cheranne

CULT LEADERS WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THERE ACTIONS SOONER OR LATER

Doyle David opened the front door, and the next thing I knew, he was yelling: “Hey, wait a minute! There are women and children in here!” And almost immediately there was a huge barrage of gunfire outside, and then all hell broke loose. Catherine Matteson, 92, is a Branch Davidian who was living at Mount Carmel at the time of the raid. She lives in Waco. The windows were shot out, and there was glass all over the floor. You could hear bullets ripping through the walls. The women took the children into the hall on the second floor and put their bodies over them to shield them. This was war. Sheila Martin, 60, is a Branch Davidian who was living at Mount Carmel at the time of the raid. She works at a day care center in Waco. My son Jamie—who must have been ten, I think—was lying under a window. He’d had meningitis when he was a baby, so he wasn’t able to walk or stand up or anything. It left him blind. And he was just lying there, with bullets coming in and glass falling on him. I remember thinking, “Is this how he dies? After all this sickness, is this how he leaves me?” When the gunshots stopped, I crawled to him on my hands and knees. As I reached him, the shooting started again. I carried him to the other side of the bed, where my two youngest kids were, and I pulled the mattress over us. He had blood around his mouth, and at first I thought that he’d been shot, but he’d gotten cut by all that glass. The poor little thing was just sitting there, in all that chaos, screaming, just screaming at the top of his lungs. Doyle The government tells it as though we were waiting for them in ambush, and then we just opened up and blasted the daylights out of them. That’s not true. If we had been waiting for them, they would never have gotten out of those trailers. Now, David had shown us in the Scriptures that it was okay to defend your family and your property. So after that huge barrage of gunfire, some people grabbed guns. Whether they already had them or whether they went and got them, I don’t know, but they retaliated. Buford Oh, it absolutely was an ambush. They had set up and were waiting for us to arrive. It was as intense as any ambush I was in when I was in Vietnam. Before I could even get out of the trailer, I was able to hear specific weapons, like AK-47’s and an M60 machine gun, which makes a very distinct sound. And we didn’t have any of those. Hustmyre We were trapped. It was just a big open field, and the only place to take cover was behind some junked cars in front of the compound. They could pick us off left and right. Once in a while I would hear an explosion. I found out later that they were chunking homemade hand grenades out the windows at us. Most of the agents were armed with only 9mm pistols, so we weren’t quite evenly matched. Buford The agents out front weren’t able to make entry because of the volume of gunfire. We went around to the side of the building, put ladders up, and made it onto the roof. One of the guys, Conway LeBleu, was shot almost immediately. Glen Jordan, Keith Constantino, and I broke the window of the Davidians’ arms room and stepped inside. Shortly after that, Glen yelled out that he had been hit. He was bleeding very badly. Rounds were coming through the walls, and I was returning fire. McLemore Mulloney and I were crouched behind a bus about fifteen yards from our news unit. The bus was being fired at from every direction. I can still recall hearing the sounds of gunfire and people screaming. One agent started yelling, “Hey, TV man! Run and call for help!” And I’m thinking, “Me? I’m fine right here behind this bus.” Buford Shots started coming up through the floor. The first round that hit me got me square in the butt and lodged in my thigh. I was trying to talk to Glen to find out if he could move, because we needed to get out of there. The next thing I knew, I’d been hit in the hip and the upper thigh with an AK-47. That knocked me down. Constantino covered us, and somehow Glen and I got out the window we had come in. I pulled myself down to the edge of the roof and rolled off. When I hit the ground, I broke a bunch of ribs. At that point, I thought I’d been shot in the chest. McLemore I took off from behind the bus and