Missouri City man one of two made a Knight of Texas at San Jacinto

Carl Hill of Missouri City, left, and David Martin of Montgomery County were knighted Saturday as Knights of Texas by Texas Army Brigadier General Tony Emmitte on the steps of the San Jacinto Monument during a ceremony as part of the San Jacinto Day Festival and Battle Re-enactment. (Photo by Joe Southern)

This weekend I had the privilege of seeing a great honor bestowed upon two of my friends in the Texas Army.

Carl Hill Jr. of Missouri City and David Martin of Montgomery County were knighted in a ceremony Saturday at the San Jacinto Monument, making them Knights of Texas. I’m not very well versed in exactly what that means, but I do know that they don’t knight anyone just because they feel like it. These two men have given many years of dedication to preserving Texas history through re-enactments and living history programs.

Hill is a seventh generation Texan and has been a member of the San Jacinto Chapter, No. 1, Sons of the Republic of Texas, since 1992. He is also a member of the Texas Army and was recently commissioned an Admiral in the Texian Navy for all his volunteer activities in promoting Texas history.

For more than 20 years Hill has dedicated his time and efforts by participating in various community activities frequently dressed as a soldier in the Republic of Texas Army to ensure the public is aware of the Republic of Texas and its illustrious heritage. For the past several years he has participated in over 20 historical events annually from Republic of Texas battle re-enactments, Texas Honor Day events, Republic of Texas Past Presidents Commemoration ceremonies and other Texas historical events.

As a collateral descendant of James Wilder, who died at Goliad, Hill is a member of the Alabama Red Rovers. He often portrays his brave ancestor during the Battle of Coleto Creek and Goliad Massacre re-enactments at Presidio La Bahia in Goliad. (I feel a bit of kinship with him in that regard, in that my wife’s fourth-great uncle, Zachariah Short, was in the Red Rovers at Goliad.)

Hill is also cannon certified and can frequently be seen participating as a cannon crew member at Texas Heroes Day at Monument Hill in LaGrange, Texian Navy Day ceremonies at Battleship Texas, and the Sons of the Republic of Texas La Bahia Awards at Goliad.

Hill is a member of San Antonio Living History Association, an Alamo volunteer, and a member of the Texas Army Ceremonial Guard. He was a founding member of the Alexander Hodge Chapter, No. 41, (Sugar Land) Sons of the American Revolution in 1997. Not only was Alexander Hodge an American patriot, but he was also a Texas patriot. During the Texas Revolution, Hodge sent his sons and grandsons to join Gen. Sam Houston, while he guided his family to safety during the Runaway Scrape. Hill has just recently completed his second term as president and worked tirelessly promoting Alexander Hodge as a patriot of two revolutions.

As a member, Hill makes visits in colonial dress to the Michael DeBakey VA Medical Center, paying tribute to military veterans who have given so much for our country.

I could keep going on about Hill, but I don’t want to neglect David Martin. He is a retired aircraft mechanic and inspector, but has a deep abiding love for Texas history, especially both sides of the Texas Revolution. He portrays both sides at various re-enactments, but mostly Mexican.

He has distant cousins and his great-great-grandfather as ties to the Republic of Texas and the Texas Revolution. Three of his relatives were part of the Mier Expedition and the infamous black bean incident. Antonio López de

Santa Anna, who had returned to power in Mexico by this time, was so impressed with John Chrisopher Columbus Hill that “he offered John a complete education if he would stay in Mexico and become a Mexican citizen,” Martin said. “And John told Santa Anna I will if you will send my father and my brother home. Santa Anna immediately sent them downtown and got him a new set of clothes because they were threadbare, and escorted them back to Texas. John C.C. Hill stayed there and became an engineer. He was instrumental in doing liaison between Mexico and the United States for the railroad systems. You have to have a liaison when you’re trying to tie two railroad systems together at the border. He also helped write the treaty after the Mexican-American War.”

Not only does Martin have that connection with Mexico, but he also spent a lot of time working there while working in aviation.

“I lived in Mexico two or three months out of the year and I learned to love Mexico and have good friends down there,” he said. “And I tell people, ‘mi Corazon esta en Texas y siempre estara, pero tengo a Mexico en mi sangre, which means my heart is in Texas and always will be but I have Mexico in my blood.’ So I do both sides. About the only thing I portray, on the Mexican side, is a cazador  … and that translates to hunter in English, and that’s the light infantry of the of the Mexican Army in the 1830s that came through here with Santa Ana in the Texas Revolution.”

