By Al Muskewitz

Rodney Timms is a man of many talents and interests – and causes.

And the cause he champions these days is a very personal one.

Timms is a poet, published author and president of Oklahoma-based Western Flyer Xpress. In addition to all those pursuits, he’s also the founder of ATTACA – All Truckers Together Against Child Abuse – a grassroots national organization whose mission is to bring awareness to a plight he calls an overlooked “cancer of our country.”

The 66-year-old Timms knows intimately of what he speaks. He’s a child abuse survivor himself, suffering at the hands of an alcoholic father who at the worst of it attempted to kill him, and believes it’s his calling to make the world aware of this atrocity “that’s ruining our nation from the inside out.” He doesn’t buy being an alcoholic or an abuse victim oneself as an excuse for such behavior.

Timms, who is currently working on his fourth book on his experiences, has been an activist for child abuse awareness for several years but only recently took the effort nationwide.

“I struggled with it probably until I was 45 years old and wrote my first book and it took me 15 years to write it,” he said. “Once I got it written it was like a million pounds were lifted off my shoulders. I encourage people to write about (their experience) all the time, even if they have to write a letter to the parent, but get it out that way. It’s helped me tremendously.

“Along in there when I started realizing that God was going to be the only way I could learn to deal with this, it started changing my life. I have never been what you’d call a perfect Christian but I certainly believed that He’s there and He’s helped me through this because I don’t believe there’s any other way through it except through Him.

“Now it doesn’t bother me so much to talk about it because I’m fine, but I have to talk about it to make people understand what it’s like for those kids. I cannot sit in front of the TV and watch the news and watch those kids being abused and even killed because they’re children because I know how they feel and not sit by and do anything. I have to stand up and try to help those kids because it is so traumatic on them. We’re going to expose how bad child abuse is in this country.”

The statistics are staggering. The group’s website reports every year more than 3.6 million referrals are made to child protection agencies involving more than 6.6 million children. Approximately five children per day die from abuse and neglect, it says. Citing data from the national KIDS COUNT project, it claims 18 percent of children in the United States suffer from physical abuse, while 9 percent suffer sexual abuse – and that’s just the reported cases.

The group has gained more than 200 members over the last few months of its full-time launch and the numbers are growing steadily as awareness increases. He’d like to be at 1,000 members through their participation in a Unite Wichita for Trafficking event at the Word of Life Church in the Kansas city in mid-September.

It costs $25 a year to be a member of ATTACA, with the funds going to provide billboards and other signage along the nation’s interstates. The organization also has promotional items for sale on its website and welcomes outside donations, but Timms said he will not be influenced by any deep-pocketed benefactor into compromising or softening the facts of his message. 

Timms says truckers and trucking companies are in a unique position to spread the word because of their access to virtually every corner of the country. He’s trying to get as many as he can on board, but the coronavirus pandemic has limited his ability to meet with executives and drivers face-to-face to introduce the campaign, so for now they’re relying on exposure to spread the word.

“Truck drivers are heroes for our country and they can be heroes for ATTACA,” Timms said.

Western Flyer Xpress is leading the fight. Each of its nearly 2,200 trailers is outfitted with a 12-by-15-inch ATTACA decal on the back door and each of its 1,000 trucks carries a smaller decal above their ID letters identifying the driver as a “hero for ATTACA.” The company also has wrapped a trailer in the message and parks it out on I-40 as a billboard.

The trucking industry already is engaged in a robust campaign to spot and combat human trafficking, and child abuse is directly connected to that puzzle.

“What they’re leaving out is all that sex trafficking comes from abuse,” Timms said. “Kids are leaving homes by the thousands, running away, getting kidnapped off the streets because people figure out they’re not attached to anybody. When they do leave home on their own their self-esteem is so low they’re so easy manipulated and people take advantage of that. If we can get awareness about how bad the abuse is and start getting that curtailed, it’s going to cut way down on sex trafficking.”

It’s no coincidence the name of his organization sounds like the name of a famous prison.

“If you abuse your children that’s where you ought to be,” Timms said. “Then they say it’s got the word ‘attack’ in it and you’re talking about children. Let me make myself clear: We’re attacking child abuse since nobody else is. Our media is never going to tell people so I’ve got to tell them that it’s serious and it’s time that we all stood up and said enough is enough.”

Al Muskewitz is the Editor of Wright Media. He can be reached at musky@wrightmediacorp.com