Field Notes

She rescued Einstein from a manhole

Petra Cahill — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:02:00 GMT

By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington

WASHINGTON – Ruth Huzzard, 104, likes to tell the story of how she came to the rescue of a familiar face while going to the store in Princeton, N.J., in the late 1940s.

"As I came along, I said, 'Boy, there's a man down in a manhole,' and I went closer and I discovered it was [Albert] Einstein," she said in a recent interview. "He was walking along the street, and he stepped into this manhole. I helped him out, brushed him off, and took him back to his home."

Huzzard, who had never met the famous scientist before, said Einstein was shaken but not hurt in the mishap.

"No wonder he fell in the hole," she quipped. "He always had his head in the clouds."

Huzzard is one of several centenarians featured by Willard Scott on NBC's "Today" show who've had encounters with famous people over the past century.

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High prices fuel charter fishing slowdown

Petra Cahill — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:00:00 GMT

By Mark Potter, NBC News Correspondent

ISLAMORADA, Fla. – At sunrise, a daily ritual begins at charter boat docks throughout the Florida Keys.

In the fresh morning breeze, captains prepare their big fishing boats for another day in the Gulf Stream. Mates rig the rods, store the bait and fill the coolers with ice. Paying clients then step aboard and settle in for an exciting, but increasingly expensive, day on the water chasing billfish, mahi mahi, kingfish, snapper and other species.

Charter fishing is an integral and historic part of South Florida and other coastal areas around the United States. Here in the Keys, the lore of the sport features colorful and famous anglers, among them novelists Ernest Hemingway and Zane Grey.

VIDEO: Charter fishermen discuss rising fuel costs

Offshore angling is also important to the region’s economy, luring sportsmen and tourists from around the world. Not only do they charter the big fishing boats, they also book rooms in local motels, dine in the restaurants and spend money in clothing and tackle shops.

The problem, though, is that those visitors have begun to thin out, partly because of their own economic troubles these days, but also due to an increase in charter prices largely blamed on soaring fuel costs.

"I'm actually worried, fearful that this could literally lead to the extinction, so to speak, of the charter industry as we know it," said Richard Stanczyk, the owner-operator of Bud and Mary's Marina in Islamorada. "I mean like the dinosaurs, it might just become non-existent."

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New Navy uniform goes retro

Petra Cahill — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:41:00 GMT

By Courtney Kube, NBC News Pentagon producer

WASHINGTON – The Navy uniform is going retro.

About 100 U.S. sailors around the world are testing out the Navy's new service dress khaki uniform.

The look isn't really new though – it is actually a throwback to the old World War II-style uniform which was worn through the Vietnam era – and includes a black tie worn with a khaki coat that has large black shoulder boards.

U.S. Navy/ Chad J. McNeeley

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sports the "new" Navy look at a press conference at the Pentagon on July 2.

The dress khakis, which are worn for events ranging from business meetings and promotion ceremonies to meetings at the White House and testimony on Capitol Hill, can be worn year round.

While the new uniform will add to the larger collections of uniforms rather than replacing one, Navy officers and Chiefs will ultimately be allowed to wear it in place of three other existing uniforms – the less formal service khakis, the formal dress blues, and the formal whites.

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Babe’s old teammate no fan of ‘grubby’ ball players

Petra Cahill — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:29:00 GMT

By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News

Baseball's All-Star Game was played Tuesday night at New York's Yankee Stadium, "The House that Ruth Built," but the last living teammate of the legendary Babe Ruth wasn't watching the game on television, not on your life.

"No, I haven't seen a ball game in four or five years," 100-year-old Bill Werber, the oldest living former major league baseball player, said in an interview. "I don't like the appearance of a lot of the players. The hair's too long. Their beards are too evident. They're a grubby-looking bunch of caterwaulers."

Bill Werber smiles as he talks about his days in Major League Baseball at his retirement home in Charlotte, N.C., June 6, 2008.

Werber played baseball in a bygone era when games were half as long and twice as fun. In his first game as a Yankee, on June 25, 1930, Werber walked and Ruth swatted one of his 714 home runs.

"I said to myself, 'Well, I'll show these Yankees how I can run,'" Werber said. "So I ran around second base at high speed – I knew it was a home run – and I ran around third base, and when Babe came in, he patted me on the head and he said, 'You don't need to run fast like that when The Babe hits one.'"

When Ruth wasn't playing baseball, he was playing .. bridge.

"When the train began to roll out of Chicago for St. Louis," Werber said, "Babe would holler, 'Cut the cards,' and we'd play cards on the Green Diamond Express until Babe would give Lou [Gehrig] false bids, and Gehrig was no dummy, he'd recognize what was going on, and he'd throw the cards in the middle of the table and say, 'Add it up, let us know what we owe ya,' and they'd owe us $3, $3.50, not much."

Werber liked Ruth a lot and Gehrig not so much.

"Ruth was convivial, friendly, and Gehrig was aloof and unfriendly," Werber said. "Ruth would stop at the gates and sign autographs for an hour. Gehrig would scatter kids everywhere and get in his car and drive off."

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'Candy Bomber' won Berliners' hearts

Petra Cahill — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:57:00 GMT

By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News

Gail "Hal" Halvorsen was among a special group of Americans who changed the course of history 60 years ago this summer.

Halvorsen was a U.S. Air Force pilot who flew food and supplies into Berlin in 1948 and helped break the Soviet blockade of the beleaguered German capital.

"If the airlift had failed, those people would have been speaking Russian in West Berlin, and West Germany was next," the 87-year-old Halvorsen said in a recent interview.

