Tuesday, November 8, 2022 A7
REDMOND SPOKESMAN
Write to us: news@redmondspokesman.com
OUR VIEW
Saving one
of Central
Oregon’s
fine jewels
T
he Deschutes River is one of the greatest free
shows in Central Oregon. The thing is alive with
movement, light, people and creatures.
It’s also in trouble.
There’s more water allocated in the Deschutes Basin
than there is water.
Unlined, open canals can lose half the water diverted
into them from the Deschutes River.
The surge in flows in the summer to support irriga-
tion and the dramatic dropoff in winter produce a river
system that can be devastating to the creatures that try to
make the river area home.
But there is progress in turning a 100-year-old canal
system designed to make things grow in a desert into a
system that works for people, farmland and wildlife.
Central Oregon Irrigation District completed a 7.9-
mile canal piping project this year from Redmond to
Smith Rock.
It will mean more water diverted from the river gets
where it is intended to go. It will mean improved river
flows in the Upper Deschutes where wild fluctuations in
river flows is one of the reasons the Oregon Spotted Frog
is a threatened species.
The 21 cubic feet per second conserved by piping will
aid North Unit Irrigation District farmers, who are lo-
cated around Madras. And in turn, an additional 21 cu-
bic feet per second will be available to be released from
North Unit’s Wickiup Reservoir into the Upper De-
schutes upriver from Bend to help restore that critical
habitat.
It’s not enough. It is progress.
The goal under the Habitat Conservation Plan that the
basin’s irrigation districts and more signed on to is for
300 cubic feet per second by 2028 with minimum flows
of 100 cubic feet per second. Another 21 is progress to-
ward the goal.
We hope not, but the basin may experience more years
of drought. That means meeting that 300 cubic feet per
second goal doesn’t get easier.
Piping projects need to continue. More irrigation im-
provement projects are needed. And we hope ideas like
the water banking pilot program between Central Or-
egon Irrigation District and North Unit will thrive. It
helps move more water from where it is not needed to
where it is.
Piping is tremendously expensive. The COID project
came in with a total price of about $30 million. Most of
it was federal dollars. Some of it was state money. But the
river benefits, the creatures benefit and we benefit when
we ensure every drop counts.
Editorials reflect the views of the Spokesman’s editorial board,
Publisher Heidi Wright and Editor Tim Trainor.
WRITE TO US
Letters policy: We welcome your letters. Letters should be limited to
one issue, contain no more than 300 words and include the writer’s
phone number and address for verification. We edit letters for brevity,
grammar, taste and legal reasons. We reject poetry, personal attacks,
form letters, letters submitted elsewhere and those appropriate for
other sections of the spokesman.
Guest columns: your submissions should be between 600 and 800
words and must include the writer’s phone number and address for
verification. We edit submissions for brevity, grammar, taste and legal
reasons. We reject those submitted elsewhere.
How to submit:
• email is preferred: news@redmondspokesman.com
• or mail to: 361 sW sixth street, redmond or 97756
YOUR VIEWS
Lessons learned serving in
Alaska during Vietnam War
BY CARL VERTREES
“G
ood morning, Vietnam!”
Those are the words made
famous in 1987 by Robin Wil-
liams portraying Adrian Cronauer as an
Army disc jockey for Armed Forces Radio
in the motion picture by that name.
As we observe Veter-
ans Day in the United
States, I recall my role in
the Armed Forces Radio
at Elmendorf Air Force
Base in Anchorage,
Alaska, and the dissim-
ilarities with Specialist
Vertrees
Cronauer.
I don’t come from a
family with a long history of military ser-
vice, although two uncles served during
World War II. As I graduated from jour-
nalism school at the University of Wash-
ington in 1963, the scope of the conflict in
Vietnam was getting more severe.
Many of my fellow students and frater-
nity brothers were wary of what the imme-
diate future might hold. We had all regis-
tered for the draft at age 18.
I proceeded to my first post-college job
at the daily newspaper in Sitka, Alaska,
and married nine months later. By the
winter of 1966, however, at age 25 I re-
ceived the letter I had dreaded informing
me to report for duty.
Ginger and I put a lot of thought into
that notice. Had I accepted the draft no-
tice I assuredly would have ended up in
combat in the rice paddies of Vietnam. I
could have declared myself a conscientious
objector, because I couldn’t imagine my
actually killing someone, even if he were
deemed an enemy of our county. I wasn’t
about to abandon my country and move to
Canada as some draft avoiders were doing.
I pondered joining the Alaska National
Guard, but that route was not well defined.
In a decision not hastily made, I enlisted
in the U.S. Navy. I believed that branch of
the service was more likely to make use of
my education and put me in a support role
rather than combat. I applied for Officer
Candidate School and flew to Anchorage
and Kodiak to begin my enrollment.
While awaiting word on the OCS appli-
cation, we prepared to relocate Ginger to
her parents’ home in Seattle while I was in
boot camp or officer training. Thinking
we might never make it back to Alaska,
we planned and executed a ferry trip to
Skagway, and a road trip to Fairbanks. We
took an overnight excursion to Nome and
Kotzebue before driving back to the Lower
48 on the mostly gravel Al-Can Highway
in an inadequately small British sedan not
unlike a Volkswagen Beetle.