Martin has been very active with the Texas Army and other historical organizations and was recognized for his efforts to educate the public and keep Texas history alive for the next generations.

Also at the ceremony, nine members of the Texas Army were promoted to colonel. To make that rank, they must participate in a minimum number of events and also qualify as a marksman with a black powder rifle. Receiving that honor were Joe Weathersby, Doug Houston (a distant relative of Sam Houston), Rion Braddock, Frank Dietz, Chris Larsen, Howard Rose, Ronald Schrotter, Steven Sodich, and Kraig White. In addition, Claude Hunter was made an honorary colonel in the Army. A special award was given to Dan Smith, who is one of the original members who started the Texas Army 50 years ago.

I do want to give a special shout-out to Eron Tynes and Steve Roberts for providing me with some of this information.
These gentlemen have helped set a high standard of integrity and professionalism that I can only hope to aspire to as I begin my journey as a member of the Texas Army.

Finding the Fort Bend of Fort Bend County not an easy task

It’s been said that a man’s home is his castle. In the case of Fort Bend County, you might call it a fort.
The long vanished wooden structure that settlers called a fort was nothing more than a two-room cabin that was built as a storage shed. It was never designed to be a fort and would have been very inadequate to the task had it been needed for that purpose. Fortunately, it never was.
The structure did serve a purpose – primarily to store construction materials and provisions while some of Stephen F. Austin’s original colonists built their settlement near present-day Richmond. Other than that, it was a deteriorating marker on the path of progress as Texas won its independence from Mexico and eventually became part of the United States.
No one seems to know exactly where it stood or when its last remnants were swept away in the Brazos River but there is a historical marker near the spot where it is believed to have been. Just south of the marker on the west bank of the river near where Front and Fort streets are in Richmond sits a collection of rusted old mobile homes, thick brush and a landscape littered with junk. It’s hardly a fitting sight for the historic location of the humble building that was important enough to name a county after, but that’s where it supposedly was.
If there is one thing I have learned while studying Texas history is that many of the people and things that made this state great were true underdogs. Some of the heroes of old such as Sam Houston, Jim Bowie, and William Travis were has-beens running from their past and trying to forge a future in a new land. The ragtag band of rebels that called themselves an army defeated one of the biggest and best-trained armies of its time. And a hastily constructed wood cabin became a fort for which this county was named.
As I have visited historic sites in Texas the past few years I have been both impressed and bemused by the degree of historic preservation in this state. The state’s most iconic and revered historical treasure – the Alamo – is in a sad state. I’m not talking about the church most of us know as the Alamo, but the rest of the compound that is long gone and paved over.
Many of us cheered when George P. Bush campaigned for Land Commissioner on a promise to save the Alamo and restore the hallowed grounds. Today, many of us vilify him for his plan to “re-imagine” the Alamo, not by rebuilding its stone walls, but outlining the compound with glass panels.
If you ask me, the Alamo should be rebuilt like Presidio La Bahia in Goliad. Part of “Fort Defiance” is original, but much of it is reconstructed to look like it did when Col. James Fannin and his troops were slaughtered there in the Goliad Massacre. It’s a prime example of historic restoration and preservation at its finest.
Closer to home, San Felipe de Austin State Historic Site will open a new museum on April 27. The site has also been the focus of archaeological digs to find remnants of original structures that were burned down by fleeing colonists during the Runaway Scrape. It’s been a slow process, but I applaud the work that is being done there to bring that part of history back to life.
Here in Fort Bend County, historical preservation has been a hodgepodge of successes and failures. One of the things that jumped out at me was the lack of information about the “fort” that the county was named after. As I began my research for the story on the front page of this week’s paper, I found it very difficult to find any information about it. I can’t thank
Chris Godbold, chief curator of collections for the Fort Bend History Association, and Paul N. Spellman, author of the book “Old 300 Gone to Texas,” enough for their help with the story. Even with their help, information was scarce.
Godbold told me that at one time there was a replica of Fort Bend, but it, like the original, is long gone and forgotten. Likewise, so is Thompson’s Ferry, the raft and landing used by Santa Anna and his army to cross the Brazos. I spent part of Thursday in Richmond looking at historical markers and buildings and coming away feeling like there is a lot of lost opportunity there. The area is rich in history but does a poor job of preserving and promoting it. I don’t mean this as a slight against the Fort Bend History Association or any historical preservation organizations – as nonprofit volunteer groups they are limited in what they can do. Mine is just the observation of a Johnny-come-lately who has seen the success of other historic sites across the country.
For whatever it’s worth, I see a great opportunity here to capitalize on historic tourism. The whole region inside the big bend in the Brazos on the north end of Richmond has recently been designated as an Opportunity Zone. That means the government is providing tax incentives for economic investment in the very area I’ve been talking about here. Before the bulldozers come and plow under more history for the sake of progress, why don’t we take advantage of this and restore some of our history?
Wouldn’t it be great to buy up the dilapidated properties where the fort once stood, create a historic park and make a new replica of the fort there? You wouldn’t need millions of dollars to do it. Another idea would be to make a “Santa Anna trail” that follows the route the Mexican dictator and his army took through this area, culminating at another historic park at the area where Thompson’s Ferry once was. These would be relatively small investments with big local impact. If there is one thing the Richmond/Rosenberg area is sorely lacking is good hiking and biking trails. This would help meet an outdoor/fitness need as well as a historical one.
Who knows, maybe this is just a pipe dream, or maybe not. I can only hope this will plant a seed that will germinate and blossom into something wonderful for our area. A very unique chapter of Texas, American, and Mexican history happened here. I just seems logical to me that we would capitalize on that so that future generations and visit and appreciate their past.

