Red Adair, 1915-2004: He Put Out Dangerous Oil and Natural Gas Fires Around the World
His crews battled more than two thousand fires. Transcript of radio broadcast:
21 March 2009
VOICE ONE:
This is Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Faith Lapidus with People in America in VOA Special English. Today we tell about Red Adair. He was famous for putting out dangerous oil well fires around the world.
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VOICE ONE:
Paul Neal Adair was born in Houston, Texas in nineteen fifteen. He was one of five sons of a metal worker. He also had three sisters. While growing up, he became known as Red Adair because his hair was bright red. The color became a trademark for Adair. He wore red clothes and red boots. He drove a red car, and his crew members used red trucks and red equipment.
As a young man, Red Adair dropped out of high school to help support his family. He worked as a laborer for several different companies. In nineteen thirty-eight, Adair got his first oil-related job with the Otis Pressure Control Company.
VOICE TWO:
During World War Two, Adair served on a trained army team that removed and destroyed bombs. After the war, he returned to Houston and took a job with Myron Kinley. At the time, Kinley was the leader in putting out fires in oil wells. Red Adair worked with Myron Kinley for fourteen years. But in nineteen fifty-nine, Adair started his own company.
During his thirty-six years in business, Red Adair and his crews battled more than two thousand fires all over the world. Some were on land. Others were on ocean oil-drilling structures. Some fires were in burning oil wells. Others were in natural gas wells.
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VOICE ONE:
Red Adair was a leader in a specialized and extremely dangerous profession. Putting out oil well fires can be difficult. This is because oil well fires are extinguished, or put out, at the wellhead just above ground. Normally, explosives are used to stop the fire from burning. The explosion robs the fire of oxygen. But, once the fire is out, the well still needs to be covered, or capped, to stop the flow of oil. This is the most dangerous part of the process. Any new heat or fire could cause the leaking well and the surrounding area to explode.
VOICE TWO:
Red Adair developed modern methods to extinguish and cover burning oil wells.
They became known in the industry as Wild Well Control techniques. In addition to explosives, the techniques involved large amounts of water and dirt. Adair also developed special equipment made of bronze metal to help extinguish oil well fires. The modern tools and his Wild Well Control techniques earned Red Adair and his crews the honor of being called the “best in the business.”
Red Adair was known for not being afraid. He was also known for his sense of calm and safety. None of his workers were ever killed while putting out oil well or gas fires. He described his work this way: “It scares you — all the noise, the rattling, the shaking. But the look on everyone’s face, when you are finished and packing, it is the best smile in the world; and there is nobody hurt, and the well is under control.”
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VOICE ONE:
One of Red Adair’s most important projects was in nineteen sixty-two. He and his crew put out a natural gas fire in the Sahara Desert in Algeria. The fire had been burning for six months. This famous fire was called the “Devil’s Cigarette Lighter.”
Fire from the natural gas well shot about one hundred forty meters into the air. The fire was so big that American astronaut John Glenn could see it from space as he orbited Earth.
The desert sand around the well had melted into glass from the extreme heat. News reports said Adair used about three hundred forty kilograms of nitroglycerine explosive material to pull the oxygen out of the fire.
VOICE TWO:
Adair’s success with the “Devil’s Cigarette Lighter” and earlier well fires captured the imagination of the American film industry. In nineteen sixty-eight, Hollywood made an action film called “Hellfighters.” It was loosely based on events in Red Adair’s life. Actor John Wayne played an oil well firefighter from Houston, Texas whose life was similar to Adair’s. Adair served as an advisor to Wayne while the film was being made. The two men became close friends. Adair said one of the best honors in the world was to have John Wayne play him in a movie.
Here is John Wayne in the film “Hellfighters.” He has just flown into Venezuela to help his crew fight a dangerous fire. He has brought needed supplies with him.
JOE HORN: “Wooo. It’s about time you got back to earning an honest living.”
CHANCE BUCKMAN (JOHN WAYNE): “If you think I’m going to say it’s a pleasure to be here, forget it.”
GEORGE HARRIS: “Hi boss.”
CHANCE BUCKMAN: “George, nice to see you. I spent a lot of your money.”
GREG PARKER: “Well, what did you do, buy up all the control heads in Houston?”
CHANCE BUCKMAN: “This far away from supplies, you get all the spares you can.”
