War

Charles H. Latrobe III, a retired Koppers Co. executive who was a highly decorated World War II Navy night fighter pilot, died Feb. 16 of complications from pneumonia at Roland Park Place. He was 90. "He was a very private person who had the highest level of integrity possible and was intolerant of those who did not," said Joseph M. Coale III, a political adviser, Baltimore County preservationist and former head of Historic Annapolis. Born in Buffalo, N.Y., Charles Hazlehurst Latrobe III was 3 when he moved to a home on Ridgewood Road in Roland Park with his family in 1926.

William Nathaniel Tate, a retired concrete worker and Korean War combat veteran, died of heart disease Feb. 16 at Frederick Memorial Hospital. The former Park Heights resident was 83. Born in Baltimore and raised on Division Street, he attended Booker T. Washington Junior High School. As a young man, he played sandlot football and boxed at gyms in the Pennsylvania Avenue neighborhood. He served in the Army from 1951 to 1953, and was assigned to Korea and fought in an infantry unit.

A 15-star, 15-stripe War of 1812 commemorative American flag was raised in front of the Harford County administrative building in Bel Air Thursday afternoon, one of five that will fly over county government buildings for the next 22 months. Executive Order 13-3, issued by Harford County Executive David Craig, directs that the commemorative War of 1812 flag also will be flown at the Harford County Council building in Bel Air, the Harford County Courthouse, the McFaul Activity Center in Bel Air and the Havre de Grace Activity Center.

It has been 10 years since then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's U.N. speech on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. I watched the secretary's presentation intently on assignment to Fort Jackson, S.C. that day. The presentation, of course, would make the final case for war with Iraq before the world, Congress and, arguably most importantly, the American people. Like many of my colleagues on active duty, I had been highly skeptical of this pretext for war while serving as a military planner, particularly over what many regarded as plausible exaggerations and outright distortions.

Charles Nelson Wells, a retired owner of a printing firm and a World War II veteran later honored for his service with a Congressional Gold Medal, died of a blood disorder Feb. 12 at Sinai Hospital. He was 87 and lived in Lochearn. Born in Baltimore and raised on Schroeder Street, he was the son of Charles Elliott Wells and Anna Nelson Wells. He was a 1944 graduate of Frederick Douglass High School. As a young man he worked alongside his father as an apprentice at Watkins and Wells printers on West Lexington Street.

Much of Friday's political-media online chatter was focused on Fox news hiring failed presidential candidate and pizza executive Herman Cain as a political analyst. But the big story that seemed to mostly sail under the radar was the embattled channel's hour-long, full-right-wing, all-out, let's-give-a-big-big-hug coronation later in the evening of Dr. Benjamin Carson, the famous neurosurgeon at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital, who made headlines for what he had to say Feb. 7 at the National Prayer Breakfast.

Theodore A. "Ted" Dietz, a retired shipyard electrician who earned the sobriquet of "40-Watt Dietz" from fellow volunteer crew members aboard the Liberty ship SS John W. Brown, died Feb. 3 of heart failure at his Severna Park home. He was 91. Born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., Mr. Dietz was a 1942 graduate of Franklin K. Lane High School. "He enlisted into the Navy before he formally graduated from high school and his mother received his diploma," said his wife of two years, the former Mary Bartlett.

Editor: Someone once wrote that "war is hell!" Is this a worldwide, unnoticed, undeclared war now in existence? If there is a World Wide War, why is there only silence, why isn't the media reporting it? If there is a World Wide War are the Political and Religious Leaders of the World asleep? Were there books written about World War II that accused America's leaders of being asleep at the beginning of the war? During World War I there was a slogan "The War to End All Wars", yet, approximately 21 years later World War II began.

Although no battles were fought in Laurel during the Civil War, the city's railroad was a strategic resource for the Union Army, numerous units of Union soldiers were stationed here and the military's presence added a different element to the city's social and cultural landscapes. A new yearlong exhibit, "Stationed in Laurel: Our Civil War Story," opened Sunday Feb. 3 at the Laurel Museum and captures that segment of Laurel's history. In September, a mini-exhibit was displayed at the museum that gave a partial account of Laurel's Civil War past.

Straddling the divide between the chaos in Syria and the calm of the Galilee in northern Israel is a pastoral plateau known as the Golan Heights. Famous for its world-class vineyards, wandering cattle, and lush nature trails, the Golan has served as the disputed frontier between the two long-time adversaries since the aftermath of the Six-Day War in 1967. This small but strategic piece of land - negligible in size next to the vast territory of the entire Middle East - has been a point of contention on the Levant for over four decades.