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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 7, 2016)
30 Wednesday, September 7, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon Veteran receives Purple Heart after 51 years Park district, landowner draft new Mirror Pond agreement By kathy aney East Oregonian BEND (AP) — Bend parks officials will consider an agreement next week to improve Mirror Pond. The Bulletin reports Mirror Pond Solutions LLC owns the land beneath the water. Bend Park & Recreation District officials have the agreement on their Tuesday agenda. The agreement spells out next steps on Mirror Pond for the company as well as the Bend Park & Recreation District. Pacific Power decided in June to retain ownership of the dam that creates the pond, prompting the need for the new agreement. An earlier agreement was based on Pacific Power shift- ing ownership. The new agreement says Mirror Pond Solutions will donate its land beneath the pond to the district once work is finished. Proposals are being requested to design and com- plete bank restoration work around the pond. PENDLETON (AP) — Decades after a helicopter blade struck Ron Esselstyn’s head, he finally received his Purple Heart. The Pendleton soldier almost died 51 years ago in Vietnam at age 22 after an Army helicopter carry- ing him and other soldiers landed in a rice paddy and Esselstyn hopped out. When a Viet Cong sniper popped up from the weeds, the sol- dier jumped off balance into the chopper’s moving tail rotor. The blade hit with such force that it mashed part of Esselstyn’s fiberglass helmet into his brain, reported the East Oregonian. His parents got a telegram calling their son’s prognosis “guarded.” When he awoke, speech eluded him. His doc- tors suspected he would never walk again. The Pendleton man, once called “The Cat” by basket- ball teammates, surprised everyone by not only walk- ing, but eventually running more than 100 marathons. He finished college and started a career as a tax appraiser at the Umatilla County Assessor’s Office. Esselstyn didn’t receive his Purple Heart. The veteran believed he wasn’t eligible because he was technically an “advisor,” not a combat troop. Possibly he was passed over because of a misun- derstanding of Army regu- lation, which bars soldiers from receiving Purple Hearts for vehicular accidents that www.NuggetNews.com Lazy Z Ranch weren’t caused by enemy action. L a s t y e a r, O r e g o n Department of Veteran’s Affairs Operations Director Ed Van Dyke began research- ing Esselstyn’s service record and found that he was eligi- ble for the Purple Heart and seven other medals, ribbons and badges. On a Thursday afternoon in August at the Jonathan M. Wainwright Memorial VA Medical Center in Walla Walla, the 73-year-old vet- eran finally got his medals in front of a crowd of about 75 gathered in the Outpatient Center Atrium. Esselstyn sat in his wheel- chair, wearing a black ball cap emblazoned with the image of a helicopter and the date of the incident, August 27, 1965. His hat covered the flat, runway-shaped surface left behind after reconstruc- tive surgery to fix the place where the rotor sheared off part of his skull. He listened as Van Dyke said he first learned of Esselstyn’s story from an East Oregonian arti- cle a year ago. “As I read the article chronicling Ron’s amaz- ing story, I knew I had to do whatever I could do to ensure he received the honors and recognitions he deserved,” Van Dyke said. Van Dyke collected a thick file on Ron from the Army archives and sent the evi- dence to the Secretary of the Army last March. 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The speakers included childhood friends, a junior high basketball coach, Sen. Bill Hansell (who worked with Esselstyn at the Umatilla County Courthouse) and a VA medical team that Sue Esselstyn has dubbed “Team Hope” for their car- ing. One of the nurses on the team, Lonna Lobe, addressed Ron. “You take care of some patients that forever touch you,” she said. “You and Sue will always be in my heart.” A Parteership Beyoed Your Expectatioes Stop by aed visit with Tiaea Vae Laeduyt & Shelley Marsh. 220 S. 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