GREG PARKER: “This is Colonel Valdez, Chance. He’s in charge of keeping us from getting shot.”
CHANCE BUCKMAN: “Well, I hope you do a good job, Colonel.”
COLONEL VALDEZ: “If I do not, you will have my profound apologies.”
(LAUGHTER)
JOE HORN: “The longer you guys stand there, the longer it’s going to take to unload this thing.”
CHANCE BUCKMAN: “Right Joe…”
VOICE ONE:
Red Adair fighting the Piper Alpha fire off the northeast coast of Scotland
Red Adair fighting the Piper Alpha fire off the northeast coast of Scotland
In nineteen eighty-eight, Adair fought what was possibly the world’s worst off-shore accident. It was at the Piper Alpha drilling structure in the North Sea. Occidental Petroleum operated the structure off the coast of Scotland. The structure produced oil and gas from twenty-four wells.
One hundred sixty-seven men were killed when the structure exploded after a gas leak. Red Adair had to stop the fires and cap the wells. He faced winds blowing more than one hundred twenty kilometers an hour, and ocean waves at least twenty meters high.
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VOICE TWO:
In March of nineteen ninety-one, Red Adair went to Kuwait following the Persian Gulf War. He and his crews were called in to help put out fires set by the Iraqi army as it fled from coalition forces. But Adair faced serious problems in putting out the fires. In June, he flew to Washington, D.C. to talk to government officials about those problems. He told congressional lawmakers that he needed more water and more equipment. He also described his concerns about medical services for his men, and the buried landmines throughout Kuwait.
VOICE ONE:
Adair also met with then-President George H.W. Bush. President Bush listened to his concerns and offered his support. Within weeks, Adair had the equipment he needed to complete the job.
The Red Adair Company capped more than one hundred wells. His crews were among twenty-seven teams from sixteen countries called in to fight the fires. The crews’ efforts put out about seven hundred Kuwaiti fires. Their efforts saved millions of barrels of oil. Some experts say the operation also helped prevent an environmental tragedy.
The job had been expected to take three to five years. However, it was completed in just eight months. In a ceremony, the Emir of Kuwait extinguished the last burning well on November sixth, nineteen ninety-one.
In addition to Kuwait, Adair and his men carried out sixteen other jobs that year. They worked in India, Venezuela, Nigeria, the Gulf of Mexico and the United States.
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VOICE TWO:
Red Adair had spent his seventy-sixth birthday in Kuwait working side by side with his crew. When asked when he might retire, he told reporters: “Retire? I do not know what that word means. As long as a man is able to work, and he is productive out there and he feels good – keep at it.”
Still, Red Adair finally did retire in nineteen ninety-four. At that time, he joked about where he would end up when he died. He said he hoped to be in Heaven. But he said this about Hell: “I have made a deal with the devil. He said he is going to give me an air-conditioned place when I go down there – if I go there – so I won’t put all the fires out.”
VOICE ONE:
Red Adair died in two thousand four. He was eighty-nine years old. At his funeral, many family members and friends honored him by wearing red clothes. Many Americans remember Red Adair for his bravery. He lived his life on the edge of danger. He was known for his willingness to risk his own life to save others.
During his life, Adair received Special Letters of Recognition from Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. One of the letters said this: “You have served your country well by your willingness to do a dangerous and important job with a rare ability. In an age said to be without heroes, you are an authentic hero.”
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VOICE TWO:
This program was written by Jill Moss. It was produced by Lawan Davis. This is Faith Lapidus.
VOICE ONE:
And this is Steve Ember. Join us again next week for People in America in VOA Special English.
Doctor Spock, 1903-1998: The World’s Most Famous Baby Doctor
His famous book told parents: “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do”. Transcript of radio broadcast:
14 March 2009
VOICE ONE:
I’m Faith Lapidus.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember with People in America in VOA Special English. Today we tell about the world’s most famous doctor for children, Benjamin Spock.
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VOICE ONE:
Benjamin Spock’s first book caused a revolution in the way American children were raised. His book, “The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care,” was published in nineteen forty-six. The book gave advice to parents of babies and young children. The first lines of the book are famous. Doctor Spock wrote: “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do”.
