Friends seek top volunteers
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Police academy great experience
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Advice for President Bush
Page 4
January 4, 2006
Vol. 74, No. 1 Hertford, North Carolina 27944
^005
Perquimans
Weekly
Joshua s excellent adventure
Father,
son go
on safari
SUSAN HARRIS
The animals were fasci
nating, but the women have
it tough.
They were two impres
sions Joshua Hollowell
brought back from South
Africa, where he and his
father, Ralph, spent more
than 10 days in October.
The two went to indulge
their love of travel, adven
ture and game hunting.
Joshua said he was
taken with the cape buffalo,
lions, leopards, rhinos, ele
phants, hippos, monkeys,
babboons and other ani
mals on the Kikuyu
Preserve near Port
Elizabeth where he and his
dad stayed. He didn’t hunt
this trip, but his dad did.
Joshua did, however, get
up close and personal with
a lion while on safari in an
open Jeep. The lion came
within 4-5 feet of the vehi
cle. Joshua was told to stay
very still, and adults in the
vehicle were prepared to
shoot the animal if neces-
ATVs stolen
-
i'-
Joshua Hollowell and the mascot of his fifth grade class, Classey, pose with native
South African women who can carry an amazing 100 pounds on their heads.
Meeting the women was just a small part of Joshua's excellent adventure.
sary.
On another occasion, he
was charged by an ele
phant.
He also met an elephant
named George. George had
a hole in his ear and was
kicked out of his herd
because of his deformity,
Joshua said.
And a point of interest
about elephants was that
the ear of African ele
phants is shaped like the
continent, one way to tell
an African and an Asian
elephant apart.
“The women work hard
er and 1 wouldn’t want to be
one,’’ Joshua said.
His view was that the.
women, who sometimes
carry over 100 pounds on
their heads either in jugs or
just slung over, do all the
work while the men stand
around and watch.
Indeed, Joshua found
many things about the
lifestyle in Africa different
than that in America.
Homes resembled sheds
and leap-tos with holes in
the walls for windows, and
were croweded with family
Continued on page 6
Fear accompanied young solider on tour in Iraq
MARGARET FISHER
Fear is what Sgt. Johnny
Ray Warren Jr. said he felt
during his two trips to Iraq.
Warren knew about a few
soldiers who were killed.
“I didn’t want to be
there. What if I was next?”
he asked, rhetorically.
“What if one of my friends
didn’t make it back?”
Warren graduated from
Perquimans County High
School in 2000 and joined
the U.S. Marines in May
2002. He was sent to basic
training at Parris Island,
S.C., then to the Marine
Combat Training School at
Camp Geiger in
Jacksonville and then to
Fort Lee in Petersburg, Va.,
to learn food service.
Johnny Ray Warren Jr.
His first duty station was
Camp Lejeune at
Jacksonville where he was
deployed to Kuwait in
March 2003. There, he
helped support troops in
Iraq with food, ammuni
tion and supplies. Instead
of working in food service.
Warren said he spent his
workdays shuffling paper
work.
Warren was in the
Eighth Communication
Battalion, II Marines
Expeditionary Force.
Kuwait was fairly quiet,
except for the numerous
drills, he said. The drills
were held to prepare troops
for gas, chemical and bio
logical attacks.
The drills often hap
pened in the wee hours of
the mornings when he was
sleeping, and they would
have to run outside in their
chemical suits. Warren
said he was never sure, at
the time, if they were drills
or the real thing.
“It was pretty scary
because we would have to
stay in our suits for hours
at a time,” Warren said.
He wasn’t able to leave
the base unless he was in a
convoy When he did leave
to deliver supplies to other
bases, it was scary, he said.
Vehicles would speed past
them on the highway
because there was no speed
limit enforced. He didn’t
know if one of them might
be a suicide bomber, and
troops were told to treat
everyone as the enemy and
be cautious, he said.
Warren spent a month in
Iraq on this deployment at
Camp Viper, a U.S. Marine
Corp operating site located
near the ancient city of Ur
and three miles from the
Baghdad border. There
Continued on page 6
War teaches a lesson in freedom for U.S. Marine
MARGARET FISHER
When Cpl. Bret Bell
joined the U.S. Marine
Corp, he said that he could
n’t wait to get to Iraq and
kill people. When he got
there, the situation was not
as he had imagined, and it
turned out to be eye open
ing,
Perquimans County is a
second home to Bell. He
was born and raised in
Stone Mountain, Ga., but
he has more than a few rel
atives in and around
Winfall.
Bell joined the Marines
in August 2001 and went to
basic training at Parris
Island, S.C. He attended
infantry school at Camp
Lejeune and Counter-
Terrorism School with a
Marine training unit at a
U.S. Navy base in
Chesapeake, Va.
His first duty station was
with the 1st Fleet Anti-
Terrorism Security Team
at NOB Norfolk, Va. His
tour lasted from February
2003 to December 2004.
