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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (March 31, 2018)
Page 4A East Oregonian Saturday, March 31, 2018 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor Founded October 16, 1875 OUR VIEW So much to do, see in Eastern Oregon When the sun breaks through the clouds, temperatures begin to rise and Daylight Savings Time gifts us extra hours of evening light, it’s only human to get that itch under your feet. It compels you to throw open the doors and windows that have been battened down all winter long, to feel the breeze, to look out to the horizon and head on towards it. Luckily Eastern Oregon offers plenty of opportunities to scratch that travel itch, be it on foot, on bike or in a vehicle. There are enough adventures to last a lifetime, but in today’s paper we included enough to fill 2018. Our Discover Eastern Oregon magazine is inside. There are lots of goodies in there, fun stories and photography. One of the region’s major draws this year will be the 175th anniversary of the Oregon Trail. We list places you can trace the trail through our neighborhod, from Corral Springs outside Echo to Blue Mountain Crossing outside La Grande. Perhaps our area’s best kept section of the trail is Flagstaff Hill outside Baker City, where seven miles of distinct ruts are clear and the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center is nearby. If you haven’t been to the area and interpretive center since your school days, perhaps a 175th anniversary is a good reason to return. This year will also be special because Cycle Oregon returns to our wide open vistas and rolling byways. From Sept. 8-15 (yes, that’s right in the heart of Round-Up Week), thousands of two-wheelers will navigate our country roads and plop down in our small towns. Stops include Baker City, Halfway, Wallowa Lake, Elgin, Pendleton and La Grande. For more info, read the magazine piece, and check out the elevation map to see it can be done. And if you’re more into the engine doing the work for you, there are plenty of events for motorcycles. Harleys arrive in droves to Pendleton each July for Bike Week, while changes are coming to the annual Nitro in the Blues festival. And if you want that engine to be of the animal variety, we’ve got rodeos aplenty to please your inner cowboy. But Eastern Oregon remains a wild, wide-open place for all sorts of outdoor Staff photo by E.J. Harris The Corral Springs Oregon Trail site offers explorers a quarter-mile stretch of the original trail east of Echo. adventures. Hopefully the magazine gives you some ideas for hitting the hills. On Umatilla National Forest land, hike the 19-mile length of the South Fork Walla Walls Trail, or climb to the top of Nine Mile Ridge (it’s only 6.8 miles!). We also document the joys of waterfowl hunting — few places in the West offer the wide variety of species and hunting environments that Eastern Oregon does. You’ll find golf courses and sno-parks galore, so no matter what time of year you arrive, there will be plenty to do. Or get out onto our beautiful rivers, with rafting or kayaking trips down the Umatilla, Grande Ronde or John Day rivers. But we’re not just about roughing it outdoors here on the dry side. When visitors come, feel free to point them to our range of museums and historic sites, from the Round-Up Hall of Fame to Tamastslikt Cultural Institute. And then wash it all down with our incredible breweries, wineries and distilleries. It’s fun to live in and document a place like ours. It behooves us to explore it, conserve it and celebrate it. So let’s make a plan to discover Eastern Oregon this year, and help others discover it, too. OTHER VIEWS Actually, you can fix stupid P OTHER VIEWS Welcome home Vietnam vets By MITCH SPARKS Oregon Department of Veterans’ Affairs orty-five years ago, combat and combat support units withdrew from South Vietnam. This marked the beginning of the end of nearly two decades of direct U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia, but the social, cultural and psychological wounds of the Vietnam War still linger for those Americans who lived through it, and especially for the veterans who served during this turbulent time in our nation’s history. There are over 120,000 Vietnam-era veterans living in Oregon today, representing more than a third of our total veteran population. They represent the largest demo- graphic and the true leaders in our veteran community. And yet, too often and in too many ways, our Vietnam-era veterans remain invisible to the general public. Their incredible courage and remarkable achievements, both in Southeast Asia and here at home, too often go unrecognized. Their unique challenges and adversities too often go unacknowledged. Young men and women returning from their service in Vietnam were not welcomed F Courtesy photo This photo, found in the ODVA archives several years ago, depicts three unidentified service members and two apparent civilians holding a State of Oregon flag at the Tan Son Nhut Air Base in southern Vietnam. home. They were shunned and ignored. They were not allowed to take their rightful place among America’s heroes. They came home, not to the soldier’s rest that they deserved, but to a new battle- field, one in which they would be forced to struggle for the respect and recognition they had rightfully earned. It has taken generations for the fruits of their labor to be known, but today we stand as a proud and grateful nation, humbled by the valor and sacrifice of those who answered their nation’s call — including the 58,000 