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About Sandy post. (Sandy, Oregon) 1938-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 7, 1982)
• • » •■» * The Slfndy Post Editorial & Opinion Von Braschler. Publisher Caroline Duff, Office Monoger Dan Dillon, Editor Scott Newton, News Editor SANDY. OREGON THURSDAY. JANUARY 7. 1982 The Innocent Bystander: H it squads tilt world power ’,< *” ? Wl It was a dark chill evening in the winter of 1989 I was taking a shortcut through an alley in Washington's Embassy Row when a sinister figure loomed up before me Could it be Yes’ Carlos the Rascal! I recognized the international master of disguise immediately for he quickly changed from a short, chunky Ap palachian woodcutter to a tall, lean Gimbel s toaster salesman before my eyes With a deft movement, he fanned a pack of documents and held them out “ Pick a passport.” he said cunningly "Pick any passport ” "You can't fool me, Carlos," I said "What brings you and your Phynkian hit squad to Washington’’ " “ You haven't read the papers'’ " he demanded "Your President Muckross has seen fit to double your import duties on variegated gerbils " I was stunned Was our president mad** The Rattdom of Phynkia <population 1831 produced only two commodities rocks and variegated gerbils Its hereditary ruler, the Ratt, had but one source of hard currency the four gerbils he exported to the U S each year Increasing our tariffs could ruin him "Y es.” said Carlos, who as now wearing a morning coat and striped trousers. “ I personally delivered a diplomatic note to your secretary of state this afternoon It said that if the tariff was not withdrawn, the Rattdom of Phynkia was prepared to declare (here, he paused for effect) hit squad'” I shuddered Once hit squad had been declared, there would be no turning back The conflict would not be resolved until our hitsquad took care of the Ratt or his hits quad No, the consequences were too awful to comtemplate A decade earlier, of course, such a con frontation would have meant war But that was before Colonel Moammar Khadafy won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982. U H M While other nations, including the U.S., were believed to have employed hitsquads in the past, it was Khadafy who showed the world how effectively they could be used The very rumor that he had dispatched one to this country panicked Washington far more than the mere threat of a ther monuclearwar Overnight, Khadafy'sarid little nation of three million souls became the equal of the American goliath The lesson was not lost on other small countries None was so small that it could not manage to pul together a six man hit squad to take care of foreign affairs and a vigilent bodyguard to provide for the na tional leader's defense And thus the small countries could no longer be pushed around by the super powers Indeed, one of the mightiest na tions on earth was now the Republic of Ar- tgum, whose fanatic hit squad, the Artgum Erasers, was feared in capitals around the globe Armies were naturally disbanded With a hit squad, who needed an army** For as war was once the logical extension of politics, as von Clausewitz suggested, the logical extension of politics was now the hit squad, So nuclear weapons were anachronisms, battlships a joke and tanks an obscenity With half a trillion dollars saved each year on armaments, peace and prosperity ran amok Of course it wasn’t all peaches and cream I glanced hesitantly at Carlos, who was by now a railroad engineer "If. . . If it comes to hit squad," I asked nervously, "what will you do yo President Muckross?" He glared at me with the cold, cruel eyes of a born terrorist. "We w ill," he said, flip ping away his cigarette, "let the air out of his tires,” Poor President Muckross! Poor national leaders everywhere How careful they were these days to say only nice things about each other Yet when it came to hit squad, they were the ones to suffer To be sure, since time immemorial, it was they, not we, who extended politics beyond the bounds of propriety It was they, no, we, who stirred up emotions and sent us off to fight and die for them So that's another good thing they can say for hit squad Better them than us Wall Street report: N EW YORK — Pssst: dangerous criminals at work Their hideout: an innocent-looking home, possibly on your street Their aliases Mom, Dad, Sis. Son ny Their tools blank videotap«* and video cassette recorder Their crime: recording with the shades drawn a telecast of “ Gone With the Wind " «W •S But If you and the kids can now ap p a re n tly re co rd ’ ’C itiz e n K a n e ,’ ’ “Casablanca" and "The African Queen in safety 'even with the shud«*s open to f«<deral inspection), Hollywood is still pushing Washington to levy royalty Iw s on the producers of recorders and blank tap«** who make your little game possible And in that area. McC Mathias ( R . Md ), a rank mg member of the Judiciary Committee already has submitted an amendment that would impose such (••«» it; H's become a top movie industry priori ty for the new year As Jack J Valent,, president of the Motion Picture Associa tion of America, put it to me. "There is no objection by film makers for families to tape a program from their TV i t in the privacy of their homes Who, we do care about, very strongly, is the right of tluiae who create, produce and copyright American entertainment to be com pen sated for the use of their property by the manufacturers who profit from it " In pursuit of this effort, Valenti heads a new ‘Coalition Io Preserve the American Copyright that it attempting to rally both the film and television Industrie", in eluding their labor forces. to ba,11« Sony and other Japanese VCR manufacturers The argument is that growing use of VCRs threatens to shrink residual revenue ac rrued from the showing of movies on com mere is I and cable TV How tag is this alleged threat’ Well, it’s certainly building fast more than a third ot