Wagner Rotary Club began its St. Patrick’s Day with a club meeting last Wednesday. President Bryan Slaba rang the bell to bring order to the gathering and asked Pastor Laurie Kidd to offer a prayer. Pastor gave thanks for all the blessings we have been given, asked for grace to help us to love and serve in our community; to be compassionate to all those who have lost loved ones; and to help us keep our hearts open to others suffering.

The membership stood for the Pledge of Allegiance and President Slaba went right to the Sergeant at Arms as the group was pressed for time.

$2 to Bryan Slaba for a phone infraction and $1 for he needs to slow down,

$2 to Jamie Soukup and Jeff Doom for “twinning” by wearing vests,

$1 to Linda Soukup for a phone infraction

$2 to Francis Doom, Jamie Soukup, Roger Wiltz, Kathe and Jerry Henke, Craig Krsnak, and Joe Stedronskyfor not wearing any green on St. Patrick’s Day

$2 to Jeff Doom, Gerrit Juffer, Kathe and Jerry Henke, Bryan Slaba, Joe Stedronsky, Roger Wiltz, for not having any Irish in them

$5 to Rachel Doom for resigning from the school Board; at which point Rachel encouraged any Rotarian that was thinking of running for office to run this spring as there are 3 and possibly 4 vacancies

$1 to Amanda Bechen & Scott McAadargh for bringing the huge Chocolate Reese’s Peanut Butter dessert to Rotary

$5 to Linda Soukup and Jeff Doom for cleaning the club room

$5 to Linda Soukup for forget-ting to pick up Joe Stedronsky for the meeting

$1 to Jerry Henke for going to pick up Joe so he did not miss the meeting

$1 to Linda Soukup for using her daughter’s maiden name in the Rotary news

Craig Krsnak was welcomed back, and he drew the lucky ticket from the Queen Can. He only drew a 7 of Diamonds and members were excited to learn from Secretary-Treasurer Patty Frei that the amount in the drawing is up to $528.00 including the $17.00 that was collected for the day. She reported that our attendance was 18 members present today.

President Slaba took the podium for a few minutes to give an update on our last meeting for those who were not present. The club decided to apply to the Rotary Foundation for a grant to upgrade the Rotary Shelter at Chapman Park. The Rotary Shelter needs some upgrading and/or expansion, landscaping, and other repairs. There are three possible grants to apply for. Rotarian Roger Wiltz volunteered to write the application with some help and advice from Patty Frei who had attended a grant writing course from Rotary.

Rotarian Bill Frei was called to the front and awarded a Presidents Plaque for being Wagner Rotary President in 2019-2020.

Rotarian Jeff Doom was called forward and awarded a 5 Times Paul Harris Award which is a pin with 5 stones in it. Congratulations Jeff. This is a prestigious award in Rotary.

Roger Wiltz was program chairman for the day. He will be absent the next five meetings and had traded with Kathe and Jerry Henke.

Roger gave book reports on several books he had recently read from Jeff Doom’s library, “Flyboys” by James Bradley. In the 1830’s America had a whaling business that employed 18,000 men and 700 ships. In 1850 Japan had the highest standard of livingin the world. United States Commodore Matthew Perry claimed Japan when he entered Tokyo Bay. No one had ever exerted authority over Japan, and they did not like it.

In 1894 Japan invaded China and Russia. They took over Korea in 1905. Hirohito entered a world of military obsession and was taken from his parents when he was 70 days old to live and train military.

In 1941 Roosevelt coerced Japan into attacking us by cutting off their oil and iron. He did not expect Pearl Harbor in retaliation for this action because American thought war was two dimensional, by land and sea. In WW1 Billy Mitchell was a 38-year-old Army Colonel in charge of air support and was the first American to fly over an enemy in battle He was convinced that air would be a third dimension of war.

US politicians were getting rich from army and naval contracts. They fought against Mitchell even though he demonstrated how to sink a German battleship in 21 minutes under an air attack. He warned the US that war with Japan over control of Asia was inevitable He was court-martialed, tried, and convicted of insubordination and died a broken man in 1936.

Japanese military philosophy was to never surrender. They did not take care of their soldiers because taking care of the wounded slowed advance. They abandoned 150,000 soldiers in New Guinea and never sent food to them.

Jimmy Doolittle became America’s Ace flyer in WW. 140 of his fellow flyboys were asked to volunteer to fly over the China mainland and bomb. A 140 volunteered. In retaliation, Japan sprayed cholera, typhoid, and the bubonic plague in China. A change in wind killed 1,700 Japanese soldiers and injured 10,000 more. In the battle of Midway the Flyboys sunk 4 of the 6 battleship carriers that had attacked Pearl Harbor and it was the turning point in the war.

In March of 1945, the US dropped napalm on Tokyo and killed 100,000 people. The nuclear bomb was unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August of 1945 to finally end WWII. The Japanese especially hated American flyboys. They tortured them, beheaded, and cannibalized them. Many were later punished and executed for war crimes.

An interesting program, Roger.

The club adjourned with by reciting the Rotary motto.