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