OPINION
Wallowa.com
MAIN STREET
Rich Wandschneider
A5
Gosnell could ‘feed you, shoot
you and stop your bleeding’
Six-dollar gas
and the war
in Ukraine
WALLOWA
COUNTY
VETERANS
CORNER
T
M
he gas station attendant didn’t know
about the war.
Europe’s Ukrainian edge has not
seen this kind of destruction since World War
II. The destruction of whole cities, of ancient
art and architecture, the mass evacuations and
the tightening noose around Kyiv, the capital,
bring to mind the German siege of Leningrad
in that war, when a million and a half Russians
died.
If I were President Biden’s speechwriter:
I’d say that Vladimir Putin is the darkest
thing that has happened to Russia and neigh-
boring countries since Hitler’s siege of Lenin-
grad and Stalin’s wholesale killings and relo-
cations of real and perceived enemies. It’s hard
to get around the numbers, but well over 20
million Russians died during World War II,
7-8 million of them from disease and famine
— Hitler’s legacy. Before and through the war
Stalin evacuated the entire Muslim population
of Chechnya, executed thousands of Ukrainian
Kulak farmers and starved millions in his
expanding empire.
There is an unholy echo in Putin to these
ruthless predecessors. One of his fi rst actions
on coming to power was to restart a war in
Chechnya — with trumped up charges of
Chechnyan bombings in Moscow. Putin had
the capital city of Grozny leveled, then stepped
out of a fi ghter jet in full pilot gear in the
destroyed city — as if he’d done it himself.
***
When millions of Americans were hun-
gry and jobless, President Franklin Roosevelt
said that the only thing we had to fear was
fear itself. Millions of men fl ocked to Civil-
ian Conservation Corps camps, built trails and
highways and shipped small paychecks home;
and legislators quickly passed laws to give us
unemployment insurance and Social Security.
Our parents and grandparents came out of the
Depression together.
When Hitler’s planes bombed London,
Churchill vowed never to surrender, and ordi-
nary Londoners packed sandbags and ducked
underground during nighttime raids. They sur-
vived together.
Today’s speechmaker is Ukraine’s President
Volodymyr Zelensky. He speaks from bunkers
and the streets of Kyiv, asks Russian moms to
come and get their captured sons, tells us that
there will be no surrender. He exposes Putin’s
lies and shows pictures of bombed hospi-
tals, knows that Putin will not quit and that he
and his family are direct targets. Should Putin
choose carpet-bombing of Kyiv, he says, the
Russians will have to kill him and everyone to
take the city.
Putin has Russian history and his own his-
tory of big numbers of death and destruction.
Without a smile or a blink, he’s reducing pub-
lic squares, hospitals and apartment buildings
to rubble. New York Times columnist Maureen
Dowd wrote Sunday of Russian attacks on “the
internationally recognized memorial at Babi
Yar — a ravine near Kyiv where the Nazis
massacred more than 33,000 Jews in two days
in 1941, followed by an estimated 100,000 to
150,000 others over subsequent years.” Putin
took Crimea by force, and has a half-million
civilians in the city of Mariupol trapped with-
out food and water.
***
It’s time for Biden and our congressional
leaders — and for all of us — to step up. The
economic noose around Putin’s Russia will
have to tighten to impact ordinary Russians,
the oligarchs and the former KGB’ers that
comprise Putin’s inner circle.
Six-dollar gas? I say put that price on it
right now. Send 50 cents to Zelensky. Will it
hurt? Can we aff ord it? On Saturday I watched
well-fed people load thousands of dollars’
worth of chips, TVs, socks and toys into big
cars in a full Costco parking lot. But yes, a few
people will be hurt. Give them gas coupons, a
practice we developed in WWII and Safeway
uses now.
This paper, the Chieftain, showed pictures
every week of men headed off to war in the
1940s. All we’re being asked — at least for
now — is to pay more for gas. I have vague
memories of Stalin’s pogroms, the Cuban mis-
sile crisis, the Cold War’s “duck and cover”
under our elementary school desks and I’ve
watched wars from Vietnam to Syria — where
Putin came to rescue the awful Assad. The
stakes now are as big as they were in any of
them.
Columnist Dowd asks: “Will Zelensky live
or die when Russian forces bear down? Will
Ukraine exist as a sovereign nation? What does
this crisis mean for the identity of America and
the West — who will we be when this is over?
Will the planet even survive?”
Can economic warfare and persuasion work
— and can we avoid nuclear war?
If I wrote a speech for Biden, I’d say: “This
is the biggest threat to all of us since Hitler and
Stalin. Buck up and join the world in putting
down this international menace. Put a button
on your chest and pay $6 for your gas. We’re
all in this together.”
———
Rich Wandschneider is the director of the
Josephy Library of Western History and Culture.