ran for the news unit, and there were bullets hitting everywhere. I called the station and got the news director on the phone and said, “It’s a war zone. Get every ambulance in the county out here.” Buford An agent who was assigned to our Little Rock office, Rob Williams, was about ten feet from me. He shot at a Davidian who had shot at me while I was lying on the ground. But in doing so they were able to see where he was, and he was shot and killed. Rob was a great kid. The next day would have been his twenty-sixth birthday. In Vietnam I saw a lot of people get shot, and the minute he was hit, I knew he was dead. Byron Sage, 60, was the supervisory senior resident agent in the FBI’s Austin office and the bureau’s primary negotiator during the standoff. Now retired, he lives in Round Rock. Shots were still being fired when I got there. I went to the basement of the Waco Police Department, where their 911 consoles are, and Larry Lynch was talking on two different phones to people inside the compound, trying to secure a cease-fire. That was the first time I got to speak with David. I identified myself, and then I asked him, “Is it ‘Kor-esh’ or ‘Kor-esh’?” David said matter-of-factly, “Mr. Sage, have you ever heard a person die?” And I said, “Yes, I have.” He said, “Then you know how to pronounce my name.” I said, “What do you mean by that?” And he said, “It’s like that last exhalation of breath, like the death knell: ‘Koreshhhhh.’ He strung it out for a few seconds like that. I mean, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. It does even now, revisiting it. I looked over at Larry, and both of us shook our heads like, “We’re in for a hell of a ride.” “‘CEASE FIRE!’” Negotiations had begun minutes after the raid started, when Sheila Martin’s husband, Wayne, called 911 and pleaded with Lynch to ask the ATF to pull back. “Tell them there are women and children in here and to call it off!” he cried. Lynch tried in vain to reach ATF commanders, who did not respond. Thirty-one minutes passed before radio contact was established, and it was an hour before he could reach the ATF on a secure line. The shoot-out lasted, on and off, for nearly two and a half hours, until Lynch secured a cease-fire at around noon. Each side agreed to hold its fire so the ATF could retrieve its dead and wounded. In the end, four federal agents and six Branch Davidians had been killed. McLemore About an hour passed and nobody moved. There was dead quiet, dead silence. And then in the rearview mirror, I saw an ambulance creeping toward us. It was just crawling along, going about five miles an hour. Apparently the Davidians had allowed the ATF to bring one ambulance onto the property to care for the wounded. Hustmyre Agents were yelling back and forth, “Cease fire! Only shoot if they shoot at you.” One of our guys, Eric Evers, had been bleeding in a ditch forever, and I said, “What are we going to do about him?” I think everyone was wondering if the Davidians were trying to lure us in to kill us, so nobody said anything. I said, “Hell, I’ll go get him.” A guy with an MP5 went with me. We sloshed through the mud until we reached a fence that extended about fifteen feet out from the compound, and when we looked around it, we saw two Davidians pointing their rifles right at us. I thought, “That’s it. We’re dead.” But they didn’t shoot. I left my pistol in my holster and kept my hands away from my side and yelled, “We’re supposed to pick up the wounded guy.” They started gesturing with their rifles and shouting, “Hurry the f— up!” Evers was still alive, down in this muddy ditch, and we pulled him out. We put his arms around our shoulders and walked him out of there. Once we got him to the road and I could see how many guys were wounded, I started to realize how bad things were. Jim Peeler, 55, was and is a cameraman at KWTX-TV. I was standing by the side of the road when I saw a guy beating on a car, crying. He was dressed like a civilian. It wasn’t until later, when we were watching the video and we had found out more about the ATF’s investigation, that we realized it was Robert Rodriguez, their undercover guy. He was hitting the car and hollering, “I told them! I told them! I told them!” Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 next>>go to texasmonthly.com for more if you want to

