It seems every other generation has a war to deal with. Today's wars are fought mainly with electronic gadgets that resemble video games and images are broadcast real time to televisions across the planet. It has not always been that way. I came along just after World War II and many of the men and women who attended Dora High School went to foreign lands and suffered through unspeakable hardships. It was the same with Korea when I was a young child. We became involved in the war in Indochina when I was a teenager and it brought the horror of war into sharp focus. Every day on the evening news, the anchors told the story in graphic detail and discussed the body count for that day. It's something I will never forget.
One of those nameless numbers was my friend Ricky Wise. I grew up with Ricky, he was a few years older, but he was in the same class as my next door neighbor Joe Plunkett. We played baseball and football in the field near my home ins Sloss Hollow, a community on the Dora/Cordova road. . Ricky and his family went to church at Dora Second Baptist.
Ricky, like so many others from Dora stepped up to the challenge and gave his life so that we can enjoy the freedom that we share today. There are some that question whether we should have been in Vietnam, but I'll leave that debate to scholars.
I know this, I am very proud to have known Ricky Wise, and I will not miss an opportunity to honor him and all veterans.

Rick Watson

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