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In America: North Platte said yes. North Platte has always said yes.

Col. Jaskolski, a veteran of the Iraq war, is commander of the 142nd Field Artillery Brigade of the Arkansas Army National Guard. For three weeks earlier this summer, the 142nd had been conducting an emergency deployment readiness exercise in Wyoming, training, and sleeping outdoors, subsisting on field rations. Now it was time for the 700 soldiers to return to their base.

A charter bus company had been hired for the 18-hour drive back to Arkansas. The Army had budgeted for a stop to get snacks. The bus company determined that the soldiers would reach North Platte, in western Nebraska, around the time they would likely be hungry. The company placed a call to the visitors’ bureau: Was there anywhere in town that could handle a succession of 21 buses, and get 700 soldiers in and out for a quick snack?

North Platte said yes. North Platte has always said yes.

RTWT @ A Soldier Never Forgets North Platte

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • David July 24, 2018, 10:36 AM

    Awesome

  • PA Cat July 24, 2018, 10:52 AM

    God bless them all, soldiers and townspeople alike.

  • Ray Van Dune July 24, 2018, 11:54 AM

    I was relieved to see, when I zoomed in, that was not Col. Jaskolski in the picture! I’m just trying to get used to mothers with three kids looking like they should be going to the junior prom! Colonels that look like the paper boy would be just more than I could handle!!

  • SteveS July 24, 2018, 12:04 PM

    Jeez, Gerard, you need to tidy up a bit in here. Seems to be getting a bit dusty.
    Or maybe I’m just turning into a wuss.

    As for Ray’s “young Col. Jaskolski”, one thing I’ve noticed in the last few decades is that I’m not getting any older but the kids keep getting younger and younger. At at recent high school graduation, all the “seniors” looked to be about twelve.

  • steve walsh July 24, 2018, 12:46 PM

    I never tire of these human generosity stories, particularly those involving helping our soldiers. Think about this: the call to the Visitor’s Bureau was answered by a single person who then mobilized a community. Talk about dusty…

  • Conservative Aviator July 24, 2018, 12:55 PM

    The Army National Guard unit now has money that was budgeted but not spent. They will have to take everyone out for fast food before the end of the fiscal year.

  • John Venlet July 24, 2018, 1:32 PM

    Even more impressive, and heart warming, in my opinion:

    Starting in December 1941, they met every train: up to 23 a day, beginning at 5 a.m. and ending after midnight. Those volunteers greeted between 3,000 and 5,000 soldiers a day. They presented them with sandwiches and gifts, played music for them, danced with them, baked birthday cakes for them. Every day of the year, every day of the war, they were there at the depot. They never missed a train, never missed a soldier. They fed six million soldiers by the end of the war. Not 1 cent of government money was asked for or spent,…

  • Roy Lofquist July 24, 2018, 1:58 PM

    April, 1961. I traveled from Los Angeles to New York on my way to Ft. Monmouth on a Union Pacific Domeliner. The train stopped in North Platte and a few of us young soldiers were served coffee and doughnuts on the station platform. It was the highlight of of a long journey, one I still remember vividly.

  • Aldo Cella July 24, 2018, 4:12 PM

    Thanks, Gerard. A welcome heartwarmer!

  • Aggie July 24, 2018, 6:26 PM

    I was going to say something snarky like ” I wonder if Michelle O is proud of her country yet” but it made me feel badly about myself, and unworthy of what these people have done. These are the kinds of things that make me fiercely proud to call myself an American. We are unique in this world for doing the same kinds of things, all over the world (I have witnessed the shock that comes from receiving these kindnesses, myself, in foreign lands). And I’m glad for the opportunity to pass this sense of grounded pride to my children.

  • Deana July 24, 2018, 7:30 PM

    This one story restored me today. I thank you for posting it.

    But oh my goodness. That kid who had never received a birthday cake. What is wrong with people??? I will pray for him. That just broke my heart.

  • Snakepit Kansas July 25, 2018, 4:46 AM

    I read this from the WSJ a few days ago. Brought tears to my eyes. North Platte, that is the real America.

  • DWEEZIL THE WEASEL July 25, 2018, 7:14 AM

    I wonder what will happen when the same NG troops show up to confiscate their property, firearms and herd them into FEMA Camps. I do applaud the generosity and commitment of these hopelessly naïve people. But count me out. If I seem cynical, it is because when I came home on leave in 1970 and was walking through the terminal at LAX, I was cursed, spit at, and called a “baby killer”. The Draft has been over for a long time. If you enlist now, it’s all about the freebies and bennies waiting for you when you ETS.
    We are in the eye of the storm at the moment. The POTUS is going to get his butt handed to him this November. He will be a one-term anomaly and then it will be politics as usual: a continued descent into Marxist social degeneracy. I hope I am wrong, but when I look at those clean-cut, smiling young men in their cool cammies, I can’t help but wonder what will happen when Presidents Warren, Harris, or Biden federalize them and send them to my front door to confiscate my honest earned wealth and firearms after they shoot me and my dogs. Just sayin’.

