Saturday morning feel good stories.
From FAYETTEVILLE, N.C.
A Fayetteville landlord will not face charges for shooting an intruder.
The shooting happened Thursday evening in the 5000 block of Birch Road. Darrell Ellison had just fed his dogs when his tenant knocked on the door.
“A lady and her boyfriend that rent a trailer that I own in Hope Mills, she said they had a fight and she stopped by here to talk about it,” Ellison said. “If i didn’t shoot him, he would’ve killed her”.
“I had (the door) locked, and he kicked the lock out,” Ellison said. “He came in the house, grabbed a hold of her and started dragging her through the kitchen, knocking all of my stuff over.” Ellison, 74, usually keeps his gun at his side, but this time, it was out of reach. “I had left my gun in the truck, and I went out to the truck and I got my gun, and I come back in through the back door, and he had her right here — beating on her,” Ellison told ABC11
Ellison said the boyfriend then came after him.
“I had my gun pointed right there and I told him, ‘John let me loose, (or) I’m (going to) shoot you, Ellison said.
He paused and added: “Didn’t turn me loose. Boom. That’s it.” The boyfriend wouldn’t stop the attack so Ellison said he fired a single gunshot.Fayetteville Police said the suspect, now identified as John Morelli somehow made it a half mile to Fire Station 12 on Hope Mills Road. Firefighters called police, who later determined that Ellison was acting in self-defense.
“Like I said, if I hadn’t been able to stop him, he would have killed her – and me probably, too,” Ellison said.
The blood from the shooting is still visible on Ellison’s doorstep. He said this whole ordeal was a nightmare.
“I’m just sad about the whole thing that happened, but if I had to do it over again, I would do the same thing. If someone’s life was in danger or mine was in danger, I would do it,” Ellison said.
From Gettysburg, PA
A Gettysburg man who was shot by an employee as he tried to rob a pharmacy has been sentenced to nearly 6 1/2 years in federal prison.
That penalty was imposed on 26-year-old Zachary E. Kuhn by U.S. Middle District Senior Judge Sylvia H. Rambo.
Kuhn pleaded guilty to trying to rob the Antietam Pharmacy in Waynesboro on June 26, 2016. The holdup came to an abrupt end when an employee drew a concealed pistol and shot Kuhn in the right hand and lower back.
Investigators said Kuhn had a gun and was demanding oxycodone, an addictive pain-killer.
Rambo ordered Kuhn to spend 3 years on probation after he finishes his 77-month prison term. She also imposed nearly $3,900 in fines and restitution.
Assistant Federal Public Defender Monica Cliatt argued in a sentencing memorandum that Kuhn is no longer a danger to society because he is partly paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair because of his wounds.
Drug addiction and mental health problems prompted Kuhn to commit the robbery, she said.
Category: Feel Good Stories
The second story is a Civil War history lesson. The robber was from Gettysburg and the place he robbed was the Antietam Pharmacy. I wonder whether he was shot with a Colt 1860.
I doubt they had any of the Hostetter’s Bitters and Holloway Ointment he was after.
If he’d claimed kin to Picket, they might would’ve let him charge. He’s lucky he didn’t end up in Cemetery Ridge.
A Colt-Walker would be even better!
Methinks I will get myself one of the Italian made repro’s for Xmas.( With the .45 BPM conversion cylinder of course 😁)
No time for half measures Chairborne. Get one of you fellow half country man Frenchies to procure you a LaMat.
I would love one! If I could comission a custom gun, it would be a ‘modern’ cartridge LeMat with 9 .44 Mag or .45 Colt chambers around a .24ga bore/axis. I have plenty of .24 Ga brass for my .450/577 and .577 Snider. I dare to dream!
And possibly also a slightly smaller version in .357 Mag/.410 bore.
AMERICAN AND NAVY HISTORY! Trivia: What is the black tears of the USS Arizona?! On 7 December 1941, the black tears of the USS Arizona began falling. Just before 0800 that morning, the Japanese launched one of the most deadly modern attacks on American soil. Planes dropped bombs on Pearl Harbor, killing roughly 2,400 Americans and injuring many others. Of all the ships and planes damaged in the attack, no ship took more damage than the USS Arizona. The great ship lost 1,177 Sailors and Marines that day and sank to the bottom of the bay. Today, the gleaming white USS Arizona Memorial stretches across the spot where the ship rests. If you look out the side of the memorial, you can see black spots of oil rising from the sunken ship. These are the black tears of the USS Arizona, as they’re famously called. The attack began just before 0800 In the first wave, Japanese planes dropped bombs on Wheeler Army Airfield and Hickam Field, located just north of Pearl Harbor. US airplanes were kept there, and the Japanese wanted to control the skies. They planned to bomb the airplanes first, to reduce the risk of an aerial counterattack. At 0810, the Japanese pilots dropped an armor-piercing bomb from a high altitude. The bomb landed directly on the forward deck of the USS Arizona with the force of over a million pounds of gunpowder. The explosion created a massive fireball that killed many of the crewmen aboard instantly. Within nine minutes, the USS Arizona sank to the bottom of Pearl Harbor. Many brave crewmen on board risked their lives to save others. Of all the ships and planes damaged that day, the USS Arizona suffered the highest number of casualties. Just one day before the attack, on 6 December, the Navy refueled the USS Arizona, giving her a full supply of oil. With nearly 1,500 gallons aboard, the ship would be ready to make a return voyage to the mainland towards the end of the month. When the Japanese bombed the ship, the fuel exploded and caused fires that… Read more »
I re-enlisted on the deck of the Arizona Memorial. The tears were still coming up, creating a rainbow slick on the calm ocean that morning. Very peaceful, quiet, calm, and moving.