VOICE TWO:
This message shocked many parents. For years, mothers had been told that they should reject their natural feelings about their babies. Before Doctor Spock’s book appeared, the most popular guide to raising children was called “Psychological Care of Infant and Child.” The book’s writer, John B. Watson, urged extreme firmness in dealing with children. The book called for a strong structure of rules in families. It warned parents never to kiss, hug or physically comfort their children.
VOICE ONE:
Doctor Spock’s book was very different. He gave gentle advice to ease the fears of new parents. Doctor Spock said his work was an effort to help parents trust their own natural abilities in caring for their children.
Doctor Spock based much of his advice on the research and findings of the famous Austrian psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud.
Doctor Spock’s book discusses the mental and emotional development of children. It urges parents to use that information to decide how to deal with their babies when they are crying, hungry, or tired.
For example, Doctor Spock dismissed the popular idea of exactly timed feedings for babies. Baby care experts had believed that babies must be fed at the same times every day or they would grow up to be demanding children.
Doctor Spock said babies should be fed when they are hungry. He argued that babies know better than anyone about when and how much they need to eat. He did not believe that feeding babies when they cry in hunger would make them more demanding. He also believed that showing love to babies by hugging and kissing them would make them happier and more secure.
VOICE TWO:
Doctor Benjamin Spock examining
Mary Catherine Bateson
Doctor Benjamin Spock examining
Mary Catherine Bateson
“The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care” examined the emotional and physical growth of children. Doctor Spock said he did not want to just tell a parent what to do. He said he tried to explain what children generally are like at different times in their development so parents would know what to expect.
Doctor Spock’s book did not receive much notice from the media when it was published in nineteen forty- six. Yet, seven hundred fifty thousand copies of the book were sold during the year after its release. Doctor Spock began receiving many letters of thanks from mothers around the country.
VOICE ONE:
Doctor Spock considered his mother, Mildred Spock, to be the major influence on his personal and professional life. He said his ideas about how parents should act were first formed because of her. He reacted to the way in which his mother cared for him and his brother and sisters.
Doctor Spock described his mother as extremely controlling. He said she believed all human action was the result of a physical health issue or a moral one. She never considered her children’s actions were based on emotional needs.
Doctor Spock later argued against this way of thinking. Yet, he praised his mother’s trust of her own knowledge of her children. In his book, “Spock on Spock,” he wrote about his mother’s ability to correctly identify her children’s sicknesses when the doctors were wrong.
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VOICE TWO:
Benjamin Spock was born in nineteen-oh-three. He was the first of six children. The Spock family lived in New Haven, Connecticut. His father was a successful lawyer. Benjamin was a quiet child. He attended Phillips Academy, a private school in Andover, Massachusetts. Later he attended Yale University in New Haven. He joined a sports team at Yale that competed in rowing boats. In nineteen twenty-four, he and his team members competed in rowing at the Olympic Games in Paris, France. They won the gold medal.
VOICE ONE:
Benjamin Spock worked at a camp for disabled children for three summers during his years at Yale. He said the experience probably led to his decision to enter medical school. He began at Yale Medical School, but he completed his medical degree at Columbia University in New York City. He graduated as the best student in his class in nineteen twenty-nine.
Benjamin Spock had married Jane Cheney during his second year in medical school. They later had two sons, Michael and John.
Doctor Spock began working as a pediatrician, treating babies and children in New York City in nineteen thirty-three. During the next ten years he tried to fit the theories about how children develop with what mothers told him about their children. In nineteen forty-three, a publisher asked him to write a book giving advice to parents. He finished the book by writing at night during his two years of service in the United States Navy.
Jane Spock helped her husband produce the first version of “Baby and Child Care.” She typed the book from his notes and spoken words.
VOICE TWO:
During the nineteen fifties, Doctor Spock became famous. He wrote several other books. He wrote articles for a number of magazines. He appeared on television programs. He taught at several universities. And he gave speeches around the country to talk to parents about their concerns.
During this time, he discovered things he wanted to change in the book. He wanted to make sure parents knew they should have control over their children and expect cooperation from them. So, in nineteen fifty-seven the second version of the book was published. He continued to make changes to “Baby and Child Care” throughout his life.
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VOICE ONE:
In the nineteen sixties, Benjamin Spock began to be active in politics. He supported John F. Kennedy in his campaign for president. He joined a group opposed to the development of nuclear weapons.