  • Casey Klahn July 25, 2018, 7:45 AM

    Weasel, I take umbrage to your comments. I served in the NG from the 70-80s period, and confiscation by Guardsmen is a hard one to sell to me.

    The caliber of NG soldiery is way higher, I think, than you know. They’ve read the constitution?BOR, and they know what a legal order is. Would some? Yes, undoubtably some would want to participate. They’d be sock partied overnight by the rank and file, who know that we have a 2A for a reason.

    IDK what happened in New Orleans. Here’s a NYT quote from Katrina:
    Maj. Gen. James Ron Mason of the Kansas National Guard, who commands about 25,000 Guard troops in and around New Orleans, said his forces had rescued 687 residents by helicopter, boat and high-wheeled truck in the past 24 hours.

    General Mason said Guard troops, although carrying M-16 rifles, would not use force to evict recalcitrant citizens. That, he said, was a job for the police, not members of the Guard.

    “I don’t believe that you will see National Guard soldiers actually physically forcing people to leave,” General Mason said.

    Concord Bridge ring a bell?

  • Casey Klahn July 25, 2018, 7:46 AM

    Murphy added a boring? comment inside my post.

  • Punditarian July 25, 2018, 8:02 AM

    Thanks, Mr Klahn. I appreciate your sentiments- and the addendum: just spent 5 minutes trying to look up “BOR” before I saw it.

  • HH July 25, 2018, 8:31 AM

    I’ve read that crying is therapeutic. I’m cured.

  • DWEEZIL THE WEASEL July 25, 2018, 4:00 PM

    Mr. Klahn: As I stated, I hope I am wrong. If you were in the Guard in the 70’s-80’s, then you must realize the USA was another country back then. I served during the Viet Nam War, ’69-’71. I did not go overseas as Nixon was winding things down because the country was literally coming apart. I did see enough action stateside as a MP. I also served from ’79-’86 as an active reservist and saw how my US ARMY had changed for the absolute worst, being led by “Wimmen” who made rank on their backs and swore they would go AWOL if activated.
    Couple that experience with 30+ years as a Peace Officer in SoCal, watching the state of my birth descend into absolute Marxist madness. CANG were caught looting right along with the Blacks and Latinos during the Rodney King Fiesta in 1992. Res ipsa loquitur.

  • Anonymous July 27, 2018, 10:53 AM

    Makes me extremely proud to be from Nebraska. God bless the people of North Platte.

  • Casey Klahn July 27, 2018, 12:02 PM

    Mr Weazel, my regards. I just returned from a long working/family trip to SoCal. It is very beautiful, but I think just barely hanging by a thread of infrastructure. I noticed the cells were overloaded and phone calls were a hit or miss thing. That felt 3rd world!

    We can point to lots of corruption and faults in the armed forces, but when it comes down to it, the NG, I am certain, will not be the progenitor, nor a proponent, of some kind of govt. violent takeover.

    For the record, I came in when Vietnam went down the drain, 1975, and went inactive in 1985. I went from PV1 to O3 in my career. The NG, in 1975, was filled with long-haired mostly well-employed slice of America youth who wanted to skip Vietnam. They were one or 2 steps better than the Commie protesters and insurrectionists. When I got out, we were training around the clock on the Reagan agenda, and we precipitated the fall of the Soviet Union (our whole nation, but particularly the armed forces whose job was to sharpen and be the pointy spear). I would put many of my Guardsmen up against active units and members without hesitation. Their tank gunnery, their mortar gunnery, rifle marksmanship, their maintenance and driving skills were top notch. We hit the LD on the split second, and weren’t disposed to yield to anyone.

    That was why I said, when Putin invaded Europe in 2014, that we ought to put a battalion of Rangers, and 1 division of pissed-off National Guardsmen, in Western Ukraine, and make a stand.

    The army was devastated after Vietnam, and, in particular, the NCO corps was gutted. The army came back from that. It stands now as probably the best institution in America.

    I say let the libs start the fight, like they did on Hollywood Blvd this week. American men will finish it. It’ll hurt a lot, too.

  • MOTUS July 31, 2018, 3:09 PM

    I love North Platte and stop there every time we are traveling from the Rocky Mountain Bunker to the Great Lakes Bunker. Wonderful people, wonderful town!