A look ahead to 2010: The Take Back Wareham crew will wake up on April 7 and realize they couldn’t fool all of the people all of the time ... Rick Stanley will remain police chief throughout the year ... A non-binding resolution on April’s town ballot will show overwhelming support for the Westfield project ... Hamatron will be very popular in prison ... Wareham will have a new state representative ... Francis will continue to be a running joke ... The Wareham Courier will fold ... A new type of technology will emerge that everybody wants but nobody needs ... The power elite will finally realize that all their money and influence could not silence the truth forever ...

    One of the best things about being a reporter is that it gives you an opportunity to meet the nicest people. "Salt of the earth" is how my father would have described them - steady, dependable, dedicated, solid people with hearts of gold.
    Last November in Marion on a Veteran’s Day far too cold I found myself surrounded by the "Salt of the Earth." Veteran’s young and old, along with active military, stood with tier uniform crisp. Their salutes cast an image of history and an assurance of safety.
    Guest speaker Lt. Col. Barbara Burnett stood out among the military. Burnett, with her husband and 6-year-old daughter looking on, fought a battle against tears several times during her address. At that moment I saw the face of America’s current wars: a parent with a small child, a heart of gold dressed in a uniform, a mourner of lives lost thinking about soldiers in current battles. A column that I wrote based upon that moment touched Burnett and brought my husband and me an invitation to visit the 6th Space Warning Squadron at the Cape Cod Air Force Station.
    In December John and I joined the squadron and several guests for a holiday luncheon and tour (to the degree that security would allow) of the radar station. It was there I found not the face of America’s newest wars but rather the faces and images of our country’s security. In a world too filled with fear, and a week during which terror has raged once again, I offer those faces and images to you. 
     High on a hill, so high that snow often falls even though it is raining everywhere else nearby, there’s a 10-story arch-shaped building that glistens in the sun and looks like it belongs in the pages of a futuristic story book. Acres of grass and an imposing fence surround the building. Armed guards pace the fenced perimeter, their eyes constantly scanning as far as they can see. In the cold wind and isolation their steady duty sends a shiver of reality and the thought that too much is often taken for granted.
    There’s a second shiver in the guard house. It’s comfortably heated, but identifications are checked twice, and there are so many questions of visitors that security takes on a tone so serious it can’t be described with words. Two revolving gates await, the kind that have floor-to-ceiling steel bars and only allows one person go through at a time. Everywhere you turn there’s two of everything. You see it time and again during the tour. If something fails there’s an instant backup - gates and computers, radar, and generators so huge that they look an airplane fuselage.
    Through the gates you enter a windowless world. There isn’t a single window that looks out upon the world in the entire radar station.
    "Sometimes we never see daylight," Burnett said. "Sometimes we come to work in the dark and go home in the dark."
    Every door is bomb-proofed. Every new area requires a security clearance before being entered. Deeper and deeper into the building you go until the depth makes you wonder how people can do this day after day. In all this isolation, how can they smile?
    Radar screens with blipping lights, computers, back up systems, and streams of wire woven in a myriad of patterns all flash before the eye. The cost of the radar station’s electricity is $5,000 a day. You think your electric bill was bad until the radar station leaves you stunned.
    There in the depths of security, in the rooms behind bomb-proofed doors, are the faces: young and old, intense, eyes watching, ears listening for the one moment that might signal the beginning of the end.
    Nine thousand satellites orbit the earth. The radar system recognizes every one. It can sense an object the size of a basketball 3,000 miles away. It knows when something belongs there and recognizes when something doesn’t. Room after room components and skill blend one into another. The squadron watches and listens, tests and retests. You watch them and you feel humbled. You realize with a sense of peace that your life is may rests in their able hands.
    In the midst of the holiday luncheon an alarm went off following the launch of an unknown object. It turned out to be a weather satellite launched from within South America.
    Enjoying lunch in a conference area we had no idea what was transpiring deep within the radar station. That’s the way of life for the squadron 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Deep within the depths of a 10-story building with no windows they watch over the world while our lives go on. 
     May the New Year bring peace and a place in your hearts for the 6th Space Warning Squadron at Cape Cod Air Station. They mean more to you than you could possibly realize.

    The stories and images of 2009 will certainly jog some memories and tug at some hearts. It was a year of political turmoil in Wareham, with investigations into alleged corruption often taking center stage. But there were moments of inspiration and moments of sadness sprinkled in between. Please join us as we take one last look back on the news-filled year. And may you all have a very safe and happy New Year. Cheers.