AFP/Getty Images

Gail "Hal" Halvorsen gives a thumbs at the U.S. military airbase in Frankfurt, Germany, in October 2005.

Germany after World War II was divided between the Allied Forces – the United States, Great Britain and France - in the West, and the Soviet Union in the East. Berlin, located in the eastern, Soviet half of the country, was divided into four sectors, with West Berlin occupied by the Allied forces and East Berlin occupied by the Soviets.

In one of the first major international crises of the Cold War, on June 24, 1948, Soviet forces began blocking highway and railroad access to the Western sectors of Berlin.

The Soviets hoped to force the Western powers out of Berlin and seize control of the city for themselves.

The Allies responded by launching the Airlift.

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Military honors non-fighting WWII soldier

Petra Cahill — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:34:00 GMT

By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington

WASHINGTON – Desmond Doss seems like an unlikely person to have a building named after him on a military post.

A Seventh-Day Adventist, Doss was a conscientious objector during World War II who refused to train on Saturdays or carry a rifle.

Courtesy Doss family

Desmond Doss is awarded the Medal of Honor by President Harry Truman on Oct. 12, 1945.

"He always put God first in his life," his 86-year-old widow, Frances, said in an interview.

But the gentle, lanky Doss was also a war hero, and for his heroics on the island of Okinawa in 1945 the guest house at Walter Reed Army Medical Center was renamed Doss Memorial Hall Wednesday morning.

"Doss was a uniquely American soldier and a uniquely American story, and yet unique in all of American history," Col. Gordon Roberts, a friend, said at the dedication ceremony.

Doss grew up in Lynchburg, Va., and enlisted as a conscientious objector in 1942. He served as a combat medic on Guam, the Philippines and Okinawa.

On May 5, 1945, under heavy Japanese fire, he saved the lives of 75 sick and wounded soldiers by lowering them, one by one, down a 400-foot cliff on Okinawa. For this and other acts of courage, Doss was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Harry S Truman.

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Soldier dies for country not yet his own

Petra Cahill — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:35:00 GMT

By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Dawid Pietrek emigrated from Poland to the United States three years ago with dreams of a college education and a career as a police officer.

He arrived with a green card and worked as a caregiver for several elderly families in the Chicago area.

"Dawid was the best," one of his employers told the Daily Herald newspaper. "He was smart and kind and worked so hard."

Daily Herald

U.S. Marine Dawid Pietrek was killed in Afghanistan on June 14, 2008.

Pietrek, 24, joined the Marines last year in hopes of becoming one of 40,000 foreign nationals since 9/11 to expedite their U.S. citizenship by serving in the armed forces. He was among 69,000 active duty service members born outside the United States, about 5 percent of our total military force.

Pietrek deployed to Afghanistan two months ago with the 1st Marine Division and was initially assigned to Kandahar.

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Polygamists offer prairie fashions for sale

Petra Cahill — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:52:00 GMT

By Don Teague, NBC News Correspondent

DALLAS – Just in time for back-to-school shopping: authentic polygamist prairie dresses.

Apparently, all the publicity surrounding the ongoing investigation into alleged underage marriage among members of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) on a Texas ranch has created some serious demand for prairie dresses.

So much so that the FLDS has launched an online store where members of the general public can purchase the dresses, long underwear, and other ranch-wear "as seen on TV."

The home page for the FLDS Dress Clothing Store

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the Web site FLDSdress.com, was initially created to give Texas authorities a place to purchase the clothing, so children in state custody could maintain their traditional clothing.

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Purple Heart soldiers question war coverage

Petra Cahill — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 19:31:00 GMT

By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A few days after the New York Times published a story detailing network reporters’ concerns about war coverage, three soldiers wounded in Iraq expressed a dim view of how they see the war depicted on television.

"You always hear about the explosions or people being killed, but you never really hear about how the people are being helped, or how much they appreciate it," Spc. Hein Tran, 28, of Milpitas, Calif., said after receiving a Purple Heart today at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for wounds suffered May 10 in an explosion northeast of Baghdad.

John R. Chew/ Walter Reed

Spc. Hein Tran, center, at the Purple Heart ceremony at Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Friday.

Pfc. Alex Knapp, 22, of Shelby Township, Mich., who lost both legs in a roadside bombing on March 14, agreed with Tran.

"It's a little on the negative side because all we really hear about are deaths and injuries," Knapp said.

Sgt. Francis Collins III, 24, of Laurel, Md., also wounded by a roadside bomb, said some things are accurately depicted on television, other things aren't.

"Sometimes it's dramatized, sometimes it's not enough, as far as what they show on TV," Collins said after being awarded his Purple Heart.

Some journalists would agree. Earlier this month, the New York Observer published an article in which many journalists who cover the war expressed frustrations about the difficulties of getting their stories on air or in print. "There’s a marked drop-off in the appetite for stories from Iraq," ABC News correspondent Terry McCarthy told the Observer.

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'McCain' POW bracelet found in storage

Petra Cahill — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:34:00 GMT

By John Rutherford, Producer, NBC News, Washington

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Leon Abbott made a startling discovery while rummaging through his late mother Sarah's personal effects last December.

"She was instrumental in launching the POW/MIA movement, and it turns out the bracelet she wore was John McCain's," Abbott said in an interview. "Pure coincidence."

Sarah Abbott and millions of other Americans began wearing the copper bracelets in 1970 to draw attention to the plight of U.S. service members missing or taken prisoner in Vietnam. She wore hers until McCain and his fellow POWs were released by North Vietnam in 1973.

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