There are no signs that point the way to Mount Carmel. Past the chapel, which was built after the fire, all that remains are a few ruined outbuildings and a lonely stretch of prairie grass. It was here, ten miles east of Waco, that David Koresh prepared his acolytes for an apocalyptic confrontation between good and evil. His followers, a disavowed splinter group of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, believed themselves to be living in the end times, when God’s final judgment was at hand. A stuttering high school dropout with a gift for illuminating Scripture, Koresh preached the “New Light,” a self-styled gospel that required him to take multiple wives so that he could father enough children to sit on the 24 heavenly thrones described in the Book of Revelation. One of his wives was fourteen years old, another twelve. To his detractors, he was a false prophet, a con man, and a pedophile. To his followers, he was the messiah. Life in the Branch Davidians’ austere two-story wooden dormitory revolved around strict discipline, healthy eating, physical labor, and rigorous study of the Bible. But in the summer of 1992, the group caught the attention of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms after a UPS driver reported delivering a package of dummy grenades to Mount Carmel. Koresh and other Davidians, who had been earning income for the group by working at weekend gun shows, had built up an arsenal of weapons, as well as an inventory of MREs (meals ready to eat), gas masks, and paramilitary gear that they called David Koresh Survival Wear. An ATF investigation suggested that the Davidians were also illegally converting semiautomatic weapons into fully automatic weapons. The agency, which was due for a congressional budget review in the spring of 1993, devised an elaborate plan to raid Mount Carmel that, it hoped, would net not only the sect’s illegal weapons but some positive publicity as well. And so Operation Trojan Horse was born. Rather than bringing Koresh in for questioning, the ATF trained its agents at Fort Hood to take the building by force. In doing so, federal authorities inadvertently fulfilled Koresh’s prophecy of a pitched battle in which God’s people would be called to defend themselves. What ensued was the deadliest law enforcement operation in U.S. history. To mark the fifteenth anniversary of the standoff, we asked the people who were there to share their stories. “‘THEY KNOW WE’RE COMING!’” On the morning of February 28, 1993, ATF agents gathered at a staging area near Waco and prepared to serve a search warrant on the Branch Davidians’ residence. KWTX-TV cameraman Dan Mulloney, who had received a tip about the raid, headed for Mount Carmel with reporter John McLemore. A colleague, cameraman Jim Peeler, was supposed to meet them there but got lost. As Peeler studied a map by the side of the road, a mailman stopped to ask if he needed directions. Peeler did not know that the mailman was David Jones, a Branch Davidian who was Koresh’s brother-in-law. Jones hurried back to Mount Carmel to tell Koresh of his encounter. Koresh then took aside Robert Rodriguez, a new devotee whom he correctly suspected was an undercover agent, and told him that he knew a raid was imminent. Rodriguez made a frantic exit and called ATF commander Chuck Sarabyn. “Chuck, they know!” he cried. Sarabyn, who would later claim that he was unaware that the element of surprise had been lost, decided to proceed with the raid anyway. Larry Lynch, 61, was a lieutenant at the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office. He is now the county’s sheriff. I was at the staging area that morning when one of the ATF supervisors ran in and said, “Let’s go! Let’s go! They know we’re coming!” Bill Buford, 63, was the resident agent in charge at the ATF’s Little Rock, Arkansas, office, whose agents—along with those from the New Orleans office—were called in to assist. He is now the bomb squad commander for the Arkansas State Police. I remember thinking, “What do you mean ‘They know we’re coming’?” Once we knew the element of surprise had been lost, we should have called it off. In hindsight, I wish that I had