BILL NEINAST
THE MOSTLY TRUE AND UNABRIDGED HISTORY OF WILLIAM H. “BILL” NEINAST

Some people believe I caused the Great Depression. There is a basis for that belief. I was born in Somerville, Texas, on August 26, 1929, in my parent’s home; a house without electricity or plumbing. A mere 59 days later, the banks failed and the stock markets crashed on Black Friday, October 24. Those two dates are too close to be a mere coincidence.
Being a man of conscience, however, I helped start the long road to recovery. My friend, Cotton Malkey, and I kept construction of the stone gymnasium and football field in Somerville moving. Ensconced in Cotton’s front yard, we would ping with a BB gun any man working on the WPA project who would bend over too long to pick up a stone with his butt pointed toward us.
When not supervising the WPA, there were no TVs, video games, IPhones, or air conditioning to keep me inside, so I mowed lawns, sanded floors, worked the projectors at the Lyon theatre, and cut meat in my Dad’s market and grocery. For a break from that tedium, I graduated as valedictorian of the Somerville High class of 1946.
Then it was off to the real world of my mother’s alma mater, Texas Lutheran College (now Texas Lutheran University) in Sequin. I graduated with an Associate of Arts degree in the last class as a junior college.
Next, was a migration north to THE university--The University of Texas in Austin. There, I was fortunate enough to help my future wife earn the degree she was seeking.
Jeannine Pearce left her home in Marlin to get an Mrs degree. Being a good Methodist, she joined the Methodist Student Association, but found nothing there that met her standards. So she transferred to the Lutheran Student Association, where we found each other. The rest is history. The 60 year old trial marriage has worked so well, we are considering making it permanent.
In 1952, we left Austin with degrees in hand. Jeannine had earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Home Economics and I was carrying a Bachelor of Arts and a Doctor of Jurisprudence. We moved to Caldwell where I practiced law for a short while in a two-man firm that was first established in 1911. The late Hays Bowers, my mentor and the namesake of our oldest son, taught me more law in three months than I learned in three years of law school.
The Korean War was claiming American lives across the Pacific at the time. So, to dodge the draft, I got a commission in The Judge Advocate General’s Corps of the U.S. Army.
I began my military career with a belief that no one who could make a living on the outside would ever undertake a military career. My contact with senior career officers and enlisted personnel quickly disabused me of that idea. So I became one of them and the Army then tried for 27 years to educate me at taxpayers expense.
On the military side of the ledger, I graduated from both the basic and career courses of The Judge Advocate General’s School at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and The Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. On the civilian side, I did a year’s graduate work in international relations at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and graduated from the Hague Academy of International Law, The Hague Holland, and the Management School for Executives of Pittsburgh University.
In 27 years of active duty, I had two tours of duty in the Pentagon and three overseas tours in Germany and Vietnam. I performed various periods of duty in eight foreign countries.
Along the way, Jeannine and I reared four Army brats into productive citizens. Steven Hays is the Assistant General Counsel for Entergy Corporation. Mark is the American Sales Director for ESP Corp., a GE subsidiary in the oil patch. Bill, Jr., or Will, is a Senior Vice President of Bank of America. Anita, the Chief of Staff of the family, is a CPA/CIA (Certified Internal Auditor) with her own consulting firm.
I am published in Military Law Review, Army Lawyer, Army, Progressive Farmer, Gulf Coast Cattleman, The Lion, and Country (where I was a “country editor” for ten years). Currently, I pen a weekly political op-ed piece for the Brenham Banner Press.
Jeannine and I are now enjoying our golden years on property in Washington County, Texas, that has been in my family since the Civil War. My grandfather and father were born here, so here is where it started and where it will will end.
