Tragic deaths here in South Texas

Local news, i.e., news for here in San Antonio and for a nearby South Texas small town, was not very good the day after the Thanksgiving holiday. On the South Side of this city during the early morning hours of Friday (night of Thursday-Friday) a fire raged thru the home of Frank Madla and killed him, his mother-in-law and his granddaughter. For years Madla had been a political icon for the South Side -- one of the so-called "Frank trifecta", the other Franks being Tejeda and Wing. He had just lost re-election to his seat in the Austin legislature in a bitterly contested race earlier this month.

Madla's failure to win re-election did not elicit much response from me. After all, I wasn't in his legislative district and couldn't vote for or against him. I just had a mild sensation of "it was probably good he wasn't relected", since he SEEMED to be a "good ol' boy" type, especially whenever the news media referred to him as one of the "Frank trifecta".

However, what I read of him in the newspaper on Saturday and following days informed me that he cared about all his constituents and was a champion for the common man. Even the winning opponent was quoted as declaring that it was a very sad day, due to Madla's death. I began to see that his death in the house fire, along with the elderly woman and his granddaughter, was indeed a terrible tragedy. I now can understand that there are many residents of southern San Antonio and outlying areas who are in deep mourning for Frank Madla.

And in the small Karnes County town of Falls City there was also deep mourning, as citizens buried one of their own young men who had died in the war in Iraq. Falls City is named for three falls on the San Antonio River. It is one of the tiny, close-knit towns of that area just southeast of San Antonio inhabited mostly by descendants of Polish (or Czech) immigrants of the 19th century. So it's little wonder that the entire town is numb with grief, and that most of them either attended the funeral or lined the street to pay their respects to a native son who died in combat.

The native son, Sgt. Mitchell Mutz, age 23, was killed by a homemade explosive device in Iraq on 15 November. He had been a scout of the First Cavalry Division, and was on his second tour in Iraq. His father, Bobby, was former sheriff of Karnes County and his mother was the local librarian. Even considering that he was killed in service to our country in the US Army -- a heroic and self-sacrificing death -- SGT Mutz' death is truly tragic, for his small hometown and for all us Americans.