"CHANGING TO MEET THE CHANGING NEEDS OF FRATERNALISTS" • #IL -wo
"Joining Hands To Touch Lives-Fraternalism for the Family and Our Nation"
Official Organ Of The Slavonic Benevolent Order of the State of Texas, Founded 1897 BROTHERHOOD
HUMANITY
BENEVOLENCE
Postmaster: Please Send Form 3579 to: SUPREME LODGE, SPJST, P. 0. Box 100, Temple, Texas 76503 ISSN-07458800 VOLUME 82 NUMBER 22
June 1, 1994
SPIST member remembers D-Day struggle
Nation to commemorate Allied victory at Normandy Next Monday, June 6, marks the 50th anniversary of Operation Overlord—the Allied offensive campaign which lasted for eleven months and became the greatest Allied victory of World War II. Under the command of General Dwight Eisenhower, more than 175,000 Allied troops, 12,000 aircraft and nearly 6,000 ships amassed for the massive attack on the German-controlled Normandy coastline. "The first troops to land on the French soil were the American 82nd Airborne and the 101st American Airborne—paratroopers who made their landings behind the German lines," says Dominc Netek, a member of Lodge 133, San Antonio, who participated in the landing at Normandy. The landing zone was divided into five main areas. Two on the west flank were code named Utah and Omaha and were American responsibilities. The remaining
three, named Gold, Juno and Sword, were to be taken by the British and Canadian forces. And don't think the Germans weren't waiting for them. Fifty-eight German divisions were stati oned in France. If the Allies were defeated, Hitler pledged, the losses and the blow to morale would be devastating. In preparation for the attack, the waters off the French coast were dense with steel piles—stakes armed with mines and iron barriers. Along the beaches, more than four million land mines were laid along with barbedwire fences and concrete gunnery embankments. Brother Netek, who served as a member of the Second Infantry Division, recalls advancing on the Omaha beachhead.
"Next Monday marks the anniversary of the greatest Allied victory of World War II."
50" ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION 1944 * JUNE Err * 1994
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The Road from Placedo to Austin...
Common sense, family values pave way for John Sharp (Editor's Note: A lot has been said and written about State Comptroller John Sharp since he took office three years ago. Upon his election as the state's chief financial officer, he immediately began working to fulfill his campaign pledge to give taxpayers "full value for each and every dollar they send to Austin." A recent interview with Brother Sharp, who is a member of SPJST Lodge 97, Placedo, provides Vestnik readers with a closer look at the man behind the mission.) Since he took office on January 3, 1991, state comptroller John Sharp has achieved the reputation as a man with a mission—to streamline government and make it more effective. Shortly after taking office, Sharp's team issued the massive Texas Performance Review, an audit of state operations that found more than $4 billion in immediate savings and approximately $12 billion in savings for taxpayers through 1997. Sharp's economic plan was later used as a model by the Clinton Administration in its audit of the federal budget. So, how does Brother Sharp respond to all of this sudden attention? He takes
"We're just trying to apply the same principles that most families and businesses would if they had the same job to do."
State Comptroller John Sharp applying common sense and uncommon initiative. it in stride. A lot of it, he says, is just "plain common sense." "What we're doing is no different than what most families and businesses have had to do. It's just that government has
resisted more and thinks that somehow it's exempt from all this . . . We're just trying to apply the same principles that most families and businesses would if they had the same job to do."
According to Sharp, growing up in the small farming community of Placedo, near Victoria along the Gulf Coast, provided him with a strong sense of identity and values. John was the youngest of the three children born to Milburn and Venus Marek Sharp. His mother, who passed away in 1983, was an elementary school teacher. His father, a retired oil field worker, still lives in Placedo.
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