U.S. service members who went to Vietnam and never came Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. home. They did not make the decision to go to war; they went because their country asked them to. They kept the faith. They represented the best the United States of America had to offer and they fought for freedom, the mark of a true patriot. They put their lives on the line to help and save others. We stand together to say now, what we should have done 45 years ago: “Thank you, and welcome home.” ■ Mitch Sparks is a retired Navy veteran and director of the Oregon Department of Veterans’ Affairs. ope Francis opened the holiest stars while his wife nursed their week of the Christian calendar newborn child and who bragged with an admonition to the of sexual assault, and at his daily generation that will own the 21st slights to truth, dignity and other century. “Dear young people, you values that mothers teach their have it in you to shout,” he said in children. his homily. “It is up to you not to And now it’s the young’s turn. keep quiet.” Critical thinking has arrived at a Other voices were more Timothy critical time. They’re not afraid of censorious. On “Fox & Friends,” trolls; they grew up with snark from Egan which provides President Donald a screen. So after Laura Ingraham Comment Trump with a steady ration of half- at Fox taunted a Parkland shooting truths and hatreds to fill an empty survivor for not getting into his head and an empty schedule, a co-host college of choice, the student immediately had some advice for younger citizens just tweeted out a list of her advertisers. When now learning how to use the wings of they threatened to bail, she apologized. democracy. “These self-righteous kids screaming at “These 17-year-olds should go back to you on television over the weekend aren’t civics class,” said Pete Hegseth, scowling at helping out at all,” said Tucker Carlson, the March for Our Lives demonstrators. another Fox scold. Actually, civics class has come to As he knows, they are helping — but them, in the form of a hail of bullets from just not his side. “First we march, then a weapon of war that is legal because of we vote,” was a leading slogan of the a broken political system. They’ve been demonstrations. forced, by triage, to learn how to use the The problem is that Americans are tools of democracy that were largely denied among the least-active voters in developed them by passive educators. countries — another consequence, I would It’s no secret that in the rush to produce argue, of not teaching the manual of adults who are adept at applying science democracy in school. And young people are and technology to modern life, we left them the least likely to vote. ill-trained in the basic duties of citizenship. “Adults mess up a lot,” Sotomayor told Nearly a third of Americans cannot name a the high school kids in her audience in single branch of government, and almost 40 Seattle. “We don’t have all the answers. We percent are unable to cite a right guaranteed need you to come up with fresher and better by the First Amendment. ideas.” But it’s not the kids who are the So today, these young people wonder doofuses. “There’s a big difference between why even the most obvious legislation, being ignorant and being stupid,” said Sonia universal background checks on all gun Sotomayor, associate justice of the Supreme purchases, can’t pass in Congress despite Court. She’s been touring the country — 38 support from 90 percent of the public. states so far — promoting civic competence They learn quickly that it’s because a single among the young, a virtue that used to be a lobby owns the politicians. The obvious bedrock part of American education. solution, which jaded political minds often “No one is born a citizen,” she said forget, is to vote the bums out. It’s not during a stopover in Seattle. “You have to complicated. be taught what that means.” And again, it shouldn’t be a DIY thing. The teaching, for a generation that has Let’s teach people how to tell fake news come of age since the 1999 Columbine from real news. They do this in Italy, and massacre, for the 187,000 students who many universities in the United States have experienced a shooting on campus have taken it up as well. It should be, like during school since then, has been largely learning road signs before you can get a do-it-yourself. driver’s license, one of the courses that Only a handful of states require everyone takes before getting out of high proficiency in civics and government as a school. condition of graduation. The educational Democracies die when citizens feel system, with its fear of confrontational powerless. The biggest stress test will topics and its corporate-driven emphasis on come if Trump fires special counsel Robert STEM, has failed them. Mueller. Then, all the people new to the But one of the great surprises of the process will see what a constitutional crisis Trump era is the renaissance of civic looks like. But thanks to recent, real-life engagement — at a level of urgency not lessons, they’ll recognize it for what it seen in half a century. It’s a reaction to is. And they won’t feel powerless to do severe stress on democracy; Trump is both something about it. the cause, and leading symptom, of that ■ stress. Timothy Egan worked for 18 years as a The awakening started with the writer for The New York Times, first as the revulsion of women — at a president who Pacific Northwest correspondent, then as a is credibly accused of sleeping with porn national enterprise reporter. The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.