said, “No, I’m not taking my team.” I probably would have been fired, but knowing what I know now, I would have loved to have been fired for making that decision. Chuck Hustmyre, 44, was an ATF special agent. He is a crime writer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There were 76 agents on the operation. Before we left the staging area, we were loaded up into cattle trailers. That was highly unusual, to say the least, but that part of Texas is just a big, barren, windswept prairie, and there’s nothing to hide behind. The idea was to get us to the door of the compound covertly and not announce that we were government agents. Somebody decided that cattle trailers blended in a lot better than a convoy of unmarked cars with tinted windows. So we were jammed, shoulder to shoulder, into two trailers that were covered in tarps so you couldn’t see in. Buford As I was getting people to put their gear on, I had a bad feeling. I asked, “What do you mean ‘They know we’re coming’? Are they getting ready for us?” I was told that all the Davidians were in the chapel, praying. My logic was, well, if they’re all in the chapel, maybe we can still get in there and cut the men off from their guns. We knew that they usually kept their guns in their living quarters, under their beds. I didn’t know that 45 minutes had elapsed since Robert [Rodriguez] had seen anything. Clive Doyle, 67, is a Branch Davidian who was living at Mount Carmel at the time of the raid. He lives in Waco. I heard all this hubbub in the cafeteria, so I went back there to find out what the excitement was all about. People were saying, “We just heard there’s going to be a raid.” David [Koresh] walked in and confirmed that something was about to go down. He said, “I want everybody to go back to their rooms. Just stay calm.” Buford The information we had, which turned out to be true, was that the Branch Davidians were taking semiautomatic weapons and converting them into fully automatic weapons. They had also been converting practice hand grenades into live grenades. It was in preparation for the Armageddon that David Koresh had prophesied. John McLemore, 44, was a reporter for KWTX-TV, in Waco. He is now the director of Internet communications for Conoco-Phillips in Houston. Dan Mulloney and I were at the intersection of the road that led to the compound when we saw three National Guard helicopters flying overhead. That was very unusual, so we got out of the car and started videotaping it. While we were standing there, we heard something rumbling down the road behind us. I turned around and saw two pickup trucks pulling cattle trailers that were covered with tarps. As they turned down the road toward the compound, we could see that they were packed with federal agents. We had been expecting ten or fifteen police officers—sheriff’s deputies or something—to make a couple of arrests and come out with some illegal weapons. This was bigger than anything we had imagined. Hustmyre I happened to be standing near a seam in the tarps, so I could see out a little, and as we rolled down the road toward the compound, I told the team leader, “It’s all quiet out here.” I mean, it was eerily quiet. I remember telling an agent near me, “This doesn’t seem right. This is spooky.” “‘. . . THAT LAST EXHALATION OF BREATH, LIKE THE DEATH KNELL . . .’” At 9:48 a.m., ATF agent Roland Ballesteros led the first team of agents off the trailers and approached Mount Carmel’s entrance, shouting, “Police! Search warrant! Lay down!” He pointed his shotgun in the direction of Koresh, who had answered the door, unarmed. Which side fired the first shot has never been determined. ATF agents say that a hail of bullets greeted them after Koresh slammed the door shut, while Branch Davidians claim that the ATF fired first, from either the ground or the helicopters above. The crime scene, which might have yielded answers, was later destroyed by the fire. Hustmyre Somebody in the back of the trailer threw the doors open, and we jumped out and rushed to our assigned positions. There was gunfire going off before my feet hit the ground. We were taking gunfire from multiple points inside the compound.

