Armed Forces Day Celebrated in Nigeria and Why the DOD and WH Must Be Concerned! Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff Who Died In A Plane Crash Was My Literature Student at NMS
Armed Forces Day Celebrated in Nigeria and Why the DOD and WH Must Be Concerned! Nigeria’s COAS Who Died In A Plane Crash Was My Literature Student As A National Youth Service Corps Member at Nigeria Military School, Zaria, Kaduna State
Much Ado About A Nation’s URL! https://www.nms1954.sch.ng/ On the Internet, these addresses are called URLs (Uniform Resource Locators).
Special Report by Ben Edokpayi
#DangerousDisinformationBySubversiveElements! #TheJinxMustBeBroken The General Trained in America As Well! #446 https://www.armywarcollege.edu/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-57208951
A Perfect Explanation of Nigeria’s Version of America’s Peace Corp; the best foundation for the Nation’s Educated Youth. My service was at the Nigeria Military School in Zaria, Kaduna State, where I was a Literature Teacher for Young Cadets, many of them top officers in the Nigerian Army, after graduation from the Nigerian Defence Academy. I simply can not fail them, including the Chief of Army Staff Lt. General Ibrahim Attahiru. An air accident on May 21, claimed the life of the Patriot, who could have been my student at NMS. And the good news is of course as a good citizen I co-exist But I have never violated the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Picture shows National Youth Service Corps Members in 1983, including me, at the Nigerian Military School in Zaria, Kaduna State. NMS is a military academy equivalent to high school in America. I taught the cadets (many of whom are senior officers in the Nigerian Army today) English Literature. This gathering was at the Officers Mess, a social gathering place for senior Military staff and serving NYSC members of the Academy. NYSC, a non-military service, is compulsory for college graduates in Nigeria.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrahim_Attahiru
https://army.mil.ng/category/medical-corps/
Army Veterans deserve more respect
Ben Edokpayi ©
I was appalled at the unsanitary sights that greeted my eyes as I drove through downtown Eket, sometime in December 2014; a situation that then attracted the ire of the former state governor Godswill Akpabio, who demanded that the Local Government Chairman should do a better job of keeping clean the gateway to one of Nigeria’s major source of oil wealth.
But the most shocking scene as I drove through town was the unkempt surroundings of the local Veterans Park or what Nigerians call the “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.”
You only need to look at the history and significance of the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia and other such veteran sites across the USA, to understand how much Americans revere their veterans.
From my understanding the site in Eket is where local dignitaries gather every October 1st to honor the memory of soldiers who have died in defense of the country. And it looks like the only time attention is paid to this site is during the Independence Day celebration and the January 15 Remembrance Day, which I am sure is a moral dampener for those who defend the country.
My hope is that the Eket example is an isolated case for Veteran Memorial Parks across Nigeria.
I have had the opportunity of knowing quite a few people who have served in both the Nigerian and United States Army. And they are a special breed who deserve only the best, even when they are no longer with us.
Fresh from college at the University of Calabar (which the current chief of defense staff for the Nigerian Army also attended) my mandatory National Youth Service (NYSC) in 1983 involved teaching literature to young cadets at the Nigerian Military School (NMS) in Zaria; an opportunity that afforded me, as well as other youth corpers, a chance to interact at that time with the top cadre of the Nigerian Army.
And that was the beginning of my appreciation for the sacrifices that soldiers make for their country. So I guess I am a veteran by my extensive fraternization with servicemen on both sides of the Atlantic, most especially with servicemen at Travis Air force Base in Fairfield, through my journalism work at the Daily Republic, The Vacaville Reporter, The West Sacramento Press, Benicia Herald, The River News Herald and Isleton Journal in Rio Vista and The Dixon Tribune.
At the Tribune, where I was editor during the height of the Iraq war, this bond with servicemen increased because I had to write about a lot of locals who either were killed or injured in the war or the completion of basic training, which was big news in a small town. Because Dixon was next to Travis Air Force Base, a major connecting point for the deployment of U.S Troops, I was able to see the impact of the Iraq war up close through the experiences of locals enlisted in the army.
Some were downright tragic.
And one of the more traumatic stories I recall was that of a nineteen year old Private named Donald Lee Dunham, who visited me to proudly announce that he had completed his basic training at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. This was just before he was deployed to Iraq.
A few months after his deployment he was severely injured when a Humvee convoy he was in was ambushed by Iraqi insurgents. Unfortunately, Donald’s Humvee in the middle of the convoy took a direct hit, with shrapnel from the bomb shattering his femur.
A few days after the incident, and after he was airlifted for treatment to the Landsthul Regional Medical Center in Germany, I was able to speak to Donald by telephone.
“ I thank you for calling, but I am not in a good condition right now,” I recall him telling me in a sedated voice from the hospital, which was the main transfer point in Europe for US soldiers injured in the Iraq conflict.
I was also able to talk to the private’s distressed father in Dixon soon after the injury which earned his son a Purple Heart.
“He sounded rather bummed. I know he is going to suffer some disability, but they are not telling me much. Donnie’s been getting different stories from the nurses. One said he will be going back to Iraq in two weeks and another said his leg will be two inches shorter. I wish I was there to encourage him,” said the distraught father, adding
“It’s adding up to a lot of injured soldier’s. There’s a lot of guys getting hurt right now and it’s gotten worse since they got Sadaam.”
Well, at the end of a war I felt was unnecessary, the number of dead American soldiers stood at 4493 and total wounded at 32021 (this is not counting casualties in the war since Obama’s inauguration and Operation New Dawn.)
So if you can picture the after-effects of the war on the Dunham family in Dixon, imagine the angst and pain from the Iraq war on other impacted American families who had their sons and daughters in service.
Which is why the recent scandal at medical facilities of the Department of Veteran Affairs, over the way America’s heroes were prevented access to care, and which eventually forced out VA Secretary General Eric Shinseki, will be one of the black marks of the Obama Administration.
In the other unnecessary war pitting Nigerians against each other between 1967 and 1970, more than one million people including civilians and military were killed.
And instead of seeking ways to unify the country, some people keep devising ways to break the country. It amazes me that more than 45 years later, some Nigerians are still hell-bent on the breakup of the country.
A nation’s best resource is its people. Imagine the progress Nigeria could have made if the country did not have to fight a civil war that led to the loss of more than one million souls?
(This picture of the Eket Veterans Memorial Park was taken by me. I am sure the place is now well kept because of a feature in Tell!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_39YA0lbs1A
https://www.armywarcollege.edu/
#446 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-115
A Former VOA (Voice of America) Correspondent Weighs in With Environmental Journalism Expertise On The Trump and Biden Classified Documents Probe
https://twitter.com/BenjaminEdokpa1/status/1614649794705907714?s=20&t=J6zHRKILvREm3hPsmSC9KQ
18 U.S. Code Chapter 115 — TREASON, SEDITION, AND SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES Important Trivia? Did You know I coordinated and we appeared in the same Studio where Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States of America was interviewed by famed evangelist broadcaster Pat Robertson at the Virginia Studios of the Christian Broadcast Network. I and the Christian Team of Daughters of Zion and Tribe of Judah Dancers were accommodated for three days at the Regent University Hotel I think that is why Uncle Donald Tipped me on June 12, 2017 That My Colonoscopy Procedure at Kaiser Vacaville was CCTV hacked and mass produced the genesis of Ransomware Gangsterism. Is There A Web Of Criminals Who Should Be tried for Treason, Religious Persecution and subversion against an American and Nigerian President?
