APRIL 15, 2004
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A Publication of the Grand Ronde Tribe
www.grandronde.org
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She Served Her Country Tribal Council Secretary and Army Veteran June Sell-Sherer welcomed more than 300 women Veterans to
theTribal gymnasium on Friday, March 26, for a day-long conference emphasizing rights and services for women Vets. Many don't
know that they are entitled to these services. Some who have served don't even realize that they are Veterans. See Story on page 4.
Home From The War Front
Tribal member Frank Hostler returns from Iraq.
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Frank Hostler, Jr.
By Peta Tinda
Tribal member Frank Hostler, Jr.
has just returned from Iraq after
serving with the Army National
Guard's 52nd Engineers Construc
tion Battalion, based in Albany. He
arrived back in the states a little
over a month ago and has been in
Oregon for three weeks. Frank is
the son of Frank Hostler, Sr. and
Linda Olson. He is the grandson of
Fred Hostler and Laura Scot on his
father's side and Fremond Bean and
Laverne Hosford on his mother's.
Hostler specializes in demolition
and construction.
"I assemble things that go boom,"
said Hostler. "I work with mines,
which can be used in a variety of
ways, both offensively or defen
sively. It's very slow, tedious work.
There's nothing fast about it."
Hostler's other specialty is con
struction, which came in handy
during the re-building of Iraq after
its occupation by coalition forces in
2003.
"I can build a bridge, then blow
it up," Hostler said with a grin.
When in Iraq, Hostler drove a
General Motors Corporation model
See HOSTLER on Page 6
Vietnam: Agent Orange Is A Silent Killer
Tribal member Tom Leno has suffered the effects.
Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde
Community of Oregon
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By Peta Tinda
On a hot summer day in 1970,
specialist Tom Leno and his battal
ion, the Alpha 1 and 2 Companies
of the First Infantry Division,
known as the "Black Scarves," for
their scarves made from captured
Viet Cong cloth, were ordered to
advance on a VC bunker.
This was nothing new to the sol
diers, who had been carrying out
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up ambushes for
weeks.
But, that day an
unusual order came
down.
The troops were or
dered to put on gas
masks and wait for a
plane spraying some
sort of chemical to
make a few passes
over the bunker, be
fore advancing. "It
wasn't tear gas, be
cause it didn't burn
your skin or eyes the
way that tear gas
does," he recalled.
Leno was the ammunition bearer
for one of the platoon's two M-60
machine guns. He carried 100
pounds of equipment through the
hot, humid jungle that day. He had
two cans of ammo, each with 200
rounds and a couple of 200-round
bandoliers, draped Pancho Villa
style over his shoulders. He was
also packing four claymore antiper-
Tom Leno in 1969
sonnel mines, four or five hand gre
nades, five quarts of water, and his
M-16, nicknamed Baby.
"We were supposed to shoot the
Viet Cong as they ran out of the
bunker. But we didn't see any and
we took the gas masks off," he said.
"So then we had to pack the gas
masks around for a while until we
got them airlifted out."
Leno served for
three more years,
until honorably
discharged in
1973.
He never
thought about the
events of that day
until years later,
when he was diag
nosed with Type 2
diabetes, one of the
symptoms related
to exposure to the
chemical defoliant
known as Agent
Orange.
"It never crossed
my mind that they
would spray some
thing on us that would kill us," said
Leno. "It makes it kind oi" hard
when you find out."
The Army sprayed an estimated
19 million gallons of Agent Orange
during the war with Vietnam, de
foliating untold of acres of jungle.
Agent Orange gets it's name
See LENO on Page 7
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