Mickey Walker
Contributor
Mickey Walker, born in Rosebud and raised in the rest of Texas, degreed from Kansas University, played varsity football on athletic scholarship, with Gayle Sayers, John Hadl and other much more famous athletes.
Naval Officer Candidate School, Newport, Rhode Island, Ensign, 1964. Served in two deployments to Viet Nam between 1964-1965 where, as Gunnery Officer, USS Sumner County (LST 1148), supported river and bay ops (all US branches of military services) between Da Nang Harbor and city of Da Nang, Viet Nam.
Lieutenant Junior Grade, Field Command, Defense Atomic Support Agency, Sandia Base, New Mexico (1965-1967), taught officers of all military services nuclear physics courses, nuclear weapons principles, and nuclear weapons disaster control operations. Served as Secretary of the United States Joint Services NETOPS Team that handled, fixed, and decontaminated nuclear accidents worldwide.
Plant Supervisor, Lieutenant, Naval Weapons Station, Yorktown, Virginia, nuclear weapons assembly plant (1967-1969) Supervised retrofits of and modifications to Navy weapons of the Atlantic Coast Naval Fleet. Compiled and authored comprehensive Disaster Control Manual for Naval Weapons Station, Yorktown, Virginia, received commendation.
Sawmill production, (1970-1985) Sales/Marketing rep for Duke City Lumber Company, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Promoted to Lieutenant Commander, U S Navy Reserve.
Broker, Municipal Bond Underwriter, Juran and Moody, of Houston, Texas (1985-1998), retired in 1998. Held Series 7 Broker’s License from 1986-2000. As a securities broker, he refused to sell or trade even one derivative or a CMO, now known to be the root cause of America’s financial current devastation, bank failures, and mortgage meltdown of subprime mortgage derivatives that bankrupted America in 2008.
From his love of the outdoors and fishing, came the awareness that smokestack industries (mainly coal-fired electric plants) were spewing mercury and other harmful chemicals into the air and into every cc of water in any and all bodies of water in every state in the United States. Mickey has dedicated himself to writing in hopes that we will clean up and restore our country’s forests and waterways to acceptable standards, to where we can eat more than 8 ounces of fish per month without fear of mercury poisoning.
Mickey has written political and outdoor sports articles for several area newspapers and magazines for the past 30 years. Regular columnist, “The Political Junkies” Magazine for two years. Now retired, he travels to all points of the globe with wife Andrea and Bichon Frise, Quinn, fishing and chasing the eternal child still within.
Recent Essays by Mickey Walker
By Mickey Walker - February 14, 2016
My Dad was a great man. He was a union leader at Gulf Oil Corporation from the early 1940’s to when he retired in 1965. Over the years Dad petitioned the company for equal rights in the plant dressing rooms back when “whites only” and “colored” signs were above the entry doors. Until the signs were taken down. Relentlessly, he kept his potter’s wheel of equality turning for all men. He was a molder of human rights and good as he shaped his pot of human rights for all men and all colors of men. And women. Women back then were treated with disrespect and scorn as second-class workers and paid accordingly. He bargained with Gulf that women, too, would receive the same pay as men. He elevated, as best he could, their collective worth as human beings to that of being as fit as men to do the same jobs and hold the same positions. Not with better rights but with equal rights. Dad bargained with Gulf Oil that they would be considered for the highest order of job considerations. And through his efforts, some of them were elevated to be the bosses of men. The women knew him or knew of him because of his work as an unwavering champion of human workers who had little without a spirit like him, a human force, to help them ascend. He was that champion.
By Mickey Walker-November 8, 2015
Last night, October 28, 2015, the Republican presidential candidates engaged in what was said to be a “debate.” More like a drunken brawl of interruptions, shouting, dodging issues, and gross belittling of each other and Hillary Clinton (who wasn’t even there). A cousin of mine called to say how appalled he was that we Americans had reduced ourselves to acting like a nation of dumbass savages. I enjoyed hearing him say that; I thought it was just me caught in this whirlpool of morons. But it is comforting to at least hear that I am not alone in shrinking back from terminal tirades of wrong-headed babble about what some profess to know about politics. They do make a good case for believing the Democrats, but to do that would be just as dumbass.
By Mickey Walker-October 11, 2015
In Part I we saw that America’s grass roots political sanity had run amuck. Cousins fighting cousins with no idea of what is true or not, just parroting the blasted “talking points” sowed by high-paid political consultants of each party. It sucks. And just look at the big, fat, radio pundits like Rush Limbaugh or television talking heads eat-up-with-dumbass, e.g., Sean Hannity on Fox News (Fair and Balanced, you know)? Funny how American voters flock to them like flies to repeat and circulate their stupid “talking points” as political facts full of certainty, without a pause to breathe.