There was no memorial when I was there in 1959 and there was lots of oil coming up! some of the superstructure was still there and the stacks were sticking out of the water, very touching to see! still kind of chokes me up to think about it!
Should make Japan pay for the clean up
PH: Do you get the DAV Magazine? Most recent copy has:
National Association of Naval Photographers Reunion
OCT 10-12 Jacksonville, FL
Contact: Bill Solt, 321-362-5806
Email: nanpvpres@gmail.com
Web: navyphoto.net
BTW: The old schoolhouse where you went to school is still standing on NASP. We’v driven up to it several times. It’s an impressive old building. I would love to run my metal detector around it. I’m thinking it has been standing 60-80 years.
Chief
I think it’s been there longer than that, Chief. I went there in 1967, which is 51 years ago, and it was an old building then, so I’d guess, based on the age of the barracks I lived in, that it was WWI era. I believe it’s a museum now.
If you want to have some fun, Great Lakes now has a museum of Naval History open to the public. https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmas.html
The idiot prez at the time, Bubba the pervert, sold NTC San Diego and now its a shopping center, and all Navy recruits are sent to Great Lakes NTC for boot! Everyone involved in that fiasco should have their asses kicked up between their should blades…ESPECIALLY the PERVERT! imho
LITTLE KNOWN AMERICAN HISTORY!
DID YOU KNOW…..that the John Dillinger (infamous criminal) joined the US Navy to avoid arrest and prosecution!
John Dillinger was already on his way to making a name for himself as a junior hood in Mooresville, Ind., when he ran into two police officers who wanted to question him about the pistol he was carrying.
John gave the name “Charles Dillinger,” slipped out of the overcoat one officer had grabbed, and ran.
The cops fired seven shots, this was 1923, but John Dillinger escaped.
To get out of town quick, he went to the Federal Building and signed up for the Navy.
The newly uniformed John completed basic training in October 1923, and was assigned to the battleship USS Utah as a fireman third class. His job consisted of shoveling coal into the ship’s huge boilers.
After 22 days of hot, backbreaking labor, Fireman Dillinger had enough. He jumped ship in Boston and went UA (Unauthorized absence) also popularly known as AWOL for a day, to cool off.
Upon his return, a deck court martial stamped on 7 November 1923 was added to his growing rap sheet along with an $18 fine, nearly a month’s pay and “bread and water” stint in the brig.
A delay in carrying out the sentence gave Fireman Dillinger the opportunity to get into even more trouble.
On 9 November 1923, instead of laying low, the young man left his duty post “without authority” and “in disobedience of orders.”
Five days of solitary confinement were tacked onto this previous sentence.
This made him more rebellious. Weeks after his release from the brig, he was in hot water again, failing to return from a 24-hour leave as scheduled on 3 Dec. 1923.
The Navy, noting that he “left with no effects — intentions not known,” waited two weeks, then listed him as a deserter.
The Navy also slapped the first ever bounty on his head: fifty bucks.
Trivia: Who coined the phrase, “Blood is thicker than water” and what does it mean?!
ANSWER: A US Navy Sailor coined the phrase.
Blood is thicker than water is a well known saying meaning that family relationships are more important than all other relationships.
US Navy Sailor commodore Josiah Tattnail is credited with coining the phrase.
He first used the expression when justifying his intervention in the British attack on the Peiho forts in June 1859 during the second China war.
Trivia: What is the history of the “hand salute”?!
ANSWER: The hand salute is believed to have began in the days of chivalry when it was customary for knights dressed in armor to raise their visors to friends for the purpose of identification.
By 1700 grenadiers were wearing tall, conical hats held in place with secure chinstraps that were difficult to raise in greeting.
The men began to merely touch their hats as if intending to raise them.
Soon other soldiers adopted the shako, busby or bearskin, all of which were held in place by a chinstrap. They, too, stopped raising the hat and instead merely touched
its brim.
This action was formalized as the salute in European armies by about 1780,
The US Navy adopted the hand salute from the Royal British Navy.
There is general agreement that the salute as now rendered is really the first part of the movement of uncovering. From the earliest days of military units, the junior uncovered when meeting or addressing a senior.
The US Navy hand salute is slightly different than the Royal British Navy so some believe the US Navy salute, with the palm downwards evolved because the palms of Naval ratings, particularly deckhands, were often dirty through working with lines and was deemed insulting to present a dirty palm to an officer; so the palm was turned downwards.
Not mentioned is another reason for the hand salute which I have heard. Back in the day when two men approached each other, it was common practice to raise the right hand to show the other that the individual was unarmed and was not a threat. This evolved into the hand salute over many years both to show the individual was unarmed and also as a means of showing respect to the other individual.
I believe the raising the hand was initiated by the Native Americans for the same reason, to show they were not armed…..:)
Thanks for the history posts Chief. Did not know about the Dillinger part.