those three million (J 8 VCRs were void in 198«, and industry observer« forecast ISM sales as high as 18 million seta t Public involvement pays big here All help clean! I'm writing this note in response to the comments made by Barbara Nutter regarding cleanliness of the local laundramat in Sandy For me, the issue isn't whether the building is clean or not, but how an in dividual can evoke a possi ble change in any given situation without publicly em barrassing someone P u b lic c h a s tis e m e n t sometimes is the only op tion available, if pnvate and consistent complaints are ignored In this case, a simple note to the owner would have been more gracious and tactful It is always wise to ask yourself how you would like to be treated in the same cir- cumstances-’ Judging by the amount of people frequenting this facility, it must be quite difficult to m aintain a p erfe ct atm osphere of order, and 1 seriously doubt anyone is expecting it. As long as the w ashing machines and dryeis work and the place is reasonably free of litter, the owner has fulfilled his obligation to the public The customer also cannot escape a sense of responsibility for con tributing to the problem of disorder In otherwords. clean up your own act, America, and maybe clean living will become a reality Linda Fredricksen Rhododendron Chartity shown On behalf of the Sandy Kiwanis Club I wish to ex press our thanks to the many people and organiza tions th at c o n trib u ted money, food and toys to help us make it possible for more than 140 families in o ur a re a to re c e iv e Christm as baskets this year Thanks to students in Sandy High and Cedar Ridge Schools who always come through with their canned food drives, the VFW with cash and toys and the Mt Hood Mudders who are always available to help deliver the baskets to the more remote areas A special thanks also to Pete Sulzbach for many hours spent in the organiza tion and to AI and Helen Lamke for the repair and storage of many of the toys. This is a community wide effort that is repaid by the thanks of basket reci pients Darrel Dempster, presi dent Sandy Kiwanis Club Mail speeded With the Christmas m ail ing season now behind us, the entire staff of the Sandy Post Office wishes to ex press our appreciation for the excellent cooperation we received from your newspaper in helping us urge the public to shop and mail early during the last several weeks. Thanks to your effort and the excellent cooperation of our residents, we were able to handle the holiday mail volume without any dif ficulty Allow me to men tion, too, that our success was due also to the dedica tio n of our p o s tal employees who worked long hours to make sure all mail was delivered in time for Christmas Again, thank you for your help in making this holiday season one of the most suc cessful ever for Sandy. A E Becker Sandy Postmaster LETTERS POLICY The Post asks that all letters to the ed ito r be typ ed , double-spaced and signed. Deadline is noon. Tuesday. Let ters should be ac c u r a te . free of libelous remarks and In good taste. Personally speaking Home movie pirates warned Sound silly to you’ With some three million video cassette recorders ( VCRs) in the U S today, It's beginning to sound silly or at least hopeless even to aggrieved movie makers Indeed, a bill dropp«‘d in the Senate hopper shortly before year end would courageously exempt the typical American family from criminal pros«*cu tion for having a VCR in the home (Gee, that was c I om *. wasn't R?) Letters to the editor: Two relat«*d markets are burgeoning space (1) domestic sal«» of blank vid«*o cassettes, which range between 112 and 119. totaled 9232 million in 1980 (based on nearly 20 million cassettes) and are ex peeled to approximate a billion dollars in 1984 ( based on nearly 75 million cassettes I, and (2) prerecorded movie cassettes, such as “ Annie H all," "Raging Bull” and ’ Rocky,’’ are sold or rented by vide«» retailers for prices ranging from 950 to 98ti for each purchase and a few dollars a day for a rental (The movie studios earn a royalty fee on an average of 97 for a cassette sale, but are not compensated by the retailers in the booming rental market I How often does an American family per form that dastardly act of r«*cording a movie off the a ir’ All to often, according to Hollywood Valenti cites a survey repor ting tha, 52 8 percent of VCR owners use their equipment to record films for their entertainment library (Even more un patriotivealy nearly 84 percent said they ’ skip" commercials when taping films l>on t these suhaersives care about the level of deordorant sales in America’ ) Hollywood's tangled legal battle against VCRs, charging copyright infringement, is currently beading toward the Supreme ( ’our, though Congress may act first The fight takes on overtones of xenophobia tim e virtually all VCRs and blank cassette» sold in the U S are manufactured in Japan, even though many are marketed here under such domestic bhels as RCA, GE or Sears But Valenti points out that other countries, notably West Germany and Austria, already have acted to protect their enter tajnmenl Industrie*« against uncompen sated home recordings He'd like a law that would establish a royalty fee to be paid by importers and manufacturers of VCRs and tapes to he distributed annually to copyright owners Mom and Dad might have to pay a little more for their «quip men, bu, they'd then be able to hit the ’ record' button in peace tPhew !) Dozen years melt Saigon’s images This new year's eve and yuletide were fun like most others, hut I couldn't help remembering a more »«»mber observance a dozen years ago The distance and hundred degree warmth made lovely Viet nam m v iii so unlike a holiday set ting Periodic "police actions" also re m in d e d c h e e rfu l Americans we were close to war Those occasions in the nine to- five war didn't stop us in the “ comfort zone" five miles from the combat zone from afternoon