Joel's Blogging Along

Joel Hendon

Baby Thieving Ring Broken Up

It appears that, anything you may desire, can and will be gotten for you if you have the money to pay. Authorities in Mexico City have arrested three doctors, one nurse and one receptionist in a private hospital on charges of stealing newborns and selling them. Unbelievable? I have long since stopped being shocked at anything I read.

According to the Attorney General's office there has been a couple and a woman arrested also on charges of buying two infant girls and registering them as their own.

Apparently these two were the only infants stolen but had they succeeded in these cases, there would have undoubtedly been more such attempts. The doctors informed the women that their babies had died. It is very unusual that this could have even been attempted. Certainly, here in the U.S., no one could possibly expect to simply be told they died without having seen them or given possession of them.

One of the mothers, Vanesa Edith Castillo Guzman, told police when her baby was born, she did not get to see her but she heard her cry.  She was later told that the baby had been sent to the Moctezuma Infants Hospital due to a respiratory insufficiency. Then later still was told that the baby had died and was cremated. When she asked for the baby's ashes or at least a death certificate, she was simply told that the documents would be forthcoming.

Some time later, Ms Castillo received an email from the son of the clinic's owner which informed her that her baby was alive an that Dr. Ortiz had sold her to a couple in Mexico state.

After considerable detective work, they found the couple but when DNA tests showed that the baby was not that of Ms Castillo, it later developed the couple had purchased the baby but was one from another mother. They also continued the investigation which led to a psychologist named Cinthia Nayeli Perez who admitted that she had paid 15,000 pesos for a baby girl who ultimately turned out to be the daughter of Ms. Castillo.

This case, although small and discovered apparently early in their activities, is far from the only such cases in some Latin American countries. I remember, as I am sure some of my readers will, the incident which occurred in Guatemala in June of 1994 and was reported on 20/20. Although not nearly all of the information came out on the 20/20 program, it was indeed a ‘big" business there in Guatemala art that time. These poor people whose poverty was extreme, in some cases would sell their children for small amounts to crooks who would then sell them to wealthy people from the United States and other countries.

But, this kind of scheme was not all, some would actually steal babies. Read this blurb from Antipas Ministries:

"...foreign adoptions of Guatemalan children had mushroomed in recent years - and that behind this phenomenon was a network of baby brokers, lawyers, politicians, police officers, and even officials in the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare who offered Guatemalan children to North Americans for prices ranging up to $15,000 per child."

But the 20/20 report concerned two American women who had flown there to pick up two babies which had been arranged for them. When there they were brutally attacked by mobs of angry people who accused them of buying stolen babies. One woman was injured so badly she was in a coma and may have died, although I cannot find record of that.

Stress On Our Troops, Fort Hood Notwithstanding

War is an unholy, horrible thing. When one checks back, I don't believe you can find any period of time on record, when there were no wars anywhere on this earth. There have been but very few of our years since 1775 when we, ourselves were not involved in some way with some war. Check it out. But, that doesn't mean we are the warringest people in the world but we do get our share.

After World War one, we had some skirmishes here and there but nothing really bad until World War two came on us in 1941. As I was in the single digit age, I rarely heard of a war, or even knew anyone in the military services. But I did learn of a couple of men who joined the Marine Corp when I was about 10 or 11 years old and then a young man about 18 who was a friend of our family, joined the Army.  Then when I was 11 years old, whamo, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and just about eradicated our Naval fleet. Within a few short weeks, the draft was put into effect and everyone in the area started leaving for military service. My three oldest brothers went, two joined and one was drafted. Then when we nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945,this long and horrible war ended. I was then 15 years old. My brother just older than I had joined the navy shortly before the war ended. It appeared that I might have slipped into a gap of peace.

This was a war where the young men of our nation stood tall. Many had joined of their own free will to help end the war, but even those who were conscripted, served and fought nobly. Some of these men served for four years, almost all of it, in overseas combat. Many came home maimed, limbs missing, some had lost their feet due to frostbite and a great number suffered from what was then called shell-shock. It later became known as combat fatigue. Many married men came home to find their wife had gone to another man, some simply had been unfaithful and much mental stress was the result. Some developed mental illness and had to be placed in an institution. Of my four brothers, one had died, one came home to his wife and small son he had never seen and the other two remained in service.

Things changed a great deal after that. The draft was continued and a large army was maintained, although restrictions on health and abilities were tightened since there was no need for the massive number that had been during the past war. But peace was very short lived.

The Korean peninsula was a politically divided nation and as World War two was winding down, Japan (our enemy then) and Russian (one our allies then) troops were fighting and the Russians advanced to the 38th parallel about the time WWII was over and the United Nations formed. Negotiations for a unified Korea took place but were never successful, though Japan was conquered and Russian troops had gone home. But on June 25, 1950, North Korea invaded South Korea. The United Nations, and the United States took the side of South Korea and came to their aid, but as it has been since, the U.S. had to bear the load. The draft was re-energized here and I was called upon April 3, 1951.

It is difficult to imagine how a small country the size of Korea, could ever be the base of a long and dreadful war that took thousands of lives of American troops. I can tell you personally that I was blessed in that I was not ordered to go into Korea and into battle. I was chosen to be placed with an Anti Aircraft battalion and assigned to Battalion Headquarters Intelligence Department where I was trained as an Intelligence Aircraft Plotter.  At this point in time, the war was truly raging in Korea and men were being brought home with the same identical problems incurred in WW2. No one, wanted to go and get into that fray. But twice monthly, our battery would be called out into formation and names would be read of those being pulled and deployed to Korea. That was possibly the most tense moments, I have ever spent.

