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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (May 21, 2016)
WEEKEND EDITION OREGON ORDERS BOATERS TO MOVE ON BULLDOGS LOSE TO MILWAUKIE SEARCHERS FIND BODY PARTS NORTHWEST/11A FROM EGYPTIAN JET WORLD/12A BASEBALL/1B MAY 21-22, 2016 140th Year, No. 156 $1.50 WINNER OF THE 2015 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD PRIVACY FEARS Panel has advice for drone use By DAVID KOENIG AP Business Writer Staff photo by E.J. Harris Former Marine interpreter Skip Nichols holds a piece of shrapnel from a North Vietnamese rocket that killed a fellow Marine right next to him during the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam War. Return to Vietnam DALLAS — A panel of privacy experts and technology companies orga- nized by the Obama administration has issued guidelines for using drones without being overly intrusive. The suggestions are voluntary, but some business interests involved in the debate hope the guidelines head off tougher regulations that they fear could smother the drone industry in its infancy. News organizations are exempt from the guidelines on free-press grounds. Supporters say drones could provide huge benefi ts, from inspecting power lines to delivering medicine to remote areas. Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. want to use them for deliveries. Falling prices have made drones popular among hobbyists, too. However, their small size and ability to go just about anywhere — while carrying cameras and sensors — have raised privacy concerns. The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration on Thursday released the “best practices,” which were supported by See DRONES/9A Marine goes back to face wartime memories were intent on returning to the country that had affected them so much. The 12 veterans determined the itinerary for the two-week tour. Each chose n his mind, Skip Nichols often a few locations where they had returned to Vietnam. experienced something profound and Sometimes memories sidled into often disturbing. Also along on the trip his consciousness. Other times they was the daughter of a reached out, grabbed soldier who had died in him and plunged him More to the story Vietnam. back into the thick Almost fi ve decades of the war. He tried For photos of the trip, had rushed by since banishing them to the see Lifestyles, Page 1C Nichols had last set foot basement of his psyche. For video of Nichols on Vietnam soil. In the When that didn’t work, telling his story, visit interim, he met Paula he worked with a eastoregonian.com on a blind date in Texas, counselor to bring the fell in love, married memories out into the and raised two daughters. He carved open as a way to diminish their power. out a successful career in journalism, But nothing, it seemed, could totally retiring in 2013 as managing editor of silence the voices of Vietnam. the East Oregonian. Through the years, So he decided to go back. the impact of his Vietnam experience Nichols and his wife Paula took simmered behind his easygoing a battlefi eld tour called Return to disposition. Vietnam. The Walla Walla couple Nichols’ Vietnam journey started fl ew to Hanoi on March 6 and joined at age 18 when he and a friend joined a group of Vietnam veterans who By KATHY ANEY East Oregonian I the military on the buddy plan after a Marine recruiter dropped into high school study hall to chat. After grad- uation in 1967, Nichols attended boot camp, went to radio school and learned Vietnamese. Soon he was landing at an airfi eld in Da Nang. He received his orders, a fl ak jacket, helmet, weapons and ammunition. He took another fl ight and a long ride in a cargo truck to an artillery base called Camp Carroll, which was south of the Demilitarized Zone and home to the 3rd Marine Regiment. Arriving at Camp Carroll is still vivid in his memory. “We threw our sea bags off the truck to the ground,” he said. “They sank into the mud.” As a radio man, he and other Marines patrolled dangerous ground. He got used to frequent ambushes. “It was a pretty hot area,” Nichols said. “That was home for fi ve months.” Other memories are tougher for See VIETNAM/14A “Honestly, I have always felt guilty. It still eats at me. Maybe I could have made a difference.” — Skip Nichols, on being sent home before the end of the war Recall petition against Harney judge validated Says he won’t step down Associated Press and Oregon Public Broadcasting A recall petition against a Harney County offi cial who didn’t support the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge has gathered enough signatures to force him to resign or face a recall election. The Oregonian/OregonLive reports that the Oregon Secretary of State’s Offi ce notifi ed Judge Steve Grasty Thursday in a letter that the petition had been validated. He has until Tuesday to resign or submit a “statement of justifi - cation” that would appear on the recall election ballot. Grasty, who acts as chairman of the county commission, says he won’t step down. His term ends at the end of the year. He has been criticized for demanding that Ammon Bundy and his supporters See JUDGE/14A High temperatures melt Butter Creek an inch of rain. Snow on top Farmers impacted by of Arbuckle Mountain, the rapid change in weather basin’s highest point, melted By GEORGE PLAVEN East Oregonian Staff photo by E.J. Harris Farmer Lowell Saylor has already had to stop drawing water from Butter Creek to irrigate his crops because of low water levels. With near-average snow- pack and precipitation early in the year, Lowell Saylor fi gured he would get a decent amount of irrigation water out of Butter Creek this spring. By April, his optimism began to dry as fast as the creek itself. Temperatures in Hermiston averaged 5 degrees above normal for the month, while the area received less than half off quickly and dramatically, leaving Saylor without enough water for his wheat and alfalfa fi elds. “We’ve had dry years before, but this was a little bit strange,” Saylor said. “It looked like a good water year, but it didn’t turn out that way.” Butter Creek, which fl ows out of the Blue Mountains, wasn’t the only basin to feel the heat. The Natural Resource Conservation Service reported record-breaking high tempera- See WATER/9A
