NEWS FEATURES
Marine’s daughter
remembers ‘a hero’
By Jennifer Powell
■The Brcere
James Madison U.
Like many students away from home,
Chrissv Higgins has a picture of her
father on her desk
Hut pictures of this James Madison U.
sophomore’s father were shown to the
world
The picture on Chrissv's desk is one of
a smiling Marine, Lt. Col. William It
Higgins Chrissv's father was kidnapped
in lobanon Feb. 17, 1988 while on duty
as part of a I'N peacekeeping force, and
apparently murdered about a year-and
a-half later.
The picture on her desk was published
in Newsweek on Feb 29, 1988
This is the picture by which Chrissv
wants to remember her father
“1 want people to remember him like
he was: carefree, in a Marine shirt and
shorts," she said
“1 was so angry," Chnssy said, upon
learning of her father's murder “1 was
hurt Any emotion you can think of, 1 was
feeling.”
Before the group that was holding
William Higgins hostage released the
videotape of her dead father, they threat
ened several times to kill him Chnssy
first heard that her father actually might
have been killed from a counselor at the
dnv camp where she worked A friend
heard the news on the radio, the coun
selor said m a phone call to Chrissy.
She had been watching the Cable
News Network, hut no news had been
released Soon after, an announcement
was made that a videotape of William
Higgins would be broadcast.
She called her stepmother, also a
Marine, at the Pentagon, hut still could
not learn anything definite.
At 1:30 pin. on CBS, the videotape was
broadcast tothe nation. It showed a man.
clothed in a U.S Marine uniform, hang
mg by a noose.
Noonekneu if the Marine on the tape
had been dead before he was hanged or
not, and Chrissy says she has not been
told anything since the death (if her
father was first announced
The date of his death still has not
been determined
Chrissy's parents divorced when she
was 5 years old, and she moved in with
her father at age 11 She enjoyed the
“normal” relationship she had with her
father, from their activities to his father
ly advice
"I looked up to him." she said "1
admired him for his job, but he was just
a normal dad We had our ups and we
had our downs,’ she said.
"Our big thing was to go to horror
movies, to go to dinner, to stay up late and
LAWRENCE JACKSON, THE BREEZE JAMES MAD S \
Chnssy Higgins and a portrait of her father, who was killed in Lebanon in 1988.
watch TV Just normal things," she said.
When her father first went to Lebanon,
Chrissy's first reaction was frustration.
It was the beginning of her senior year
in high school.
“I wanted him there to see me gradu
ate." she said “1 wanted him there for
my birthday and Christmas. Just little
things
“Then 1 was completely shocked when
he was taken, because I hadjust assumed
that since he worked with the United
Nations, he would be protected and noth
ing like that would ever happen ”
Since February 1989, a year after her
father's kidnapping, Chrissy has worn a
Missing in Action bracelet with her
father’s name on her right wrist, she
said.
“I don't always know what to say when
someone says, “ ‘Oh, what’s that?’ ”
Chrissy recently wrote a letter to the
editor of People because her father w..
not mentioned in a “People of the '8(A
review the magazine recently pubhshe :
“It was hard on me because I felt.
Why doesn't that constitute an
American tragedy, why isn't that some
thing that people should think about
remember?” she said.
But the good memories also remain "1
think he was a hero in his own sense
Chrissy said. “To me, he was a hero from
the time 1 was 3 years old. It didn’t take
an incident like this for me to think he
was a hero.”
Church
Continued from page 1
university
1 iohman said he thought nothing of his
dissociation with his natural family and
friends until almost a year later, on July
•t, 1989, when he broke free from the C
U group
His newly found independence came
when his family educated themselves
about the local and national group and
became concerned for his well-being
They intervened with exit counselors —
social workers who make a career of
working with families and helping
members of groups they describe as
exclusive, mind-controlling or both.
At the end of the summer, Hohman
returned to campus for his sophomore
year and now characterizes the C-U
r
Church of Christ as a group of religious
addicts
“In the C V Church of Christ, every
single person in the church will live the
life of a religious addict, or else he or she
will be 'm sin’ and ‘struggling’ in the eyes
of the church "
"They really do persuade peo
ple to give up their dreams’’
— Todd Hohman,
Former Boston Church of
Christ Member
Hohman also contends, along with
other former members of the C-l
Church, that the church employs mind
control and manipulation tactics in its
teachings
Ken Long, the church's lead evangelist
of the C-U church, savs neither are hap
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pening in his church If church methods
were unethical, he added, church mem
bership would be dropping rather than
increasing.
"We sold our church on Lincoln
Avenue because we outgrew it" with a
combined campus and community mem
bership of more than 200, he said. “We
believe in positive pressure, not nega- 1
live "
Fellow member and Champaign resi
dent Kathleen McCartney, 27. also refut
ed claims that the church is manipula
tive After dropping out of school in St.
Louis, she “came here willingly, to work
for the church and to share my faith,”
McCartney said.
Phii Kan/., senior in engineering, was
a member of the C-U Church of Christ
from March 1986 until July 1988.
“If you would ask any of the members,
they'll refute using mind control because
they don't perceive it as mind control,”
Kunz said. “They just don’t see it.
“If you really believe you’re on a mis
sion from God and if you go to their five
or more meetings every week, and if you
really believe you’re saving souls, then
everything else pales by comparison.”
McCartney acknowledges that church
members influenced her decision to drop
out of school.
“In college, 1 wanted to go into paint
ing, but it required so much studio time
that I had to make a choice between that
and the church,” she said.
Hohman said he had signed up and
paid for a trip with the Illini Ski Club
just before he joined the C-U Church.
After he was converted, however, he was
told unequivocally not to go.
"I was convinced by many that if I went
on the tnp, I would somehow fall into
some deep sin and fall away from the
church That was $600 down the drain."
he said.
Hohman said at one time he was seri
ously considering studying in Germai -
for a year. According to Hohman. tL
campus minister for the C-U Church foi
bade him to go, saying. “ 'We have :
i Boston) Church there.'
“They really do persuade people to give
up their dreams," he said.
But Long said he does not recall the
same details of the situation that
Hohman does. “It was his free choice :
make."
Despite Long’s rebuttals of these stu
dents claims, university administrate
say they have heard stories about the (
U Church of Christ similar to those o:
Hohman and Kunz.
FrankNasca, an associate dean of stu
dents who often deals with religious
organizations, said, “This is apparenth
a very controlling organization, and we
are greatly concerned about its effects or.
our students.”
Steve Shoemaker, director of the
Presbyterian campus ministry, the
McKinley Foundation, says that while
working with the Dean of Student.
Office, he was receiving “at least one
complaint every two weeks about the l ■
U group — as recently as this summer
Many observers of the church stress
that college students, being fairly open
to new ideas, are targeted heavily for
recruitment.
After a newcomer has come to meet
ings and has started to take part in the
one-on-one Bible studies, he or she is
taken through a short but rigorous series
of studies that lead up to the newcomer's
eventual baptism in tne C-U Church, for
mer members say.
Kunz said the “cross study” is “the one
that makes you feel horrible. They take