Wednesday, March 16, 2022
Jack James
ission: To highlight some of
the awesome veterans in this
county, and as a form of edu-
cation to the general public and reminder
of the service, sacrifi ce, and sometimes
fun of duty in the U.S. Military Services.
Wallowa County has approximately
7,000 residents; more than 1,000 of
them are veterans. They are your friends,
neighbors, workers and co-work-
ers. Please take a moment and get to
know them. Remember — “Support the
Troops” and remember the veterans.
Ann Gosnell and husband David,
Wallowa
A proud “pioneer family” with a his-
tory and heritage not only in Wallowa
County, but also in the service to their
country; the Hayes from Bear Creek,
Wallowa.
Ann Gosnell (maiden name Hayes)
was born and raised in Wallowa, the
Bear Creek area. Her family is a “pio-
neer family” in this county. Ann started
her Army National Guard career in
1986 when she joined the Michigan
National Guard. She not only served
there but also Fort Jackson, South Caro-
lina; San Antonio, Texas; and Tennessee;
where she met and married David, who
was also in the National Guard. They
met while attending medical school to
become medics, which they both did.
They have been married for over 30
years now and are very proud of their
two daughters.
Ann’s military occupational spe-
cialty does not end with being a medic;
she was also a trained tanker specializ-
ing in sight optics for the main gun, and
a cook. So, as a soldier, she could “feed
you, shoot you and stop your bleeding.”
A person of many talents.
However, it does not end there. Being
in the National Guard allows a person
to continue in their “civilian life” with
other jobs, careers, and education. Ann
is a licensed practical nurse, has a bach-
elor’s degree in criminal justice and is
qualifi ed through the Wounded Warrior
program as a mental health crisis coun-
selor. Being in the National Guard gives
a person the experience and aff ords a
person the fl exible opportunity to do
such things.
Then Operation Iraqi Freedom
arrived on the Gosnells’ doorstep.
Deployment overseas for the Gosnells
was with the 278th Armored Cavalry
Regiment, which becomes a Regimen-
tal Combat Team from 2004-05. Again,
Ann steps up to the plate and volunteers
Ann Gosnell/Contributed Photo
Ann Gosnell, left, and her husband, David.
to be a medic with the convoys. These
military convoys would leave the some-
what protected forward operations base
on missions of their unit called civil
aff airs, defi ned as “aff airs and operations
of the civil population of a territory that
are supervised and directed by a friendly
occupying power.” OK, so that translates
to soldiers on the ground as — adminis-
tering medicines, building bridges (both
physical and relationship), digging wells
or other means of providing clean safe
water in a desert combat zone, building
hospitals and school buildings.
Then, bam! “Your seemly ‘normal’
routine in a combat zone gets turned
upside down, sideways, and d*** near
kills you!” The date was Oct. 12, 2005,
for Ann and her other soldier team-
mates. Routine convoy, in fact a con-
voy to show the replacement troops from
the 101st Airborne the route and how to
maneuver. Boom! Her truck goes over a
command-detonated improvised explo-
sive device. Command-detonated means
that the enemy can set the explosives
off from a safe observation area and get
away. However, in this case, the enemy
who were staged in a truck did not get
away with the deed without paying the
ultimate price.
Ann’s injuries were not readily appar-
ent and she was still mobile. Again, she
jumped into the chaos to make some
calm out of it, administering fi rst aid to
the most critically injured soldiers.
What started out to be a short day
turned into an all-night aff air get-
ting the wounded to advanced medi-
cal care, which just happened to be a
Navy Medical Aid Station. But any help
in a “storm” also attests to the fact that
even our ground combat forces are very
“joint,” meaning all services are engaged
and helping in the war eff ort.
Not all war stories are full of trag-
edy. For example, Ann explained that
back at the forward operations base was
“Lucky” the FOB dog. Soldiers who did
not routinely leave the FOB were called
“FOBets.” And no one can ever for-
get “Little Debbie,” the lieutenant who
never, ever left his computer gaming
(Hey – there is one in every crowd!) The
National Guard unit that Ann and David
deployed with were from Tennessee,
and it quickly got to be known that the
“Peacemakers from Tennessee” where
there to help and fi ght. Bam!
Ann’s main role as a medic was not
only to provide fi rst aid for wounded/
injured soldiers during convoy opera-
tions, but also during civil aff airs mis-
sions she would be the contact with
the host nation (Iraq) females and chil-
dren. “It was always better to have a
female work with the females and chil-
dren.” Building “relationships” was a
huge part of the mission. “Trust and
respect for others peoples culture goes a
long way. And of course, it can get a lit-
tle up-close, personal, and messy when
the little babies pee on you.” (A trial by
another type of “fi re,” one might say).
Eighteen years after her initial entry
into the National Guard, Ann gets out.