Fred Haise talks about going to the moon and back (barely)

Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise talks about his
experience aboard the ill-fated flight to the
moon during a Thought Leader Series
lecture March 13 at Space Center Houston.
(Photo by Joe Southern)

There was a time 48 years ago when Fred Haise was one of the most famous men off the planet.

His name and face graced the front page of nearly every newspaper and news magazine in the world. People were glued to their televisions and radios just to keep up with what he was doing. Millions of people were praying for him and his crewmates.

Today, few know his name and he doesn’t have a prayer of being recognized unless he’s announced at an event. He was the keynote speaker March 13 at just such an event at Space Center Houston. A full house turned out to hear Haise speak about his days on the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission as part of the space center’s Thought Leader Series.

The Apollo 13 mission launched on April 11, 1970, and was to be the third moon-landing mission. A mishap on the way crippled the spacecraft and endangered the lives of Haise, Jim Lovell and John “Jack” Swigert as they hurled toward a moon they would no longer be able to set foot on. Their “routine” mission became an epic struggle for survival that captivated the world. In 1995, a movie about the mission directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks became a smash hit and painted with broad strokes a picture of what the adventure was like.

Haise, now 84, was able to color in many of the details during his talk at Space Center Houston. The event was hosted by Daniel Newmyer, vice president of education at Space Center Houston, who presented questions to Haise during the hour-long talk.

Haise was born in Biloxi, Miss., in 1933, and early in life wanted to be a sports reporter. He was the sports editor of his high school newspaper and did the same in junior college before his education was interrupted by the Korean War.

“I joined up to fly airplanes when I had never been in an airplane in my life,” he said.

He punted his sports writing career once his love of flying got off the ground. Haise, like many of his NASA colleagues, came to the space agency from a military background. He was selected as an astronaut in 1966 as part of the fifth astronaut group.

His first assignment with NASA was on the back-up crew for Apollo 8 – the first mission to take humans around the moon. One of those humans was his future commander, Jim Lovell. Haise was assigned to the back-up crew when Michael Collins became ill. He joined Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as back-ups and would have advanced with them to Apollo 11, but, “Unfortunately as it turned out, Mike Collins got well.”

His second assignment was on the back-up crew for Apollo 11, where he served as Aldrin’s back-up as the lunar module pilot.

“So I ended up serving another back-up assignment as Buzz Aldrin’s back-up on the Apollo 11 crew with Jim Lovell and Ken Mattingly at the time,” he said.

As the rotations went, back-up crews became prime crews three flights later. That would have put them on Apollo 14, but they were bumped up a flight to allow Alan Shepard more time to train after having had surgery to correct an inner ear problem.

