The BulleTin • Monday, april 19, 2021 A3
TODAY
Today is Monday, April 19, the
109th day of 2021. There are 256
days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On April 19, 1995, a truck bomb
destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah
Federal Building in Oklahoma
City, killing 168 people. (Bomber
Timothy McVeigh, who prosecu-
tors said had planned the attack
as revenge for the Waco siege of
two years earlier, was convicted
of federal murder charges and
executed in 2001.)
In 1775, the American Revolu-
tionary War began with the bat-
tles of Lexington and Concord.
In 1865, a funeral was held at
the White House for President
Abraham Lincoln, assassinated
five days earlier; his coffin was
then taken to the U.S. Capitol for
a private memorial service in the
Rotunda.
In 1897, the first Boston Mara-
thon was held; winner John J.
McDermott ran the course in
two hours, 55 minutes and 10
seconds.
In 1943, during World War II,
tens of thousands of Jews in the
Warsaw Ghetto began a valiant
but ultimately futile battle
against Nazi forces.
In 1993, the 51-day siege at the
Branch Davidian compound
near Waco, Texas, ended as fire
destroyed the structure after
federal agents began smashing
their way in; about 80 people,
including two dozen children
and sect leader David Koresh,
were killed.
In 1994, a Los Angeles jury
awarded $3.8 million to beaten
motorist Rodney King.
In 2005, Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger of Germany was elect-
ed pope in the first conclave of
the new millennium; he took the
name Benedict XVI.
In 2013, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev,
a 19-year-old college student
wanted in the Boston Marathon
bombings, was taken into cus-
tody after a manhunt that had
left the city virtually paralyzed;
his older brother and alleged
accomplice, 26-year-old Tamer-
lan, was killed earlier in a furious
attempt to escape police.
In 2015, Freddie Gray, a 25-year-
old Black man, died a week after
suffering a spinal cord injury in
the back of a Baltimore police
van while he was handcuffed
and shackled. (Six police officers
were charged; three were ac-
quitted and the city’s top pros-
ecutor eventually dropped the
three remaining cases.)
In 2018, Raul Castro turned over
Cuba’s presidency to Miguel Ma-
rio Diaz-Canel Bermudez, the first
non-Castro to hold Cuba’s top
government office since the 1959
revolution led by Fidel Castro and
his younger brother Raul.
Ten years ago: Cuba’s Commu-
nist Party picked 79-year-old
Raul Castro to replace his ailing
brother Fidel as first secretary
during a key Party Congress. Syria
did away with 50 years of emer-
gency rule, but emboldened and
defiant crowds accused President
Bashar Assad of simply trying to
buy time while clinging to power.
Norwegian runner Grete Waitz,
57, who’d won nine New York
marathons and the silver medal
at the 1984 Los Angeles Olym-
pics, died in Oslo.
Five years ago: Front-runners
Donald Trump and Hillary
Clinton swept to resounding
victories in New York’s primary.
Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel
Castro delivered a valedictory
speech to the Communist Party
that he put in power a half-cen-
tury earlier, telling party mem-
bers he was nearing the end of
his life and exhorting them to
help his ideas survive.
One year ago: Canadian author-
ities brought an end to a deadly
weekend rampage, fatally
shooting a man who had killed
22 people in shootings and fires
across central and northern Nova
Scotia; Gabriel Wortman had
been driving a replica police car
during the rampage.
Today’s Birthdays: Actor Elinor
Donahue is 84. Rock musician
Alan Price (The Animals) is 79.
Actor Tim Curry is 75. Actor Tony
Plana is 69. Former tennis player
Sue Barker is 65. Motorsports
Hall of Famer Al Unser Jr. is 59.
Actor Tom Wood is 58. Former
recording executive Suge
Knight is 56. Singer-songwriter
Dar Williams is 54. Actor Kim
Hawthorne (TV: “Greenleaf”)
is 53. Actor Ashley Judd is 53.
Actor Jennifer Esposito is 49.
Actor James Franco is 43. Actor
Kate Hudson is 42. Actor Hayden
Christensen is 40. Actor-comedi-
an Ali Wong is 39. Actor Victoria
Yeates is 38. Roots rock musician
Steve Johnson (Alabama Shakes)
is 36. Actor Courtland Mead is
34. Retired tennis player Maria
Sharapova is 34. NHL forward
Patrik Laine is 33.
— Associated Press
LOCAL, STATE & REGION
NEW FLAGS FOR THE
‘LUCKY’ VET OF JOSEPH
Now 96, the Marine who missed the worst of WWII is still flying his flags proudly in Northeast Oregon
BY BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
J
OSEPH — To honor his
military service and his 96th
birthday, one of Wallowa
County’s last World War II
and Korean War veterans, Lee Cut-
ler, was presented with a U.S. flag
that had flown over the U.S. Cap-
itol and with a new Marine Corps
flag earlier this month.
Cutler has flown one of each
from a pole outside his Joseph
home for years.
