Colonel

Mayor Martin O'Malley says his appointment of Col. Ronald L. Daniel as Baltimore's new police commissioner was "a life or death" decision.That is easy to understand.The city's homicide toll just exceeded 300 for the 10th consecutive year -- a distressing milestone for the newly installed mayor, who campaigned on a law-and-order platform.Colonel Daniel offers strong credentials. In his 26-year career in Baltimore, he has overseen day-to- day management of the department, headed its personnel office and special operations.

IT IS NOON on the Sunday before the annual Varsity match against Cambridge, and the Oxford University boxing team has just finished a grueling two-hour session of sparring, shadowboxing, bag work and circuit training.Still dripping sweat, they gather around an upright, gray-haired man known as the Colonel. A veteran of the Second World War, Lt. Colonel Peter Fleming boxed for Oxford in the late 1940s, and each year he delivers a series of talks on strategy to the team as they prepare for the big match.

Lt. Col. William Alpheus Street, a 22-year Army veteran who saw the liberation of Paris and enjoyed the camaraderie of his fellow veterans in the years since, died of cancer Wednesday at Fallston General Hospital. He was 81 and lived in Bel Air.One of six children of a Richmond, Va., cemetery manager, HTC Colonel Street was known for having the manners of a Southern gentleman and a mischievous smile. As a young man, he wore his hair slicked back like Rudolph Valentino's.After cancer forced doctors to remove his larynx in 1984, he retained his good graces as he relearned to talk through a mechanical device that he placed to his throat, according to family and friends.

Claudia Sanders,94, the widow of fried chicken legend Col. Harland Sanders and a restaurateur in her own right, died Tuesday in Shelbyville, Ky.Even before their marriage on Nov. 17, 1949, Mrs. Sanders had begun helping the man millions now know simply as "the Colonel" to build a business that became a fast-food empire.She met Colonel Sanders in the 1930s while working as a waitress in his first restaurant in Corbin, Ky., the Sanders Cafe.By 1963, the couple had 600 chicken outlets. Her husband sold Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1964 to John Y. Brown, who later became Kentucky governor.

Col. Frederick X. Sturm Jr., 76, National Guard officerNational Guard Col. Frederick X. Sturm Jr., a career military officer and baseball fan who coached Little League ball with the Lutherville-Timonium Baseball Association, died of cancer Thursday at his home near Towson. He was 76.Colonel Sturm's name was among the first President Franklin D. Roosevelt pulled from a glass bowl when the military draft for World War II began. The native Baltimorean, who graduated from City College in 1937, reported for duty in 1940 and was sent to England with the Army's 29th Division.

WASHINGTON -- Government officials said yesterday that classified documents strongly suggest that a Guatemalan army colonel who was a CIA informer may be guilty of the 1992 killing of a guerrilla married to an American and the 1990 murder of an American innkeeper.The State Department provided the classified documents to Congress on Friday, but, citing national security and the secrecy demanded by intelligence services, omitted these documents from thousands of papers on human-rights abuses in Guatemala that it declassified and released to the public yesterday.

Certainly the best American thriller since the double hit of "In the Line of Fire" and "The Fugitive" two summers ago, "Executive Decision" is a terrific piece of pop movie making. Has Steven Seagal finally broken through?Er, no. He's gone in 15 minutes.But Kurt Russell has finally broken through, big time.Almost unbearably tense and recalling both the low pleasures of the "Airport" films and the high pleasures of Stanley Kubrick's great "Dr. Strangelove," "Executive Decision" moves like a bat from a volcano, even if it's really not about an executive decision.

WARSAW -- Poles are not quite sure whether they should honor Ryszard Kuklinski as a national hero, or hang him as a traitor.The CIA harbors no such doubts.Between 1971 and 1981, Colonel Kuklinski of the Polish Army provided the agency with 35,000 pages of documents outlining the Warsaw Pact's top-secret contingency plans for a war in Europe, including possible scenarios for a nuclear launch.Although the full extent of his espionage on behalf of the United States was not disclosed until 1992, more than a decade after he had fled to the United States, it is now clear that Colonel Kuklinski was one of the CIA's most valuable human assets during some of the chilliest years of the Cold War.In America, Colonel Kuklinski was rewarded with a medal, a new identity, a house and an annual stipend.

Maryland state police Superintendent David B. Mitchell announced yesterday the promotion of three officers to top jobs in the department after he ousted most of his top aides last month.Lt. Col. Larry E. Harmel, 50, who was the only key aide to survive the administrative shake-up, was promoted to deputy superintendent, the department's No. 2 job.Colonel Mitchell also promoted Maj. Charles R. Mazzone, 44, and Maj. Ernest J. Leatherbury, 47, each to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Colonel Leatherbury becomes the first African-American in the department to hold that rank.