The defense department had a set program for the draftee. Everyone was called up for a two year tour, and after you were in for 18 months, and had not been deployed to Korea, you would not be in that last six months. But it was a very stressful 18 months to reach that point. I even read names of a couple of men with whom I completed basic and advanced training who had been killed in Korea. But unless someone has gone through what our combat troops go through, it is unlikely you can appreciate them as they should be.

During training at Fort Bliss, Texas, I've often slept in a Pup-tent and thought about the roughly 2,000 miles back to my home and it would seem as though, I'd never be able to go back, week after week. When we finished our basic, and then advanced (AAA antiaircraft) training, there were no formalities of graduation and invitations for our families to come visit us, nor even a leave to go home. My first 5 day leave with a 2 day pass combined, was for New Years, 1952. (From April 3, 1951)

I have told all of this on my part simply because it is the only first hand experience I've had. But it carried with it some of the feelings that any young men must have when they are far away and especially facing unimaginable hardships and the possibility of death at any turn.

I hear people often say, well no one made them join up, and that is true but if they had not, many more would have been conscripted as I was and unless you have gone, thank those fine young people who have willfully dedicated their lives to protecting this country, so you won't have to.

But my main reason for writing this is to try and get across to those who are living it up here, while many of our young men and women, are in Iraq, on in Afghanistan or any other place where we have troops. They are assigned to a very unpleasant tour of duty. I don't know what length of time they are required to spend in those places, but I do know they are often sent back after returning home for a few months. And that must be the most difficult thing to do, that a human could imagine.

And now this thing at Fort Hood. Whether these troops were training, or expecting to be deployed to one of the places of combat, I don't know. But now, this can cause much stress on those who are not even overseas. Have you ever dreamed of being a long way from home and have no means of getting back? I have, and it caused some of the empty feeling a person gets when he is away from loved ones and home. I can recall my first few weeks in the army. We always attended church on Sundays when I was home and somehow, that was my roughest days, not to be able to be back there, and not knowing for sure whether or not I ever would be.

Parents Refusing H1N1 Vaccination For Children...Think Carefully

It is amazing to me, the number of people who fear vaccinations more than they do some deadly disease. I have known many people who will not take the regular annual shots for anticipated seasonal influenza. There were many years in which I did not take them, not because I feared the shots but simply that I did not fear the influenza. Until the winter of 1990-91, when it made a believer of me.

I have never feared needles unless it is one that is to prick the end of my finger...brrrr. After that round with the flu, which resulted in a bad case of pneumonia in both lungs and hospitalization, I have never missed an annual flu shot and also received a pneumonia vaccine that year and have taken two boosters for it.

I have heard people complain that they took the shot and the very next week (or just a few days) they had the flu. Well, what they should understand is that it takes about two weeks for the vaccination to become effective. And I've heard others say they had the flu anyway that winter. Well I guess that is possible, I've read some pretty reliable sources which state that you might still get the virus but it would likely be milder than it would have been if you had not been vaccinated. Plus, some times they give you the type vaccine which they anticipate will be most prevalent tha year, and lo, some other type pops up. So they are not always fool proof.

Now, this so-called swine flu, is somewhat different to that of others. It is more rampant in younger people than older and more young people die with it than older people. My personal opinion is that this is simply because children are in school and exposure is greater than for most older people. I don't know why that should be different than for any other type, but it would seem that perhaps, it may not stay airborne as much as the others and you have to come in closer contact to get it??? But never the less, I will be vaccinated when/if the vaccine becomes available here for us.

I read today that about 20% of the families in Vashon Island, Washington are not
having their children vaccinated. And, the Ocean Charter School at Marina del Rey, California, 40% of the kindergarten children received exemptions from the vaccine. To me, this is frightening. I would be trying to get my child at the head of the line for it, if I had a kindergarten aged child.

Michael Specter, author of Denialism, says we can all believe in irrational things, and that many people act on those irrational things. I don't know if he is right or wrong about that, but I do believe many parents ideas concerning vaccinations sometimes approach the status of being irrational.

• Previous Posts:

• Baby Thieving Ring Broken Up
• Stress On Our Troops, Fort Hood Notwithstanding
• Parents Refusing H1N1 Vaccination For Children...Think Carefully
• MoveOn.org Threatens "Blue Dog" Congressional Democrats
• Feds Challenge States' Sovereignty
• The Majority View Does Not Mean It Is Right
• People Believe What They Choose To Believe
• The White House Would Rather Fight Than Switch

• Related Posts:

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• Premiership - Liverpool Steven Gerrad & Torres Not To Play Football Again Thanks To Rafa Benitez
• A Letter To Jon and Kate: Your 15 Minutes of Fame Are Up
• I'm A Celebrity Get Me out Of Here 09 - Jungle Fever Heats Up Between Foxy Sam Fox & Katie Price
• The Restoration of The Berlin Wall---Art and Commemoration Combined
• Drugs and Sport: Should All Athletes be Given Performance Enhancers for Fair Play?
• Healthcare Protests - Stop The Madness!
• Shooting at Fort Hood----Is Killing Becoming Second Nature?

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