After 10 weeks of basic training in San
Diego, I learned I was being assigned to
the Alaskan Forces Radio Network in An-
chorage. I reclaimed my bride in Seattle,
where we bought a Volkswagen Microbus
in which to haul our worldly possessions,
drove to Prince Rupert, British Colum-
bia, ferried to Haines, and arrived in An-
chorage on Election Day 1966 with a light
snow falling.
Serving on an Air Force base, I was
an orphan. Of approximately 30 men as-
signed to the radio network, most were
Air Force; a smaller group was Army,
and one career sailor and I made up the
Navy force. I worked a five-day week from
10 a.m. to 7 p.m. There were no additional
responsibilities such as night watch.
The navy protocol instilled in bootcamp
went unused. I learned about the differ-
ences between print and broadcast media
and overcame the pronouncement that I
didn’t have the voice to be on the radio. I
learned the nuances of tape recorders and
produced hourly newscasts.
I became involved in informing and ed-
ucating the troops stationed throughout
the vast state, many in very remote villages
staffing DEW-line facilities. For most of the
remote installations the AFRN transmit-
ter was their only broadcast link, although
some of the larger installations had their
own closed-circuit television broadcasts
with kinescopes mailed to their facilities.
I talked regularly on the telephone with
officers and enlisted men about what was
going on at their far-flung installations or
communities as they coped with a year’s
obligation in the frozen north. I covered a
summer flood in Fairbanks, the dedication
of a Naval Arctic Research Station in Point
Barrow and aspects of recovery from the
1964 earthquake. That warranted an hour-
long documentary.
I flew to Northeast Cape Air Force Sta-
tion on St. Lawrence Island in the Bering
Sea, closer to Siberia than Sarah Palin has
ever been.
We interviewed military and other dig-
nitaries refueling at Elmendorf on the po-
lar route to Vietnam. Names of George
Romney and Spiro Agnew come to mind.
And comedian Patrick Paulson made An-
chorage a stop during his presidential bid
in 1968.
In 33 months at AFRN I learned a lot,
how to ask more penetrating questions,
and to respect the hardships and inconve-
niences that my fellow servicemen — and
many fewer servicewomen — endured.
And I realized I was more cutout for print
rather than broadcast journalism.
Life goes on.
█
Carl Vetrees is a former editor of the Redmond
Spokesman and a longtime Redmond resident.
OUR VIEW
Newest addition to the Spokesman
M
y name is Harrison
McKinney, the new-
est addition here at
The Redmond Spokesman. I
was hired on the pretense of
being a jack-
of-all-trades
to handle
advertising,
classifieds,
obituaries,
circulation
and some
McKinney
writing for
the paper.
In 2020, I graduated from
OSU Cascades with a Bach-
elor of Arts in social science
and English. That was in the
heat of the pandemic, so my
graduation ceremony con-
sisted of a box in the mail with
some confetti. Off to a great
start. I wouldn’t call my short
attempt at freelance writing a
catastrophic failure, but it was
equally as lackluster.
That led me into a differ-
ent kind of freelancing. Before
this job, I worked as a contrac-
tor installing ceramic tile, so I
went from mixing cement with
icy water in skeletal houses on
dark, excruciating mornings to
a cozy office job selling news-
papers ten minutes from my
house. Don’t worry, I’ve ad-
justed.
Redmond has been my
home since 2008 when my
family moved from Portland to
be closer to our family’s cattle
ranch, the M Bar L Ranch, in
Culver.
Working at the ranch is one
of my favorite memories. I re-
member bobbing up and down
in the torn leather seat with the
radio blasting in my grandpar-
ents’ John Deere, dutifully roll-
ing the bailer over the plush
rows of alfalfa. Of course, that
was during summer and fall.
Winter consisted of mostly
standing on a hay wagon, try-
ing to grin through the pelt-
ing sleet, rain and snow while
doling out slices of hay to the
foggy, mooing mouths. To this
day, the smell of cow excre-
ment brings me much comfort.
My passions are reading,
writing, going on long walks
and true crime. That’s made
my job compiling the police
log one of the highlights of my
week.
I also love cats, especially
my cat, Ramsey. Ramsey is a
small, fat, black cat with an
even fatter attitude. As a kitten,
she successfully charged a full-
grown Rottweiler who yielded
immediately at the frightening
little puff. Animals and nature
are also a prominent fixture in
my life. You can usually find
me outside enjoying the rain
and making a few feral friends
along the way. And of course
another prominent fixture is
my girlfriend, Emily, an astute
astrologer and budding bota-
nist with a flame point siamese
cat.
Since being hired at the
Spokesman, I’ve found working
at a newspaper to be exhila-
rating. I never know what I’m
going to do or what interesting
people I’ll get to meet each day.
Redmond is a part of who
I am, which gives me a lot of
pride to be able to work for
our newspaper. What’s most
important to me is expanding
the Spokesman whether it be
through selling more adver-
tisements, going door-to-door
or whatever else is necessary.
Swing by the office or get in
touch with me at 541-923-1370
or hmckinney@redmond-
spokesman.com