Lisa’s (Old) Place

My husband is an avid WWE (“professional wrestling) fan. Mostly, I am not interested in it, but every now and then something happens that causes me to pay attention.

The show started Monday, and we were anticipating a storyline where the CEO was supposedly dead. I said it was a false report, since nothing else on the Internet said that Vince McMahon was dead.

Instead, the show opened with a report that Chris Benoit and his family were dead. I checked the Internet. Although not many had reported it yet, it was out there. I figured even the WWE would be pretty low to report a whole family dead if it wasn’t.

Sadly enough, the story was true. We speculated that some crazy fan must have killed them, but of course, the reality was that it was a murder-suicide. The theory is that “roid rage” was involved.

To make matters exponentially stupid, the WWE has released a statement saying that steroid use could not have possibly contributed to this incident. They carefully outline that steriod use cannot cause asphixiation. To me, this is the same thing as saying anger cannot cause a gun to pick itself up and shoot someone.

I think the WWE is trying to cover up the painfully obvious: Steroid use is widely accepted in this “sports arena”. It’s necessary, I’m sure they think, because it keeps everyone’s muscles bulging and keeps the attention on the show.

I wrote to the WWE because I thought their statement was so weak. The gist of it was that instead of trying to act like the police and making assumptions about what has happened, why don’t they just come out and say they don’t condone the use of steroids?

It’s because they can’t. And from the list of people who have died as a result of steriod use: Eddie Guerrero, The British Bulldog, etc., how more will there be? And isn’t it sad that these people are killing themselves to make a living?

The one thing I wonder is if Chris Benoit was alive today, listening to the speculation, would he really have wanted the speculation, or would he have preferred to leave a note so someone would have some idea why this happened?

Thanks for visiting Lisa’s Place.

I don’t remember reading about this in the news, but I found this amazing. Ten soldiers whose plane crashed in 1944 were identified and returned to their families for burial.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE
No. 399-07
April 09, 2007
Ten Missing WWII Airmen are Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of ten U.S. servicemen, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

They are 2nd Lt. Raymond A. Cooley, of Leary, Texas; 2nd Lt. Dudley R. Ives, of Ingleside, Texas; 2nd Lt. George E. Archer, of Cushing, Okla.; 2nd Lt. Donald F. Grady, of Harrisburg, Pa.; Tech. Sgt. Richard R. Sargent, of North Girard, Pa.; Tech. Sgt. Steve Zayac, of Cleveland, Ohio; Staff Sgt. Joseph M. King, of Detroit, Mich.; Staff Sgt. Thomas G. Knight, of Brookfield, Ill.; Staff Sgt. Norman L. Nell, of Tarkio, Mo.; and Staff Sgt. Blair W. Smith, of Nu Mine, Pa.; all U.S. Army Air Forces. The dates and locations of the funerals are being set by their families.

Representatives from the Army met with the next-of-kin of these men in their hometowns to explain the recovery and identification process and to coordinate interment with military honors on behalf of the secretary of the Army.

On April 16, 1944, a B-24 Liberator crewed by these airmen was returning to the aerodrome at Nadzab, New Guinea, after bombing enemy targets near Hollandia. The aircraft was altering course due to bad weather and was proceeding to the aerodrome at Saidor, but it never returned to friendly lines.

In late 2001, the U.S. Embassy in Papua New Guinea notified the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command that wreckage of a World War II bomber had been found in Morobe Province. Early the next year, a JPAC team surveyed the site and found aircraft wreckage and remains. They also collected more remains and Grady’s identification tag from local villagers who had found the items at the crash site.

Later in 2002, a JPAC team began excavating the crash site and recovered remains and crew-related items, including identification tags for Knight and Smith. The team was unable to complete the recovery, and another JPAC team re-visited the site two weeks later to complete the excavation. The team found additional remains and identification tags for Sargent and King.
Among dental records, other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from the JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory also used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of the remains.

For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO Web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo or call (703) 699-1169.

Thanks for visiting Lisa’s Place.