By Kay S. Pedrotti A member of one of Barnesville’s notable ‘drug store families,’ Stonie Brock Carter missed his chance to become an Air Force pilot by being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1952. ’I had already passed all the tests but my left eye did not pass the physical requirements,’ he said. ‘They told me to go home and eat lots of carrots and come back and I wouldn’t have to do the tests again except for the eye test. Before I could get back to Moody AFB, Uncle Sam called my name.’ Carter, now 82, did basic training at the old ‘Camp Gordon,’ now Fort Gordon, in Augusta. He was in the field of radio communications and intelligence, a fascinating time for him. He spent two years in the Army, then went into the pharmacy business in Barnesville with his father, Richmond Stonewall Carter. The elder Carter’s nickname was ‘Stonie,’ so rather than having a ‘big Stonie and little Stonie, I was always called with the Southern tradition of two names, Stonie Brock.’ Carter is a member of both Marion Matthews Post 6542 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Martin Moore Post 25, American Legion. He enjoys Karaoke Night on Thursdays at the VFW. This is his 60th year of membership in the Legion. His children are Samantha, Virginia and Richmond II and he has two grandchildren, Allison and Everett. Carter told the story of when his unit was deployed to Louisiana for ‘war games,’ and he drove the vehicle with both the radar locator and jamming device. He got a lock on ‘the enemy,’ he said, and started jamming. ’Next thing I know, here’s the lieutenant saying, ‘˜Carter, what are you doing?” ‘I told him I was jamming the enemy,’ Carter said ‘No, you’re not, you’ve cut off the television station!’ To this day he doesn’t know exactly what television station, but he did turn off the jammer.
Be First to Comment