volleyball games. The five foot Vietnam friendlies always won, by the way. Nor did evening fireworks at the edge of Saigon frighten those of us in the securi ty of five story hotels from slipp ing downtown for fun times and drinks til dawn Somehow the bombs bursting in air never seemed real to us who watched the colorful display with July Fourth amusement from our uirernesh hotel windows The Navy hotel down the street where we lunched was bombed one otherwise quiet afternoon, hut that didn't phase us A local turncoat Viet Cong drew a pistol on me on a streetcorner ice cream stand one Sunday but that also seemed unreal. What s«*emed real was the F ri day I forged my Karmen Giua through a foot of Seattle snow Christmas, 1989. to report for overseas duty Training in that much snow was had enough, but orders for Vietnam duty seemed horrid Saigon also was recouperating from its Chinese version of new year's cetobration a backstab by northern brothers in a broken truce that nearly turned Saigon over to the enemy The surprise of the ruthless Tet Offensive left the city of hundred degree heat strangely cold We fresh replacement troops, h ow ever, noticed only the strangely barren, quiet streets I rem em b er wondering aloud where the three million native in habitants lived They were hud died in nameless alleyways bet by VON BRASCHLER ween streets, eating rats and drinking from polluted street hydrants Vietnam was a beautiful land, despite the war We Americans, like summer tourists, never felt closer to it than transients who played out "W alter M itty” frauds to live through our jobs and leave No American I me, there really felt a part of the country or committed to the war cause The boys in the base camps and fire support bases, however, fought pretty tough to save their own hide But that was a personal bat tie for self preservation. Not that we didn't make per sonal friends there, though But every time you d befriend a stray <k»g it would turn up eaten the next day Every time you'd befriend a native be d turn up dead or move during the night Every day w ed live out our lies as alien Americans trying to feel good about our stay Almost daily award assemblies for departing soldiers would draw a five minute unmoved crowd of troops who already had medals or ex pected medals, which they later stashed with forgotten trinkets in some duffle bags At one routine award ceremony I met Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham's son whose lot overseas was to photograph awarded soldiers for the Army newspaper Since The Post published Pentagon Papers that soured war sentiment. I wonder bow young Graham now Post publisher feels about the war to day The real power on our military compound, aside from the general who advised General Minh next door, was the fellow who carried the coffee pot’s clothes pin valve in his pocket. When the 30-cup pot lost its original handle to an overzelous soldier one long day, the clothes pin became the perm anent substitute The Army base and all its interpreters, political ad visors, m ilitary geniuses and radio communicators ran on the drug of the bean The guy who never wanted to run dry on those boring 10-hour shifts stole the clothes pin and sole rights to tap the coffee keg I remember lots of Walter M it ty unreal scenes like interroga tion of ig n o ran t peasants, children and old men who cleared the streets after 10 p m curfew with M 16 rifles and a high-speed chase at near ground level after a phi .tom company or 100-200 Noi *h Vietnamese Nationals who popped out of the myst«?rious undergrot d tunnels only to d is a p p e a r a g a in 1 even remember, as though in a dream, seeing one of the first copters to depart for Cambodia - the buffer country we once vowed not to in volve in war W hat I most re m e m b e r, however, was the daily ritual of posting “ kills" on a sort of scoreboard for the generals' mor ning briefing, a catered affair in a pill box secure compound For months I transferred pen ciled numbers onto a clear plastic board with color coded grease pencils Red stood for Com munis,. of course. It was my clerical task to keep score of how many Americans. NVA, Viet Cong and south Vietnamese friendlies had been killed the day before The chart also recorded by color the number of Vietnam provinces cu rren tly held by American and friendly troops versus provinces dominated by northern Communists The numbers rarely changed, and the green "safe” provinces always equaled or exceeded the number of red Communist pro vinces /m a lty a battle-wise cap tain from a nearby fire support base set me straight on the fraud. Since this new year eclipses the 12-year seal on such classified documents I now can assure you th a t my color-coded d a ily scoreboard was fixed. When public anti war sentiment forced the Congress to put a squeeze p la y on w a r finances, the m ilitary brass apparently were forced to show daily results or abandon the war effort The ugliness of blanket bombing, Lyndon Johnson’s quick victory approach, was taken from their arsenal But the truth remains that our allied effort in Vietnam never won and held as much ground as we publicly claimed The same captain that fed me penciled numbers to compile the daily scoreboard showed me how fewer than half the provinces we claim ed as "friendly" should have been marked in red But that fact never mean, much, because the whole chart was only a bunch of transcribed numbers written in grease pencil by a kid in Saigon Like dominoes stacked too close for comfort. Vietnam fell with nearby countries close behind But that didn't seem real either, since the domino theory sold by defence-minded John Kennedy and Richard Nixon in p res id e n tial debates before millions were simply theories heard on an impersonal T V screen If Vietnamese allies took our committment too seriously, they should by now realize that American presidents hold in fluence only four ye an . Soma are shot down even sooner