Lovell, Haise, and Mattingly trained for the mission, but Mattingly was grounded after being exposed to the measles.

“Jack joined our crew two and a half days before launch,” Haise recalled.

His ability to do that was a testament to NASA’s training protocols.

“It proved out the methodology at that time that the prime and back-up crews did pretty much the same thing,” he said.

Haise said they were all confident in Swigert’s ability.

“We had done the preparation … we knew our business, we were confident that we could handle anything short of catastrophic,” he said.

About three-fourths of the way to the moon, the crew had just finished filming a television program and were stowing gear when flight controllers called Swigert and asked him to stir the oxygen tanks. He did and an electrical short caused the second tank to rupture.

“They call it an explosion. It was not an explosion, fortunately,” Haise said. “The oxygen tank had a short and an over-pressurization and somewhere a seam burst. It built up pressure in that compartment and that blew off a quarter panel of the spacecraft. If it had been an explosion there would have been shrapnel and I wouldn’t be here today because behind the very thin wall where those tanks were, is where the propellant tanks were. So fortunately we didn’t have a tank explode.”

The shockwaves from the rupture flipped several switches, closing off valves and shutting down two of the power cells. They couldn’t be re-started.

“There wasn’t any Plan B waiting around to handle all of the things that needed to be handled,” he said.

Although the astronauts’ lives were endangered, the true heroes of Apollo 13 were the hundreds of men and women working on the ground in mission control to bring the crew back safely. The crew acknowledged that by placing a mirror from their flight on the wall of historic mission control.

“Mirror was for looking at things you couldn’t see,” Haise explained. “We wanted that to be in honor of the people at mission control – many I talked to after the fight, I figured they got less sleep on the ground than I got in flight – it was an incredible effort for some people. Some people told me they didn’t go home, they just lay down on the floor in the hallway … It was obviously an appreciation of that effort that was made during our flight to get us home.”

A plaque under the mirror reads: “This mirror, flown on Aquarius, LM 7, to the moon April 11-17, 1970, returned by a grateful Apollo 13 crew to reflect the image of the people in mission control who got us back. James Lovell, John Swigert, and Fred Haise.”

“I hate to admit it, but grateful is spelled wrong,” Haise confessed.

Although Apollo 13 went down in history as a successful failure, there were no Apollo missions without their glitches.

“There were problems on every flight. In fact two other flights we almost aborted on, Apollo 14 and 16,” Haise said.

After the moon landing ended, Haise looked into the data from each flight.

“Apollo 13 had the second to least number of anomalies. It had a big one,” he said to great laughter. “Apollo 17 had the least of all of the missions.”

After Apollo, Haise helped develop the space shuttle and flew the first test flights of the Enterprise off the back of the 747 that now sits in front of the Space Center Houston with a replica space shuttle on its back. He and Gordon Fullerton made three test flights with Enterprise. In 1978, Haise retired from NASA and took a job with Grumman Aerospace Corporation.

Today he lives in Mississippi and works with the nonprofit Infinity Science Center, a counterpart to Space Center Houston.

As for the movie, Haise praises the job they did, though he is quick to make note of inaccuracies and exaggerations.

“Ron Howard told me NASA gave him all the air-to-ground transmissions and he listened to all of that. ‘It sounded to me like you never had a problem. We had to put some of that stuff in there to humanize you,’” he said.

A question all the Apollo-era astronauts get is how they feel about humans going back to the moon.

“NASA right now, I wish we were further along in doing things farther out – exploration if you will – back to the moon because we really did a very cursory look at that feature with six landings,” he said. “We had six landings at very select spots that geologists chose based on what they thought the geologic returns would be and tell them more about the cosmology of the moon. There’s a lot more there to have looked at and surveyed, and of course another favorite topic has been about going to Mars, which has for a long time been talked about. I had hoped we’d have the similar type of support we had during the Apollo era. The right things aligned to make sure the president, Congress, the general public, was in favor of the mission that would allow it to be financed.”

To make schools safer, don’t blame guns, look within

On March 24, students in Sugar Land joined their peers across the country in a protest against gun violence in schools.

