From: Gary Hunt at the Outpost of Freedom
Ron Cole
June 11, 1997
I met Ron Cole shortly after I returned to Florida from Waco. Ron and I had been in touch via Prodigy, and he was going to be in Florida. We arranged a meeting at a Denny's, in Winter Park, Florida -- and spent nearly three hours, that first meeting, talking over Waco and many other issues.
Ron was extremely interested in what really happened at Waco. He and a number of other Coloradians had thought of going to Waco, armed, but never got around to it. Ron had the remorse of inaction that I have seen all over the country. A sort of guilt for allowing what happened on April 19 to have happened.
Before that first meeting concluded, I had given Ron a number of contacts, both patriot and Davidian, to look up when he arrived in Texas. I assured him that I would be back to Texas by months end. We parted, and I felt that I had met a good, trustworthy patriot.
When I arrived at Dewey Millay's house, on my return to Waco, Ron had already become a friend and guest. He gave me a copy of a poem written by he and Al Hassett of Florida. The Death of Liberty has remained with me since then.
During this stay, the Davidians had been given a copy of Linda Thompson's "Waco, The big Lie."I still remember watching the video at the Brittany Hotel, with Ron and a number of the Davidians. I was so intent on the flame throwing tank, what I perceived to be truth of a circumstance consistent with our believe that the government had started the fire, but that had eluded me since the ordeal of watching the events of April 19.
After viewing it, and while talking to the Davidians, something kept gnawing at me. Something was wrong with the footage, but I couldn't put my finger on it.
I borrowed the video and returned to Dewey's. After watching the sequence over and over, the reality finally came to me. This was not a flamethrowing tank. Later, I showed Ron and Dewey the footage and explained the deficiencies: No black carbonic smoke, such as the flame-throwers I had witnessed in Vietnam No dripping Naphtha, a characteristic of all flame-throwers the location on the tank, in real life, always forward, extended beyond the chassis of the tank to avoid "cooking those inside the immediacy of the shut down, not the lingering flame characteristic of what I had experienced before and, no apparent fire at the location of the entry.
Ron and Dewey had their doubts, and it wasn't until months later when I obtained a copy of Mike McNulty's footage of the same entry, was I able to convince the two of them./ They did, however, after this first viewing, agree to refrain from supporting the Big Lie video -- since it had numerous other "Lies"in its content.
A few months later, I was traveling through Waco on my way to California. I was with Linda Issel, girlfriend of Peter Tscherneff, who had been arrested for "kidnapping"his son to get him away from a Michael Aquino affiliated day care center. I was going to continue covering this story that I had been covering since before Waco. Linda and I had discussed the possibility of doing "extended"investigation into Satanic Ritual, which could pose some risk. If Linda decided to fund this more extensive work, I would need some on cover my back-side. Ron and I discussed the possibility, and I was convinced that Ron would be up to the task. Had the investigation gone that course, Ron would have been hired as my assistant.
It was a few months later, after I had returned from the Golden Hill Paugeesukq Reservation in Connecticut, that I ran into Ron, again. We were both in Las Vegas for the Soldier of Fortune Convention. Ron, prior to arriving in Vegas, had been a guest on the Bo Gritz radio program. I had called in about the flame throwing tank, in support of Ron's position of "not sure", and emphasizing my own. Ron and Bo asked me to remain on the air for the remainder of the show.
Ron arrived in Vegas a few days later. We spent quite a bit of time discussing what we had learned since the previous May, and had sort of a homecoming with some of the Davidians that were able to attend the Conference.
On May 13, I received a letter from Dewey explaining what he knew of Ron's arrest from having just talked with him. Although I had not spoken to Ron, yet, I was able to begin to picture what had happened. The letter spoke of an informant, which has become a common element in arrests nowadays. Dewey's letter.
How did we get here? , a message from Ron Cole
Letter from Ron Cole, May 19, 1997
The Warrants and affidavit which resulted in Ron's arrest, the search and theft of his property.
"Timothy McVeigh is going to be murdered"-- written by Ron Cole from Littleton Federal Correctional Facility, Colorado, June 1997.
Return to Outpost of Freedom homepage
Return to Journal of the Times 