Doctor Spock also took part in demonstrations to protest the Vietnam War. In nineteen sixty-eight, he was found guilty of plotting to aid men who were refusing to join the American armed forces.
VOICE TWO:
Doctor Spock appealed the ruling against him. Finally, it was cancelled. However, the legal battle cost Doctor Spock a lot of money. The events damaged public opinion of the once very trusted children’s doctor. Fewer people bought his books. Some people said Doctor Spock’s teachings were to blame for the way young people in the nineteen sixties and seventies rebelled against the rules of society. A leading American religious thinker of that time called Doctor Spock “the father of permissiveness.”
In nineteen seventy-two, Doctor Spock decided to seek election as president of the United States. He was the candidate of the small “People’s Party.”
He spoke out on issues concerning working families, children and minorities. Doctor Spock received about seventy-five thousand votes in the election that Richard Nixon won.
VOICE ONE:
Doctor Spock’s marriage had been suffering for some time. For years, Jane Spock drank too much alcohol and suffered from depression. She reportedly felt her husband valued his professional and political interests more than he valued her. In nineteen seventy-five, Benjamin and Jane Spock ended their forty-eight-year marriage. One year later, Mary Morgan became his second wife.
VOICE TWO:
‘Baby and Child Care’ by Doctor Benjamin SpockMore than fifty million copies of Doctor Spock’s “Baby and Child Care” book have been sold since it was published. It has been translated into thirty-nine languages. The eighth edition was published in two thousand four. It includes the latest medical information about nutrition, physical disorders and behavior. It also deals with social issues such as working mothers, day care centers, single parents and gay and lesbian parenting.
Benjamin Spock died in nineteen ninety-eight at the age of ninety-four. Yet his advice continues to affect the lives of millions of children and their parents.
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VOICE ONE:
This program was written by Caty Weaver. It was produced by Lawan Davis. I’m Faith Lapidus.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another People in America program in VOA Special English.
Rosa Parks, 1913-2005: Mother of the American Civil Rights Movement
She was a black woman who refused to give her seat on a bus in Alabama to a white passenger. Her act of bravery launched the movement to end unequal treatment of African-Americans. Transcript of radio broadcast:
07 March 2009
VOICE ONE:
I’m Pat Bodnar.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember with PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. Today, we tell about Rosa Parks, who has been called the mother of the American civil rights movement.
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VOICE ONE:
Until the nineteen sixties, black people in many parts of the United States did not have the same civil rights as white people. Laws in the American South kept the two races separate. These laws forced black people to attend separate schools, live in separate areas of a city and sit in separate areas on a bus.
On December first, nineteen fifty-five, in the southern city of Montgomery, Alabama, a forty-two year old black woman got on a city bus. The law at that time required black people seated in one area of the bus to give up their seats to white people who wanted them. The woman refused to do this and was arrested.
This act of peaceful disobedience started protests in Montgomery that led to legal changes in minority rights in the United States. The woman who started it was Rosa Parks. Today, we tell her story.
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VOICE TWO:
She was born Rosa Louise McCauley in nineteen-thirteen in Tuskegee, Alabama. She attended local schools until she was eleven years old. Then she was sent to school in Montgomery. She left high school early to care for her sick grandmother, then to care for her mother. She did not finish high school until she was twenty-one.
Rosa married Raymond Parks in nineteen thirty-two. He was a barber who cut men’s hair. He was also a civil rights activist. Together, they worked for the local group of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In nineteen forty-three, Missus Parks became an officer in the group and later its youth leader.
Rosa Parks was a seamstress in Montgomery. She worked sewing clothes from the nineteen thirties until nineteen fifty-five. Then she became a representation of freedom for millions of African-Americans.
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VOICE ONE:
In much of the American South in the nineteen fifties, the first rows of seats on city buses were for white people only. Black people sat in the back of the bus. Both groups could sit in a middle area. However, black people sitting in that part of the bus were expected to leave their seats if a white person wanted to sit there.
Rosa Parks and three other black people were seated in the middle area of the bus when a white person got on the bus and wanted a seat. The bus driver demanded that all four black people leave their seats so the white person would not have to sit next to any of them. The three other blacks got up, but Missus Parks refused. She was arrested.
