ANDREW CUTLER
Publisher/Editor
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Owner
WYATT HAUPT JR.
News Editor
JADE McDOWELL
Hermiston Editor
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2020
A4
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
Are the rules
for mental
health care
excessive?
P
ublic pressure can compel the Ore-
gon Legislature to make changes.
And one place that deserves public
pressure is mental health care.
In state rankings, Oregon usually ranks
near the bottom in mental health care
access. One reason could be it’s harder to
get a license in Oregon. Oregon mental
health counselors are required to complete
2,400 hours with clients under supervision.
The state of Washington requires only half
that number. And therapists can end up
having to pay for those supervised hours
themselves.
There’s also concern that people of color
can find it extremely difficult to find a men-
tal health counselor who looks like them, as
OPB reported. A group called Clinicians Of
Color Community & Consulting formed in
Portland to help, but it still has to turn peo-
ple away. About 3% of Oregon’s population
is Black. And less than 1% of mental health
providers are Black.
Several legislators wrote a letter to Gov.
Kate Brown earlier this year asking for
changes in state regulations.
A key recommendation would change
the disparity in supervised training, only
requiring 1,200 hours for full licensure,
instead of the 2,400 required in Oregon.
“By comparison, Washington requires
1,200 direct hours, California 1,750 hours,
and Idaho 400 hours,” the legislators wrote.
Oregon already made a pandemic-related
change allowing reciprocal licensure for
those practicing outside of Oregon, per-
mitting them to practice in Oregon for six
months. That would seem to be a de facto
approval of a lowered requirement for
supervised training.
Another recommendation was to “allow
mental health interns on insurance panels
so they can bill insurance.” We are not as
sure about this one. Addressing the level of
supervised training could be more import-
ant. It seems debatable to allow interns to
bill insurance as though they had com-
pleted all their training.
State Rep. Janelle Bynum, a Democrat
who represents East Portland and Happy
Valley, has also proposed draft legisla-
tion for the 2021 session that would do two
things. It would establish “a $50 million
fund to increase access to mental health
care for communities of color and a $40
million fund to recruit and retain clinicians
of color through pipeline development,
scholarships, stipends and loan repayment.”
Of course, that will compete against the
state’s many other needs.
You don’t have to just let legislators
decide these issues. If this issue is import-
ant to you, email your legislator and tell
them what you think.
EDITORIALS
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.
LETTERS
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:
editor@eastoregonian.com,
or via mail to Andrew Cutler,
211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801
Catch the spirit of remembrance this Veterans Day
BRIGIT
FARLEY
PAST AND PROLOGUE
T
he approach of Veterans Day
each November always summons
memories of World War I and its
outsized influence on the world. The
impacts of that conflict are legion, but
perhaps the most affecting is the phe-
nomenon of the unknown soldier, whose
100th anniversary we marked yesterday,
Nov. 11, 2020.
Upon the outbreak of World War I
in August 1914, most people believed
it would be a six-week wonder. Sol-
diers would ride off, slap some harsh
treatment on the enemy and return by
Christmas. But advancements in weap-
onry, including the machine gun and the
high-intensity shell, killed nearly a mil-
lion soldiers on both sides in the first six
weeks and forced the survivors into a
prolonged trench war.
Even worse, those “improvements”
guaranteed that many casualties would
never be identified or found. A shell
could obliterate 20 men in an instant, or
hit nearby and bury them alive. Often
burial details would construct a tempo-
rary cemetery, only to see it destroyed
when the front lines moved. All this
meant that millions of families would
learn that their loved one was missing.
The intensity of grief over the miss-
ing deeply moved British chaplain Rev.
David Railton. He cast about for ways of
assuaging families’ anguish and hit upon
the idea of choosing a casualty who
could not be identified and burying him
in a place of honor.
In late 1918, burial teams disinterred
the bodies of four unidentified sol-
diers, one from each of the four major
British battlefields. Gen. L. J. Wyatt,
then commander of British troops in
France and Belgium, selected one of
them. This casualty would become Brit-
ain’s Unknown Warrior, destined to lie
with the great and the good in London’s
Westminster Abbey. Every British citi-
zen whose loved one was missing could
come grieve there, knowing that the
Unknown Warrior could be their son,
brother, father or husband.
On Nov. 10, 1920, British soldiers
carried the coffin of the Unknown War-
rior through the streets of Boulogne,
France, to the cruiser HMS Verdun for
the trip home to England. Upon arrival
in Dover, the coffin was placed aboard a
train for Victoria station, London, where
it would remain overnight. The follow-
ing day, a caisson bearing the body pro-
cessed through London amid thousands
of hushed spectators.
