U.S. Army Security Agency? Maybe!

I read that the first American casualty of the Vietnam War was with the US Army Security Agency.

I found that somewhere, though I do not remember exactly where. I do not recall the fellow's name, but I think I knew him. I was with him in basic training at Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo., 1961 and then with him at advanced training at Ft. Devens, Mass.
I say I think I know who he was because when I was in Germany between 1962 and 1964 I heard that an ASA fellow had been killed when he came back to the ASA compound late one night. I say I think I knew him because that story of how the fellow got killed sounds like him. I remember him from basic when all the guidon flags of each platoon came up missing, even the company guidon. The guidons were never replaced while I was in the company, and I remember marching through our final ceremony (they didn't call it graduation then) with just those bare poles going up and down with the commands.
Yet, right after that as we all packed to leave, this fellow called me over to his bunk All five blue guidons lay on his bunk. Oh, and Bravo Company, Third Battalion, Third Training Regiment came up missing an M-1 rifle, too. I never knew for sure, but I suspect that fellow probably got that, too.
I also remember when he was with me at Ft,. Devens that we both pulled KP one day. For those of you who don't know or who never pulled it, KP or "kitchen police," started very early in the morning like 4 a.m. and did not end until late, like after 8 p.m. It was grueling and punishing. The time I pulled it with him, though, we got out at least an hour early. Why? The mess sergeant in charge of the KP's told us if we worked hard we'd all be out by 7 p.m. or maybe it was 8 p.m. Anyway, this fellow had everyone move their watches forward one hour, and he even turned the mess hall clock up an hour.
So, when all of the clocks and watches hit the appropriate hour, the fellow went to the mess sergeant to remind him of his promise. The sergeant looked at his watch, looked at the mess hall clock, asked a couple of other KP's what time they had? When all were an hour ahead, the sergeant shook his watch like something might be wrong with it, but he did let us all go.
The same fellow gave hair cuts and loaned money, $5 for $8 and !0 for $15. What a wheeler dealer! I liked the guy's style, so I hope that first guy killed in Vietnam was not really him. But, I would not be surprised.

I am not sure he even went to Vietnam, but at the end of our training at Ft. Devens, some of us were given $200 to buy civilian clothes and shipped to Vietnam. I seem to think he was one of those. There, by the way, the ASA compounds were called "Radio Research" units.

• Close viewer

Remembering Vietnam...the BUFE

One curio I saw everywhere I went in Vietnam in 1970 were these gaudily colored elephants about knee high. They were flat and just the white of the plaster of Paris or whatever cheap material they were made of on the top. Sometimes they were colored quite well, sometimes pretty sloppy. But, they were THE thing everyone over there seemed to have, maybe like a cuckoo clock if you were in Germany. But these things were too cheap and to gaudily colored to be close to the quality of a German cuckoo clock. One day, thought, I just happened to see one in an office where some GI was pounding away on a typewriter (something few people today ever remember seeing), and I asked him: "What do you call that?" or something like that.
He looked around, saw where I was pointing and replied, "Tha'ts a BUFE."
"A what?"
And then he spoke the letters of this unique acronym, something very common in the army: "It's a Big Ugly Fnnn Elephant."