WASHINGTON -- The CIA, concerned that a Guatemalan colonel might have been responsible for the slaying of an American, turned their suspicions over to U.S. attorneys four years ago, sources said.The Justice Department concluded that Col. Julio Roberto Alpirez could not be prosecuted under U.S. law because the death of Michael Devine, an American innkeeper in Guatemala, was not a politically motivated crime against the United States, the sources said.Colonel Alpirez was implicated later in the murder of Efrain Bamaca Velasquez, a rebel guerrilla married to an American lawyer.

Lt. Col. Simon Joseph "Joe" Avara, a retired Baltimore police official who was deputy chief of the operation bureau and later was director of safety and special services at a local hopsital, died Friday of a stroke at St. Agnes Hospital. He was 84. Colonel Avara, who was the son of a barber and homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised near Hollins Market in Southwest Baltimore. After graduating from Polytechnic Institute, he enlisted in the Army and served with the 69th Infantry Division in Europe.

Col. James Curtis Burris, a highly decorated career Army officer who fought in the Vietnam War, died Nov. 13 at his Havre de Grace home of cancers related to exposure to Agent Orange. He was 78. Colonel Burris, who was born and raised in Tulsa, Okla., graduated from Tulsa Central High School in 1948. Born into a military family, Colonel Burris was the grandson of two Civil War veterans and the son of a World War I veteran. He enlisted in the Army in 1948 and was selected to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., from which he graduated with a bachelor's degree in engineering in 1954.

On his days off, Lt. Col. James J. Walton liked to parachute out of airplanes and bike long distances - once embarking on a weeklong trek from Richmond, Va., to Lexington, Ky. The career soldier, who relatives said never complained about two deployments and whose fourth wedding anniversary would have been tomorrow, was killed Saturday in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He was 41. As a member of an Army Military Transition Team, Colonel Walton trained Afghan soldiers. It was a job he enjoyed, although he often reported to his family about its front-line danger, his father-in-law, Joseph Moschler, said yesterday.

The Navy is on a tear. Late last month, for the sixth time in six weeks, a skipper was relieved of command. The latest to get the sack was Cmdr. E. J. McClure of the guided missile destroyer Arleigh Burke, which had a "soft grounding" while heading back to port in the well-charted waters off Norfolk, Va. These firings have sparked debate in military circles, with some critics from other services charging that the Navy is guilty of a "zero defect" mentality...

Col. Henry Cotheal Evans Jr., a career Army officer and decorated veteran of two wars who raised golden retrievers and had been active in dog shows in the Baltimore area, died of lymphoma Wednesday at Capital Hospice in Fairfax, Va. He was 78. A Baltimore native and 1946 graduate of Loyola High School, he attended Georgetown University for two years and graduated in 1951 from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. In 1952, he was deployed to...

Retired Air Force Col. William Walter M. Deale, a decorated Vietnam War combat pilot who later helped to develop radar systems and the world's fastest jet, died of complications after heart surgery May 21 at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The Towson resident was 77. Born and raised in Baltimore, Colonel Deale was a 1947 graduate of McDonogh School. After two years at Massachusetts Institute of Technology on a wrestling scholarship, he transferred to the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1953.

COCOA BEACH, Fla. -- Col. James B. Swindal, the Air Force One pilot who flew President John F. Kennedy's body back to Washington in the hours after his assassination in Dallas, died April 25 at a hospital here. He was 88. The cause was heart failure after suffering complications from a broken hip, said his son, James L. Swindal. Colonel Swindal became the commander of Air Force One - the designation for any plane carrying a president - at the beginning of President Kennedy's presidency.

Colonel John E. Rothrock, an intelligence specialist and Air Force veteran, died of heart failure Nov. 25 at the University of Maryland Medical Center. The Ruxton resident was 63. Colonel Rothrock was born in San Francisco, the son of a merchant marine captain, and raised in Towson. He was a 1960 graduate of Towson High School and earned a bachelor's degree from Hobart College in 1964. In 1975, he earned a master's degree in government and international studies with a certificate in Soviet studies from Notre Dame University.

On November 8, 2005 BISHOP, COLONEL PERCY ELDER loving husband of Theresa Elder. He is also survived by two daughters Shirley and Mercedes Elder; two sons Colonel II and Jesse Elder; sisters Josephine Parrish-Wren, Love Cornelius Watkins, C. Ophelia Cooper, Cherry Elder Smith (Randolph) and brother Clarence L. Elder (Barbara); two grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and a host of other relatives and friends. Friends may call at the family owned MARCH FUNERAL HOME WEST, INC., 4300 Wabash Avenue on Friday after 9. Family will receive friends on Saturday at St. John Baptist Church, 2929 Dupont Street at 10 followed by funeral services at 10:30.

Two former executives at a Montgomery County-based military contractor admitted in federal court yesterday that they illegally engaged an Army colonel in job negotiations while the military officer was giving the company preferential treatment. Young Y. Lee, 46, of Rockville and Lorn J. MacUmber, 67, of Gypsum, Colo., each pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt to one count of aiding and abetting a conflict of interest involving former Army Col. Richard J. Moran. Lee was president and chief executive officer of Information Systems Support Inc., and MacUmber was the company's senior vice president.