A contingent of 100 recipients of the
Victoria Cross, Britain’s medal of honor,
formed an honor guard. The caisson
stopped briefly for the unveiling of the
Cenotaph, Sir Edwin Lutyens’ memo-
rial to Britain’s missing, and the crowds
observed a two-minute silence for all
the war dead. King George V placed a
wreath on the coffin, and the procession
moved on to Westminster Abbey. A spe-
cial group of guests was waiting there:
100 women who had lost their husbands
and all their sons in the war.
The bearer party doffed their hats and
carried the Unknown Warrior into the
abbey. He would be buried beneath the
floor, in 100 sacks of soil from Belgium
and France, which he and his comrades
had defended at such great cost.
The French Unknown Warrior, cho-
sen in much the same way as his Brit-
ish counterpart, was laid to rest beneath
the Arch of Triumph in Paris on that
same Nov. 11, 1920. The U.S. Unknown
came home on Nov. 9, 1921. He would
lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda before
an Armistice Day burial in Arlington
Cemetery. Unlike his British and French
comrades, the American Unknown
would have a permanent honor guard in
soldiers of the Army’s 3rd Infantry.
Of course, there were millions more
missing, but they would not go unrecog-
nized: Their names are commemorated
on cemetery walls, chapel plaques and
monuments throughout the world. Pend-
leton Round-Up star Dell Blancett, a
trooper in the Canadian cavalry, was lost
during a March 1918 firefight in northern
France. His name appears on Canada’s
great monument to the missing at Vimy
Ridge. Many servicemen were miss-
ing in the second world conflagration,
too. Pendleton’s Edward Williams dis-
appeared with his plane and crew over
Burma in 1944, trying to supply Amer-
ican forces fighting in the Philippines.
His name lives through the ages on the
wall of the Manila American cemetery.
The British Unknown Warrior’s
tomb is in the middle of the floor, near
the west door of Westminster Abbey.
All processions in the abbey must con-
sciously move around it, guaranteeing
that the huge sacrifices of World War I
will not be forgotten. Royal brides leave
their bouquet on the Unknown’s tomb, in
honor of Queen Elizabeth’s uncle, who
went missing in Belgium in 1915. We
here have no such vivid reminders.
But I hope we will all week and give
thanks for all the men and women who,
as the saying goes, gave their tomorrows
for our today.
———
Brigit Farley is a Washington State
University professor, student of history,
adventurer and Irish heritage girl living
in Pendleton.
tion has emerged about how we might
replace the energy, transportation and
irrigation services these four dams pro-
vide — if and when they are removed
to restore our salmon.
I commend Gov. Kate Brown and
other Northwest governors for announc-
ing their commitment to collabora-
tive salmon recovery solutions on the
Columbia-Snake. Now, our Northwest
congressional delegation needs to lead.
It’s time to take care of our rivers that
give us so much. Let’s embrace collab-
orative, pragmatic solutions that future
generations will be proud of.
Robin Coen
Boise, Idaho
for someone with his temperament.
He prepped himself and his eas-
ily swayed cult-like followers for this
defeat with calls of election fraud before
votes were even cast. He’s a worldwide
embarrassment and a stain that won’t
ever be erased from the history of our
country. The only positive I can see is
that he’ll serve as an example of what
kind of person we don’t ever want in a
position of leadership again.
I’m eternally grateful to real Repub-
licans that stayed true to their beliefs in
what conservatives really stand for, and
realized that Trump wasn’t it. I’ll never
respect the so-called people of faith that
sold their souls to back such an evil and
indecent person. Good riddance to bad
rubbish and all of the lapdogs in your
employ.
A drop of good news for Trump sup-
porters, if we have another toilet paper
shortage, you can always pull your
Trump flags out of mothballs and finally
put them to a use worthy of them.
David Gracia
Hermiston
YOUR VIEWS
Northwest governors
should lead salmon
recovery efforts
I am a rancher’s daughter, steward of
the land that my parents left to me.
The Snake River and the lands that
surround it are the heart and soul of our
region. Northeast Oregon’s 1,000-plus
miles of cold, clear streams are our cir-
culatory system. They are sacred to all
life and integral to our Western identity.
Four million wild salmon and steel-
head once spawned in the Snake River
Basin. Now, fewer than 2% of steel-
head and 1% of Chinook come back —
they are rapidly approaching extinction.
The salmon must struggle up the warm,
predator-filled waterways and spillways
of the Columbia and Snake dams in
order to complete their life cycle.
The four dams on the lower Snake
are currently in question as to whether
they represent a reasonable tradeoff
between local communities’ needs and
environmental health. New informa-
Good riddance to
bad rubbish
The safest bet in the recent presiden-
tial election was that Trump would not
take a loss like a grownup. An entitled
child and spoiled person is the easiest
persona to predict. The “I’ll just take
my ball and go home” act is a perfect fit