Editor, After being away from Hinesville for more than 20 years, I was anxious about moving back home. What would be the same? What would be different? What a surprise! It’s all the same and all different at the same time.
Fort Stewart sure has grown. It has given us a lot of brave and courageous men and women who are serving us and our country with pride.
I was so pleased to find our community and businesses are doing all what they can to support and serve them in return.
I would have thought all the long-time local families would be somewhat disgruntled by the zillions of plazas, pawn shops and traffic nightmares that such growth has brought. But that is not the case at all. The growth is only in size and not attitude.
The small town I grew up in is still here, supporting and embracing the large town that has grown around it. Friends and families are still just as close as they ever were. Only now, these families are reaching out to welcome new friends and new families.
From all over the country they come and go. Each unique but all are welcomed.
So what is different? Size. What’s the same? “Good old Southern hospitality.”
It’s good to be home.

Jim Turner
Walthourville