Although many of the students who spoke locally were focused on safety in schools, for many in rallies across the country it was an anti-gun event. The children were saying they don’t feel safe in school anymore. Some bashed the NRA (National Rifle Association) and others went as far as to call for abolishing the Second Amendment. It was all in response to a school shooting several weeks ago in Florida, and several others that came before that.

I have to applaud the students for taking initiative and standing up for what they believe and things they feel are important in their lives. Simultaneously, I mourn their ignorance.

Before I make my case, let me say up front that I deplore what happened in Parkland, Fla., where 17 people died and 17 others were wounded. I’m incredibly saddened whenever an innocent life is taken, especially those of children in places where they should be safe and secure.

The point I want to make is that our children are understandably upset, frightened, and angry. Unfortunately, they are venting their frustration in the wrong direction. Banning guns is not the answer. Without trying to sound like a bad Facebook meme, you cannot secure your freedom by giving up your rights. If you think abolishing the Second Amendment will work, try looking at our history as it relates to the 18^th and 21^st Amendments. (And yes kids, I’m going to make you look those up!)

The reality of collecting all the guns in this country is laughable. There are too many, and in a global economy, too many ways to replenish them. Guns and the Second Amendment are here to stay. That is reality. To follow through on the old saying “If guns were outlawed, only outlaws would have guns,” I have to ask, how safe would that make you feel knowing only outlaws have guns? They will always have them; trust me on that.

Blaming the NRA for mass shootings is akin to blaming cops for crime or doctors for disease. The NRA teaches gun safety and responsibility. The organization exists to make us safer with firearms, not more dangerous. Instead of trying to attack the NRA, you should be turning to it for help. I think that if instead of vilifying the NRA, asking it for assistance in making schools safer against gun violence would yield surprisingly positive results.

If these youngsters are interested in making schools a safer place, they must first look within themselves. Nearly all of the school shooters are peers of the victims. Schools are incredibly well protected from adult strangers. The real danger is within. It’s the marginalized kid from a broken home who poses the greatest threat.

Shooters are typically the ones who have been bullied, neglected, put down, and made to feel worthless. They’re the ones who get called fat, stupid, ugly, and many other hurtful words. They’re the ones that the other kids don’t play with at recess. They’re the ones nobody wants to sit with at lunch. They’re the ones that are made fun of because they don’t have natural athletic talent or have some disability.

Studies show that many shooters come from broken homes. Their parents are often divorced. They may have an abusive or alcoholic parent(s). They spend a lot of time watching violent videos and playing violent video games. They typically act out in negative ways to draw attention to themselves. They wind up in trouble, get bad grades, or telegraph their intent on social media.

There is a lot of talk about mental illness and the role it plays. It is a huge role and needs much more attention and resources. Mental illness, however, is a small part compared to the social forces that stress these kids. It’s the abuse and neglect that push these shooters over the edge mentally and emotionally.

If the students and the schools want to get serious about safety, they must first work on improving social behaviors and skills. If we pride ourselves on our diversity, we must also pride ourselves on inclusion. It’s more than racial or ethnic inclusion. We need to create an atmosphere where every student feels welcome and wanted, not just by the adults, but by their peers. We need to restore civility, not just in the schools, but in society in general.

What I have to say next might seem a little ridiculous or far-fetched, but hear me out. One of the most dangerous elements in society today is the Internet meme. For those who don’t know, a meme (pronounced meem) is typically a picture with a caption on it used to convey a quick, usually humorous, message. The earliest memes were print advertisements and, some would say, political cartoons. Today, memes convey all kinds of messages. Quite often, many are hurtful and derogatory. They spread rumors, lies, half-truths, and innuendo. They are a form of bullying.

This was allegedly a weapon of choice deployed by the Russians during the last presidential election to influence the outcome. It’s likely being used to facilitate these anti-gun demonstrations as well. How better for a foreign government to invade our country than to convince our populace to surrender its arms? Not only do people seem willing to surrender guns, but to take away our right to own guns as well. This is a message being spread like wildfire on social media via memes. I’d dare call it a form of mind control.

If kids today want to get serious about school safety, they would be wise to stop worrying about gun control and focus more on relationships. If they want to make a difference in the world, first make a difference with your neighbor. Show love and kindness to all and it will be shown back to you. Be the change you want to make. Don’t demand it of others.