Some popular stories about that incident include the statement that Rosa Parks refused to leave her seat because her feet were tired. But she herself said in later years that this was false. What she was really tired of, she said, was accepting unequal treatment. She explained later that this seemed to be the place for her to stop being pushed around and to find out what human rights she had, if any.
VOICE TWO:
A group of black activist women in Montgomery was known as the Women’s Political Council. The group was working to oppose the mistreatment of black bus passengers. Blacks had been arrested and even killed for violating orders from bus drivers. Rosa Parks was not the first black person to refuse to give up a seat on the bus for a white person. But black groups in Montgomery considered her to be the right citizen around whom to build a protest because she was one of the finest citizens of the city.
The women’s group immediately called for all blacks in the city to refuse to ride on city buses on the day of Missus Parks’s trial, Monday, December fifth. The result was that forty thousand people walked and used other transportation on that day.
That night, at meetings throughout the city, blacks in Montgomery agreed to continue to boycott the city buses until their mistreatment stopped.
They also demanded that the city hire black bus drivers and that anyone be permitted to sit in the middle of the bus and not have to get up for anyone else.
VOICE ONE:
The Montgomery bus boycott continued for three hundred eighty-one days. It was led by local black leader E.D. Nixon and a young black minister, Martin Luther King, Junior. Similar protests were held in other southern cities. Finally, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on Missus Parks’s case. It made racial separation illegal on city buses. That decision came on November thirteenth, nineteen fifty-six, almost a year after Missus Parks’s arrest. The boycott in Montgomery ended the day after the court order arrived, December twentieth.
Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Junior had started a movement of non-violent protest in the South. That movement changed civil rights in the United States forever. Martin Luther King became its famous spokesman, but he did not live to see many of the results of his work. Rosa Parks did.
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VOICE TWO:
Life became increasingly difficult for Rosa Parks and her family after the bus boycott.
Rosa Parks and President Clinton after he presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996
Rosa Parks and President Clinton after he presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996
She was dismissed from her job and could not find another. So the Parks family left Montgomery. They moved first to Virginia, then to Detroit, Michigan. Missus Parks worked as a seamstress until nineteen sixty-five. Then, Michigan Representative John Conyers gave her a job working in his congressional office in Detroit. She retired from that job in nineteen eighty-eight.
Through the years, Rosa Parks continued to work for the NAACP and appeared at civil rights events. She was a quiet woman and often seemed uneasy with her fame. But she said that she wanted to help people, especially young people, to make useful lives for themselves and to help others. In nineteen eighty-seven, she founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development to improve the lives of black children.
Rosa Parks received two of the nation’s highest honors for her civil rights activism. In nineteen ninety-six, President Clinton honored her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And in nineteen ninety-nine, she received the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor.
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VOICE ONE:
In her later years, Rosa Parks was often asked how much relations between the races had improved since the civil rights laws were passed in the nineteen sixties. She thought there was still a long way to go. Yet she remained the face of the movement for racial equality in the United States.
Rosa Parks died on October twenty-fourth, two thousand five. She was ninety-two years old. Her body lay in honor in the United States Capitol building in Washington. She was the first American woman to be so honored. Thirty thousand people walked silently past her body to show their respect.
Representative Conyers spoke about what this woman of quiet strength meant to the nation. He said: “There are very few people who can say their actions and conduct changed the face of the nation. Rosa Parks is one of those individuals.”
VOICE TWO:
Rosa Parks meant a lot to many Americans. Four thousand people attended her funeral in Detroit, Michigan. Among them were former President Bill Clinton, his wife Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
President Clinton spoke about remembering the separation of the races on buses in the South when he was a boy. He said that Rosa Parks helped to set all Americans free. He said the world knows of her because of a single act of bravery that struck a deadly blow to racial hatred.
Earlier, the religious official of the United States Senate spoke about her at a memorial service in Washington. He said Rosa Parks’s bravery serves as an example of the power of small acts. And the Reverend Jesse Jackson commented in a statement about what her small act of bravery meant for African-American people. He said that on that bus in nineteen fifty-five, “She sat down in order that we might stand up… and she opened the doors on the long journey to freedom.”
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VOICE ONE:
This program was written by Nancy Steinbach. It was produced by Lawan Davis. I’m Pat Bodnar.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another People in America program on the Voice of America.
