The night before the Russian invasion on Ukraine. A former colleague sent me a link to live feed from downtown Kyiv. It was o'dark thirty in the morning over there and all was quiet. In the days leading up to what we now know was an all out attempt to wipe Ukraine off the map by Putin, I was struck by the beauty of this former Soviet Union republic.
I remember taking my kids to the beach when they were really small. They couldn't wait to run up and down the beach and splash in the water. One time, we found a sandcastle that someone left behind. They had obviously taken time to collect the wet packing sand, put it in a mold and construct the walls before building the main castle.
Like kids will do, they started directly towards this curiosity. I had to hold them back from plowing right through it and destroying someone else's work. I don't know if the person who built it was watching. It didn't matter, I was going to use this as a teachable moment for my kids to respect others even if no one is watching.
You would think that if kids who are 4-5 years old could learn this lesson, it would be a lay up for a grown man to learn this lesson too.
It goes way beyond losing buildings for sure. The loss of life is the main reason wars don't make sense to me.
In 1996, I went to Bosnia while working as Petersburg Bureau Chief for WWBT. The most poignant moment of the trip came when Gene Lepley, my sidekick for the trip, and I were filming a
Bosnian women who was mourning at the graveside of her child. This had become a frequent ritual for her after her son was killed when the enemy lobbed a shell into the middle of the town square on a bright and sunny day. The sad news was she wasn't alone in her grief.
In fact on that day, the square was full of young people and many of them were buried in that same cemetery.
Now, more than two decades ago right here in America, we are burying more young people than ever due to gun violence.
Since, manning the news desk at WBTV, I have been overwhelmed by report after report of teenagers being killed in the streets of Charlotte and across the country. At the same time, we are not hearing anyone come up with solutions to the problem. After a 10 year-old was sent to the hospital with life-threatening injuries sustained during a random shooting at a car wash, our reporter reached out to a high ranking city official.
After a few hours, we were told that she was unavailable. I can't quit wrap my head around exactly what unavailable would mean in this circumstance. One teen dying is a problem. Two is extremely disturbing but four or five is a crisis. So that being said, I think it's time that our city and county leaders become crisis managers.
Just as they took steps to manage the covid pandemic, it's past the time to curb this latest plague:
- The city needs to initiate a curfew. Anyone who is under the age of 18 and is on the streets after 10 pm they need to be scooped up and escorted home. That also means that businesses, like fast food restaurants, need to be held accountable for scheduling underage employees to work pass the curfew. Also, high school sporting events will have to start early enough, so that students and athletes can be home when required.
- I give the school system credit for making an effort to keep guns and other weapons out of schools. Every single school needs to have a body scanners installed. Forget testing and forget piece-mealing this solution. Not only make the search mandatory at the start of school day but also make the penalty for violating the weapons ban permanent. Anyone caught with a weapon on school ground should be expelled permanently.
- Parents have to do their part as well by removing an equally dangerous weapon from their child's hand - the cell phone. As a former teacher, I know without a doubt that the majority of beef's inside the school walls start in cyberspace. Parents need to take away cell phones and throw them in the trash can. Nothing good comes from opening a young mind to the garbage that is pumped through Tik Tok and Instagram. When we were on virtual schooling during the height of covid, I know that kids were consuming hours and hours of violence, vulgar language and God knows what else during the time they should have been participating in class or studying. Many of the students that I taught, were so dependent on their phones that they would literally breakdown when they weren't allowed to have them. If a child ask you - "Why can't they have a cell phone?" Tell them some thing are just not for you.
In most cases, I spend very little time telling other people what they should do. I am more likely to look in the mirror and ask the person looking back - what can I do? I do know that there are six seats up for re-election on Mecklenburg County's School Board in 2022, so I will be calling on close friends and associates in the political arena as I consider running. As I get closer to retirement age, it won't take much to make myself available. Stay tuned.
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