Bell’s training was simi
lar to what a S.W.A.T. Team
goes through. He’s a rifle
man who specializes as an
assault breacher with close
quarter battle. A breacher
is one who makes a forced
entry by using explosives.
Bell said.
In November 2003, Bell
deployed to Iraq for his
first of three tours. He
worked at the American
Embassy, which was for
merly the Republican
Palace, in the heart of
Baghdad. It was the main
base of operations for
Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Bell was looking for a
military fighting adven
ture, but he discovered that
the enemy wasn’t all
around.
“Ninety-five percent of
the people there welcomed
you,” he said. “They knew
why you were there and
didn’t give you any grief
about it.”
He said that he saw peo
ple living in poverty,
though they had well-kept
homes. A lot of people lived
in crowded conditions, he
said. But, Suddam
Hussein’s generals and
other powerful heads lived
in larger, more expensive
homes.
When a location was tar
geted, Bell and his team
would raid the place and
take whatever or whoever
they found back to the
palace. The captive(s)
would be interrogated.
Brett Bell was all smiles
as he returned home in
October from a tour in
the Middle East.
“The first time was just a
learning experience, but it
was also surreal,” Bell said.
“...There’s mortality of
doing what we do, and it
wiU make you think twice.”
Continued on page 6
Thieves strike
during
holidays
MARGARET FISHER
Four all-terrain vehicles
were stolen from two areas
in the county between Dec.
20 and Jan. 1.
Three four-wheelers
were taken from the
Woodville area and one
from a home on Center Hill
Road, said Perquimans
County Sheriff Eric Tilley.
All of them were inside
of a garage or outbuilding,
but none of the buildings
were locked, TiUey said.
Some of the residents
were home at night when it
was believed the thefts
occurred, and some owners
reported the serial num
bers of their ATVs. Those
numbers will be listed with
the National Crime
Information Center.
“Four-wheelers have
been a big it^ to get rid of
quick,” Tilley said.
There was a rash of ATV
thefts a couple of years ago
in Pasquotank County,
Tilley said. Some of those
vehicles turned up in
Virginia, he said.
The Sheriff’s Office rec
ommends that ATV owners
keep their vehicles locked
up when they are not in
use, and keep the serial
number in a safe place.
There are no suspects or
leads on the stolen ATVs. If
anyone has information
about the all-terrain vehi
cle thefts, please contact
the Sheriffs Office at 426-
5615. .
SPCA seeks to curb
feral cat population
MARGARET FISHER
The SPCA of
Perquimans County recent
ly met to discuss plans to
spay and neuter feral cats
that have become numer
ous in some communities.
“We’re going to target
areas that have feral cats,”
said Keith Burnett, presi
dent.
Two target areas SPCA
members would like to
address initially are Snug
Harbor and Holiday Island,
he said.
The SPCA is hoping to
model their program on a
successful program held in
Montana, though it is
offered on a much larger
scale there in their own
facility.
The plan is to alter cats
that are captured. After
recovery, the felines will be
re-released.
“The theory is, and it’s
been proven, that once aU
the animals are spayed and
neutered, they will not let
any other animals in,”
Burnett said. “After a
while, they die out.”
Christian Ford, a veteri
narian at Chowan Animal
Hospital in Edenton, is
assisting as an advisor to
the SPCA. Ford has sug
gested ideas for the SPCA
to consider in order for the
program to be successful.
One consideration is the
expense of obtaining a
facility to perform the
surgeries, purchase or bor
row equipment and retain
veterinarians and anesthe
siologists.
“The key is getting the
facility before any equip
ment is purchased,” Ford
said. The building would
need to be large enough to
accommodate possibly 50
animal crates, several
surgery tables and a large
number of volunteers.
Once the venue is
obtained, then various
types of equipment will be
needed in order to perform
the operations. The SPCA
is hoping to get equipment
loaned or donated, as well
as monetary donations to
purchase equipment and
supplies. One apparatus, a
portable anesthesia
machine, costs $2,000, and
they will need at least five
of them. Ford estimates the
cost of a surgery pack and
suture material for each
surgery to be about $90.
Other supplies they wiU
need include traps, animal
crates, blankets and towels,
and these could be donated.
To keep costs down ini
tially, the SPCA could part
ner with the North
Carolina State University
Veterinary School’s
Campus Community
Partnership. They would do
the altering out of a mobile
unit, while the local SPCA
would trap the animals and
provide volunteers.
Burnett said that the
SPCA plans to do a small-
scale trial run — trapping
as many as 25 cats — to
learn how the program will
work.
Feral cats in the county
seem to be a bigger problem
than stray dogs, Burnett
said. Dogs are pack animals
and often move about. But
cats tend to colonize a par
ticular area where food is
available, he said.
Burnett estimates that
the program will not be up
and running for at least a
year.
“The reality is that it
will probably take a good
year, jear and a half, in my
Continued on page 6
Weekend
Weather
Thursday
High: 61, Low: 37
Partly Cloudy
Friday
High: 50, Low:31
Few showers
Saturday
High: 47, Low: 30
Partly Cloudy