enough
MY ESSAYS
5 WWDD
9 Spokesperson: Most Difficult Job
11 What If It Had Been George?
11 Desperate Men Do Desperate Things
13 What Did He Know and When...
14 We Need a Graveyard for Sacred Cows
16 Class Warriors: the Truth Hurts
17 The Dust Bowl and the Role of Government
25 Trip to the Watermelon Patch
27 Defense Department Two-Step
31 Where Is the Sequester Disaster?
34 A History Lesson: English Only
38 One More Law
43 CSOPE
45 Sleep Well
48 Joe and Jose
51 Coherent Policy...I Think Not
55 The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure
59 Alcohol and Drugs: History Repeated
65 Kicking the Can Down the Road and the Texas Model
67 Silver Alerts and Pinocchios
69 Viva Independence and Self-Reliance
70 Perspective on bin Laden’s War
71 Fewer Toys for the Pentagon
73 Radical?
74 Fair?
75 Republican New Year’s Resolution
78 Beware Solicitation Letters
81 Dangit!
82 Let’s Not Make Anyone Uncomfortable
84 The Ditherer
86 Top Secret
89 Declare Peace in the War on Drugs
91 Sensible Military Reductions
93 What Difference Does It Make
94 Education: If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It
96 Back to the Issues That Matter
98 Less Sports and Entertainment: More Hard News
99 Uncle Sugar
100 The Veterans Administration’s Mess
104 United? Nations
105 An Outstanding President: Obama
106 Double Agent?
108 A Little Middle East History
111 Tomlinson Hill and the Democrats
114 I Know Nothing
115 Alarm Bells
116 Radical Change
117 Ebola: an Imagined Epidemic
120 RRR
122 We’ll Survive
123 Just the Facts
227 My Chystal Ball
231 Time Marches On
233 Mideast Treaty Organization
235 War and Luck
238 Bernie Madoff: Barrack Obama
240 Scams
242 A President from the Business World?
243 Blunderbuss Foreign Policy
246 The Governor and the Military
247 From General to Personal Welfare
248 From Independence to Dependency
250 December 7
251 When Did Policemen Become the Bad Guys?
253 Bingo, Hillary
254 The Trump Card
255 Goodbye Old Flag
256 Obeying the Law
257 The Tax Collector or Karl Marx
259 The Cream Rises to the Top
262 Seig Heil Again?
264 Sauce for the Goose Is Sauce for the Gander
265 Perspective from Dr. Ben Carson
266 Modest Proposals for a Conundrum
267 Snake Oil
269 Chaos, Dysfunction, Frustration
270 How Not to Get Your Ass Kicked
271 Foreign Policy Seek and Fink
272 A Radical by Any Other Name Is Still a Radical
274 War Requires a Strategy...Still
276 Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor...
277 President Clueless about the Misuse of Firearms
278 Immigration Solved: Enforce Laws on Books
282 Same Tune---Different Verse
283 A Wake for the Two Parties
285 County Commissioners’ Court Accessible
286 Do You Want This Thing to Be President?
288 Clarification: Supreme Court
289 Today Is 1984
290 Be Careful What You Ask For
291 World War III
293 Is “Hello” PC?
295 Supreme Court Up for Grabs
301 Nothing to Fear
303 Texas Needs a Death with Dignity Law
304 Stupid Response to Orlando
305 The Worst Commander-in-Chief
307 BLM Mirrors KKK
310 Chameleon Trump
311 SNAFU
312 Autographed Copy of Jesus Christ
314 A New Draft
315 Hard Decisions
316 It Must Be True
317 Federal Government Dysfunctional
318 Vote for Supremes and Congress
319 The Republican Party and Silk Purses
321 Enough Already
322 Ma and Pa Going to the White House?
324 Politically Correct=Political Idiocy
325 Newton’s Third Law and Politics
327 The Business of Government
330 Driving Nails into Coffins
331 Pass in Review!
332 Will Trump Be Presidential?
336 DeVos Right Secretary of Education
338 Abortion and Sex Education
341 Shaky Standing
346 Too Soon Old, too Late Smart
348 News and Facts
349 Washington County EMS: the Best
451 Prejudice a Learned Behavior
452 Emoluments?
454 Too Much Trivia
456 Fair Taxes
457 Ignoring Facts
459 Time for Another Hoover Commission?
460 Hate and the KKK
462 Waiting with Baited Breath
464 A Step too Far
466 Honest Trump
468 Why?
469 The NFL, Racism, and the President
471 Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How
474 Racism and the National Anthem
476 Sex Will Win
479 A Better Way
480 White Privilege to the Trash
483 From the Farms to the Cyberworld
484 The Scoundrels!
491 Brenham, Texas, Has a Professional Theatre
493 Paying for Panic
494 Time’s Up
495 Trouble
496 Pro-Lifers or Anti-Abortionists?
497 Deal Not Bonded
499 Republicans---Don’t Be Hypocrites
500 Immigration
502 Barack Obama...What a Guy!
503 Facts about Separated Children
504 We’re Doomed
506 Democratic Socialists of America
507 Casey at the Bat
508 Talk Softly and Carry a Big Stick
511 Security Clearance: the Truth
514 Millennials and Prosperity
515 OK, We Lost
516 Do Democrats Have No Shame?
519 Murder
521 Term Limits
523 Health Care Not an Entitlement
524 Thankful for the Constitution
525 Trump and Media Are Both Guilty
527 Memories
528 “The New Colossus”
530 Wake Up America
531 21 Months until Election
532 Birth and Law Suits
535 Relax: Climate Change Not All Bad
536 President Trump: a Man of His Word
537 My Own History
538 December 7,1941
540 Bernie Says Medicare for All
541 The VA: Faceless, Nameless, Unapproachable
542 We’ve Moved but Little Has Changed
544 The “Doctor” Needs Guidance
545 Dems Plotting against Electoral College
546 Greatest Generation Not to Be Replicated
550 Aliens on Stage
560 Nero’s Fiddling
562 High Crimes and Misdemeanors
564 In My Shoes
565 Adapt
566 “Racism”
567 Star Chamber
570 Old Folks Homes
572 Our Jury System
574 Impeachment: a Christmas Gift
575 Happy New Decade
577 Nightmares
579 No Thanks, Dems
582 The Cat Fight
585 Panic...Really?
586 The Pandemic and the Economy
587 The Pandemic and World War II
590 Stop Whining
591 New Reads and the Death Penalty
593 The Coming Economic Disaster?
594 Kamikaze Warfare
596 It’s Not Broken
597 Black and White Police Brutality
601 The Holocaust, Friends, and Slavery
603 It’s Time to Stop the Nonsense
607 Lady Liberty
608 Don’t Believe Everything You Read
612 What’s behind Proposed Changes?
613 Four on One
616 The Blue Wave