"The Animal House" or Building 714 at Howard AB, Panama

All the flap over the Secret Service agents and military personnel being caught with prostitutes in Columbia makes me think of Building 714, Panama AB, Panama or "The Animal House," as it was called.
Some veterans may remember Volant Oak, I think was the name of it. It was a mission the US Air Force Reserve and US Air National Guard units shared for several years. Each unit would be there about a month, and then switch out with another one.
Transient enlisted stayed in one of those buildings. It seems to me it was 714 or the Animal House, but it could have been 715.
I learned it about in two trips to Panama with my Air Force Reserve unit then based at Rickenbacker ANGB, Ohio. My unit went down there several times. I went twice.
Now this all happened because the base itself was open, meaning civilian buses and autos ran on a highway that went through it. Fences and military policemen secured only the air strip.
I became aware of where the building got its name the first night there. I was in the shower when someone started washing my back. It was this very pretty young woman. She explained she'd wash the rest of me for a fee. I turned her down.
That was the start, but this young woman and probably a dozen others that night and every night I stayed in the building walked up and down the halls, knocking on doors and selling sex like someone would sell brushes. Door-to-door sex!
I did not partake of any of their offerings, not because I am a prude, but because as in a lot of third world countries, there were venereal diseases in Panama doctors could not name.
Some others did indulge, and I heard on our return several of those who did had to see doctors
Some other famous places for prostitutes that as a GI you learned about included Kasserstrasse in Frankfurt, right across from the Banhof, or main train station. Anyone stationed in Frankfurt will remember that as the street for prostitutes and bars full of B-girls, or girls who'd sit with you if you bought them drinks a very high prices.  There were a lot of American soldiers there in the 1950's and 1960's for sure who can tell you about that street. There was Tudau or Tudeu Street in Saigon, and, oh, yes, the combat zone in Boston, Mass., when the US Navy had a large base there.
The only time I ever bought a beer for a B-girl, incidentally, was across from the Banhof in Frankfurt in a bar full of them. The other GI and I ignored them until this one young woman asked if she could pour my beer? I nodded, OK, thinking that wouldn't cost anything. It did. That's because she cradled that bottle of beer between the most beautiful pair of breasts I'd ever seen, bent over with it between them, and poured my beer. What a lovely sight! We both bought her a drink!
Back to Panama, while the building had a number, it came to be known as "The Animal House."
The funniest part of that adventure, incidentally, came when I noticed "Animal Crackers" in a vending machine on the first floor.
Another curiosity came when I noticed that all these women who made their rounds every night took a half hour break at 7 and went into this one room. Curious, I looked in to see them all sitting in fold-up chairs, all lined up in one row. They were watching a soap opera. As soon as it was over, they were off selling their wares again.
Oh, and there was this real Lothario! He was a fellow I roomed with. He was old, fat and ugly as anything, and did he ever keep those prostitutes busy. I mean like every night, and sometimes twice a night. He had to be almost 55 or close to 60, yet, he kept at it so ardently I one day asked him: "Do you take some kind of pill?"
I don't remember what he said. I also remember that he'd taken $750 down there for his two-week stay, and near the end of the second week he was writing another check to get cash.  Talk about wonders? He was one of them!

B-25's land at Urbana, headed for US Air Force Museum in Dayton

Here are some random photos of just some of the World War II B-25 bombers that still fly today that flew into Urbana, Ohio today. Fun to see them, and a lot of other people felt the same, obviously, judging from the large crowd. I also include a photo of Allen R. Josey who was an electrician's mate on the USS Hornet. The B-25's that first bombed Tokyo during World War II took off from the Hornet. He remembers seeing them take-off. He also was aboard the Hornet when it was sunk by the Japanese.

Camp barber turned out to be VC, NVA in Vietnam War---Many Times?

The camp barber?

I traveled around the then Republic of South Vietnam quite a bit as a newspaper reporter. The whole time I did not report on the big war, but instead on men from Indiana serving in that big war. And, it was rather big then in 1970 when some 440,000 Americans still served there.
As I moved around I heard one story four or five times. Each time it was told, it was told as if it happened at the particular fire support base I happened to be at. And, each time the person telling it, pointed to a spot along the perimeter as the specific place where it happened.
The story? The story was how there was a ground attack one night, and the next morning as they were collecting the bodies of the VC oir NVA, one of them turned out to be the or one of the camp barbers. I'll bet I heard that story at least a half a dozen times.
Then, guess what? Just recently I met a man who'd been in the Marines, not sure the exact date, but he'd be at Baldy. Do not know if the Marines called places like that an LZ or fire support base or what. But, anyway, he told me the exact same story. And, he insisted it did happen at his base, and it was the barber at his camp.
Talk about folklore? Now that is true folklore. Wonder if there are stories like that coming out of Iraq or Afghanistan?

Politcal TV Ads coming! Oh, my, oh, my!

Can you imagine what TV is going to look like this year, already is looking like this year with President O'Bama ready to send $1 billion on his campaign and Mitt Romney, no doubt, going to spend at least in the millions? That will have to mean television turns to mostly political advertising with a few programs squeezed in! When I worked at the Union Leader in Manchester, NH, the paper sold ads on page one.
And, as election approached almost the entire front page became a big political ad or multiple political ads!