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v^ClAckAMÄs P rint
Wednesday, April 19, 200.0
Clackamas Community College
Oregon City, Oregon
Volume XXXIII,-Issue 20
Healing emerges from Vietnam stories
H. Lee Barnes will read from his book
written about bis experiences in war
Friday, Barnes will read from one
of the stories in Gunning for Ho
titled A Lovely Day in the A Shau
Lee Barnes, a member of Valley. It’s about a group of Ameri­
the U.S. Army elite Spe­ can soldiers who are confronted
cial Forces during the Viet­ by a group of North Vietnamese
nam War, will read from his Army
book (NVA) soldiers and chal­
Gunning for Ho this Friday at noon lenged to a game of baseball. Dur­
ing the game, the NVA learn the
in the Gregory Forum.
Barnes, who spent 1966 in Tra strategies of the game from the
Bong, Vietnam, has said the char­ Americans and then change the
acters and stories in Gunning for rules to make the game impossible
Ho are based on his own experiences for the Americans to win.
“A Lovely Day in the A Shau
and are written from a unique view­
Valley acts as an allegory for the
point— one that lets us see the im­
pact of the war on individuals, in­ war and what we were up against,”
cluding the soldiers, their families Barnes has written. “ It was a war
and the enemy. The stories are where all the rules were
about relationships, strength and changed, where the sheer
weight of might was ren­
survival.
/
“The [one] aspect I saw surface dered hapless and what
was
supposed
to
be
a
in these stories was the notion of
healing, that these were not stories confrontation, a battle of
meant to accuse or acclaim, but skills, became a game of
rather to reconcile in some way that endurance—their body
seems irreconcilable,” Barnes has count versus ours.”
Barnes was bom in
written.
Almost 25 years have passed Texas but has lived in
since the fall of Saigon on April 30, Las Vegas for more
1975. That day marked the official than thirty years. He
end of U.S. involvement in the Viet­ worked as a deputy
nam War and the end of an era that sheriff, as a blackjack
would heavily impact the world that and roulette dealer and
as a private investiga­
came afterward.
“We left. We lost,” said Barnes, tor before earning his
“not because we lost battles, but master’s degree. He
because we fought a war that was now teaches English
never winnable. From that day (4- and creative writing at \
30-75) forward, American foreign the Community College of y
policy has been affected by that fact” Southern Nevada.
STEVE NIELSEN
Staff Writer
H
H. Lee Barnes will read
from his book Gunning
for Ho on campus this
Friday. Barnes was a
member of the U.S.
Army elite Special
Forces during the
Vietnam War.
Social Science instructor injured in auto accident
MAGGIE JIRASEK
Staff Writer
MIKE POLLOCK I Clackamas Print
Sandra Grossman, instructor, was recently injured in a car-accident
Fifteen days ago, Sandra
Grossman, a Clackamas social
science instructor, experienced a
life-changing, head-on automo­
bile collision that has left her in a
leg cast, a wheelchair, and an atti­
tude of gratitude.
“It’s an opportunity to really
hold close to the ones you love
and to recognize the beauty of be­
ing here,” Grossman explained.
The morning of April 4,
Grossman was driving westbound
on the Morrison St. Bridge when
an eastbound pickup truck made
an illegal lane change, lost con­
trol and crashed into her car. Al­
though Grossman suffered whip­
lash, a chest wall contusion and a
broken ankle, she is thankful
she’s alive.
“There was nothing I could do
at all,” explained Grossman. “I
didn’t have any time to avoid it. I
got my foot on the brake pedal
and I’m sure I slowed it down a
little bit, there was just no time.
“I was just sitting there and
watching it happen; I then saw
blue in front of me, and suddenly
I was pointed towards going off
the bridge. I started wondering,
how am I going to not go over the
bridge and then I thought, how
would I get out of the water?”
After both cars had stopped,
Grossman got her seatbelt off but
the car door wouldn’t open.
“I got trapped in the car, some­
body came over and asked me if I
was O.K. and I told them I
wasn’t,” Grossman explained.
“Someone else said, I don’t think
that’s smoke, I think that’s steam,
I don’t think it’s on fire yet. I was
really scared.”
After approximately 15 minutes,
a police car and the fire depart­
ment arrived. Grossman was taken
to the hospital where she was
kept for hours.
“They x-rayed everything that
was potentially broken; after that
I could go home,” Grossman
stated. “We had a terrible time get­
ting me in the house. We have a
sofa downstairs that’s not very
comfortable, but since I wasn’t
able to climb up the stairs, that
was home for a week.”
Last Friday Grossman returned
to Clackamas, but her life is dif­
ferent.
“I am not able to do all the
things I normally would be doing
and I won’t be doing them for
quite a while,” she said.
Her accident not only affects
Grossman’s personal life but also
her work as a teacher.
See Grossman, page 3