Supporting other veterans through the
Wounded Warrior program and the Vet-
erans of Foreign Wars, along with car-
ing for her elderly father (who is also
a veteran), keeps Ann Gosnell plenty
busy. Her pioneer family, who fi rst set-
tled in the Bear Creek area of Wallowa,
would surely be proud of Ann’s contin-
ued service and sacrifi ce. If you could
listen closely down the Bear Creek Val-
ley, you just might hear, “Good job sol-
dier!” And quite frankly, that’s all Ann
needs to hear.
———
Jack James is a 35-year veteran of the
U.S. Navy and serves as a veterans ser-
vice offi cer with the Disabled American
Veterans organization.
National nutrition and frozen food
months have plenty in common
IT’S ABOUT
HEALTH AND
WELLNESS
Ann Bloom
M
arch is National Nutrition
Month and National Frozen
Food Month. What do the two
have in common? A great deal, it seems.
A month devoted to nutrition reminds
us of the importance of eating a balanced
diet of fruits and vegetables, low-fat dairy
products, whole grains and lean sources
of protein. These fi ve food groups pro-
vide all the essential vitamins, minerals
and amino acids needed for health.
However, there are myths associ-
ated with some of these food groups.
One involves fruits and vegetables. Are
fresh fruits and vegetables more nutri-
tious than frozen? Isn’t fresh better? The
short answer is no. Fresh, frozen, dried or
in 100% juice form, it all matters accord-
ing to the U.S. Department of Agricul-
ture’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans
2020-25.
When we speak of nutrition, what
exactly does that mean? How much
we eat each day, from each of the food
groups varies depending on several fac-
tors — age, gender, height and weight
and how active a person is during the day.
Again, according to the USDA’s
Dietary Guidelines for Americans, this
generally means three cups of low- or
nonfat dairy a day (or ounce equiva-
lents). This would be a cup of milk or an
ounce and a half of cheese, for example.
For grains, it is 5-10 ounces for males
and 6-8 ounces for females (an ounce is
equivalent to a slice of bread). For fruits
it means 1½-2 cups for females and 2-2½
for males. With vegetables it is 2½ cups
for females, and 3-4 cups for males.
Finally, with protein it is 5-7 ounces for
males and 4-6½ ounces for females of
lean meat, chicken, fi sh, nuts or dried
beans, or ounce equivalents (for example,
an ounce of meat or one egg is equal to 1
ounce of protein).
Now, back to the question of whether
fresh is better than frozen. In addition to
being nutritious, frozen foods are con-
venient. Frozen fruits and vegetables
can often be found on sale, too, at cer-
tain times of the year. Because they are
often processed close to where they are
picked or harvested, they retain their vita-
mins more than fruits or vegetables that
must travel many miles to their store des-
tinations losing quality and nutrition con-
tent. Frozen foods, if not over-cooked,
look much the same as they did when
harvested.
According to Nicola Shubrook, regis-
tered dietitian, in an article for www.bbc-
goodfood.com, there are many benefi ts to
frozen produce, health and otherwise.
For one, she says, because produce is
fl ash frozen within a few hours of being
harvested it is almost like-for-like to its
fresh counterpart. The small variations
between fresh and frozen are negligi-
ble. Since some vegetables are blanched
(briefl y cooked) before freezing, many
phytonutrients (carotenoids, for example)
are retained, although sugar and salt lev-
els may be a little higher with frozen food
vs. fresh, she states.
Shubrook goes on to say that freezing
is a long-term method used to extend the
life of fresh produce, making it a healthy
alternative since freezing does not require
the addition of other ingredients or pre-
servatives. Though it is a good idea to
check commercially frozen items for
added sugar or salt, she said.
Freezing food also makes it more
accessible during the months fresh pro-
duce is not available, which means those
nutrients can be accessed year-round.
Studies suggest that people who incorpo-
rate frozen produce into their diets tend to
eat more fruits and vegetables.
Typically, though not always (shop-
pers should look for sales on frozen
foods), frozen foods are less expensive
than their fresh equivalent, especially
out-of-season produce, such as peaches
in December. There is minimum waste
making, it’s more cost eff ective and
accessible to more people.
Also, frozen fruits and vegetables are
easier to prepare and can be a time-saver
for busy households. There is no wash-
ing, chopping, peeling or cutting needed.
They are fast to cook, if not over-cooked
are visually appealing (retaining their
shape and color) and are a convenient
choice for a healthy diet.
Frozen fruits and vegetables are rec-
ognized as safe for most people. If peo-
ple are allergic to a certain fruit or vege-
table, they will experience a reaction to
that fruit or vegetable whether it is fresh
or frozen, thus it should be avoided.
Whatever form you choose to incor-
porate fruits and vegetables into your diet
— fresh, frozen, canned, dried or 100%
juice — they’re all healthy choices and
they all matter.
For more information on nutrition
and food groups specifi cs go to www.
myplate.gov. or www.foodhero.org.
———
Ann Bloom lives in Enterprise and
has worked for the OSU Extension Ser-
vice for 15 years as a nutrition educator.
She studied journalism and education at
Washington State University.