a cult led by a guitar strumming ,high school drop out named david koresh,false prophet,con man and a pedophile killed,steal and destroy lives of others(sounds familier lil vp?) read more about it in Texas Monthly magaizine(april ed)

You go girl!!!

! Is that like girlie man,is there a productive evil that would be TWI

YES! A half truth is a LIE. That is what decieved us,we could not discern the devil spirit standing in front of our face teaching us false doctrines HE MADE UP and then twisted them and SOLD IT(blood money) and then we did the same ,how messed up is that.

Yes i had a fun twig in OKC.just fellowshiping and being pretty normal i guess as you can expect from twi but then I went out on the field for 3 years! That was a horse of a differant color...by then i was long gone sucked into the vacum of the buisness of "building the ministry(that just made me throw up a little even now!

I don't know why you guys put up with such a fool like LCM,he had more problems than all of twi put together and he actually thought drinking dr. pepper was a big no no..so he could be a dancing queen! Thats just sad.

I don't think it made us tough,spiritually it destroyed us,made us weak..so we never will fit into a church or feel comfortable in the body of christ here on earth,everything i learned in twi..i had to unlearn(not to become some spiritual strong christian) just to get the brainwashing garbage out...and move on with Normal life on earth!

i lost 100 dollars thats for sure!

I was a military brat when i got into twi,so i really had no home to begin with,my hometown is san antonio texas where i was born and have family still,but i didn't go back there,after i left twi i joined the Army. After my husband retired we went back to his hometown,to help his very ill parents in western maryland. I still miss san antonio and go there whenever i can afford to. Home is where your heart is.

Good job Roy,good to see light expose the darkness of The Way

You ROCK ! Thanks for helping social workers and mental health worker to have a better insight on this.

NOT IN WEST VIRGINIA

i only hang out with radical black sheep now.

He was out deer hunting last week when a large grizzly bear charged him from about 50 yards away. The guy emptied his 7mm Magnum semi-automatic rifle into the bear and it dropped a few feet from him. The big bear was still alive so he reloaded and shot it several times in the head. The bear was just over one thousand six hundred pounds. It stood 12' 6" high at the shoulder, 14' to the top of his head. It's the largest grizzly bear ever recorded in the world. Of course, the Alaska Fish and Wildlife Commission did not let him keep it as a trophy, but the bear will be stuffed and mounted, and placed on display at the Anchorage airport to remind tourists of the risks involved when in the wild. Based on the contents of the bears stomach, the Fish and Wildlife Commission established the bear had killed at least two humans in the past 72 hours including a missing hiker. The US Forest Service, backtracking from where the bear had originated, found the hiker's 38-caliber pistol emptied. Not far from the pistol were the remains of the hiker. The other body has not been found. Although the hiker fired six shots and managed to hit the grizzly with four shots (the Service ultimately found four 38 caliber slugs along with twelve 7mm slugs inside the bear's dead body), it only wounded the bear and probably angered it immensely. The bear killed the hiker an estimated two days prior to the bear's own death by the gun of the Forest Service worker. Think about this: If you are an average size man; You would be level with the bear's navel when he stood upright. The bear would look you in the eye when it walked on all fours! To give additional perspective, consider that this particular bear, standing on its hind legs, could walk up to an average single story house and look over the roof, or walk up to a two story house and look in the bedroom windows.

The same should apply for a 5o year old man(well..kinda)

hahahaha..as i was reading your post that pee wee herman dance came to mind ,he does the TEQUILA DANCE with platform shoes at the bikers bar!(from the movie pee wees adventure or something )

Thanks you too,green beer all around the cafe!

Hi,...don't touch me!

sounds alot like working retail at christmas time(you know there is a hell,because you work retail)

To Be 6 Again.. A man was sitting on the edge of the bed, observing his wife, looking at herself in the mirror. Since her birthday was not far off he asked what she'd like to have for her Birthday. "I'd like to be six again", she replied, still looking in the mirror. On the morning of her Birthday, he arose early, made her a nice big bowl of Lucky Charms, and then took her to Six Flags theme park. What a day! He put her on every ride in the park; the Death Slide, the Wall of Fear, the Screaming Monster Roller Coaster, everything there was. Five hours later they staggered out of the theme park. Her head was reeling and her stomach felt upside down. He then took her to a McDonald's where he ordered her a Happy Meal with extra fries and a chocolate shake. Then it was off to a movie, popcorn, a soda pop, and her favorite candy, M&M's. What a fabulous adventure! Finally she wobbled home with her husband and collapsed into bed exhausted. He leaned over his wife with a big smile and lovingly asked, "Well Dear, what was it like being six again??" Her eyes slowly opened and her expression suddenly changed. "I meant my dress size, you dumb foot!"

My wow brother 9th corp couldn't get a job anywhere and the only job that he could get was fulltime at night at a psychiatric hospital,the limb leader made an exception for him. Another guy could not find a job either except driving a moving truck(out of state at that)and he also made an exception. I know they weren't staff but they really weren't suppose to do that either.

Has this sowersonline thing got anything to do with the sowers magazine ces puts out?