Glenn Smith, a community
health care worker from Winding
Waters, said Cutler “displays his
flag proudly,” but they’re getting
worn so they were being replaced.
Kim Hutchison, president of the
Eagle Cap Post of the Veterans of
Foreign Wars, made the presen-
tation of the flags April 8. The na-
tional flag was obtained by U.S. Rep.
Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, to honor
Cutler’s service and his birthday.
A couple dozen people joined
Hutchison during the presentation,
including fellow veterans, Wallowa
County Commissioner Susan Rob-
erts, Joseph Mayor Belinda Buswell
and members of the Joseph Fire
Department in a fire truck with
lights flashing.
Hutchison said Smith prompted
the honor. “The driving force be-
hind this is one of the care team
and he got it from a local congress-
man,” Hutchison said.
While Cutler values his time in
the military, he doesn’t consider
his service as particularly heroic.
Although his unit followed in the
steps of much of the island-hop-
ping campaign to drive the Jap-
anese out of territory they’d con-
quered in the Pacific, he didn’t see
any serious action.
“We seemed to be just one step
behind everybody,” he said. “We
weren’t there when they took the
island; we were there after for the
mop-up operations. I always said I
was lucky.”
He added that most veterans
don’t want to discuss the horrors
of war and he’s no different. But he
was fortunate in not having to wit-
ness much.
“I didn’t do much fighting,” he
said.
Cutler admits his memory isn’t
what it used to be, but he does re-
call boot camp. The Michigan na-
tive took a train to San Diego after
enlisting in late 1942 — with his
parents’ consent — at age 17. It was
at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot
he learned some valuable lessons.
“I thought it was all a big game
at first until a sergeant came out
one day and said, ‘Did you shave
this morning?’ I said, ‘No.’ Big mis-
take,” he said. “I was told to shave
and I didn’t do it. I didn’t need to.
So he made me get a razor and
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Kim Hutchison, president of the local post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, presents new national and Marine Corps flags
to World War II and Korean War veteran Lee Cutler on the front porch of Cutler’s home in Joseph on his 96th birthday on
April 8. The U.S. flag is one that flew over the U.S. Capitol. The presentations were to honor his service and his birthday.
Cutler stands under the national flag
and the Marine Corps flag that fly out-
side his Joseph home on April 7, the
day before his birthday.
sat down for a whole hour shav-
ing both sides of my face — a dry
shave. My face was so damned
sore. I learned the hard way to
take orders. … I remembered that
when I was told to do something,
to do it.”
He believes the military has
lightened up in recent years.
“These guys nowadays never
went through what I went through.
When we went through boot
camp, we went through boot
Oregon offshore anglers to see
uptick in hatchery coho fishing
The Oregonian
Despite declines in some
salmon runs from Washington,
the lower Columbia River and
Northern California, offshore
anglers will see substantially
more hatchery coho fishing this
year over last, especially along
the central Oregon Coast.
State and federal biologists
completed a grueling weeklong
spring session Wednesday af-
ternoon after intense discus-
sions about how to balance an
abundant coho salmon predic-
tion with diminishing returns
of other stocks in several rivers.
Still pending are summer
and fall regulations on the Co-
lumbia River. Those are typi-
cally announced by Washing-
ton and Oregon in late April or
early May.
The following ocean salmon
seasons were adopted by the
Pacific Fishery Management
Council but must still be ap-
proved by the National Marine
Fisheries Service: Leadbetter
Point, Washington to Cape Fal-
con near Manzanita (mouth
of Columbia). Cape Falcon to
Humbug Mountain (central
coast). Humbug Mountain to
Oregon/California border.
Managers said in-season
changes are possible.
camp,” he said.
While the MCRD was tough, he
quickly learned to appreciate it.
“Those first two weeks, I’d have
given anything to get out of there.
If I wasn’t so scared to, I’d have
probably walked out,” Cutler said.
“It took about two weeks of train-
ing, then I thought it was the great-
est place.”
After boot camp and rifle train-
ing, he was assigned to the Marine
Air Wing.
“I was just lucky,” he said.
The first plane he was in was a
Curtiss SBC Helldiver, two-seat
scout bomber. Considered obso-
lete before the outbreak of the war,
it was kept well away from enemy
fighters. The pilot took the front
cockpit, with the gunner/radioman
in the rear. That’s where Cutler got
his first ride.
“The guy just stuck me in there
and said, ‘We’re going to see if you
can make it or not. Here’s a bag.’ He
strapped me in and said ... ‘If you
get sick, throw up in this bag.’ So I
got in the plane and we got up there
and he started to roll the plane, and
I was just thrilled to death,” Cutler
said. “I enjoyed it. Then he went
right, straight down and I started
calling out (the altitude.) But look-
ing back, that was all fun.”
After it was determined he could
handle flying, he was sent to aerial
gunner school and qualified among
the top of his class. But radio school
in Hawaii tripped him up.
“I flunked, so I didn’t get my
wings,” he said. “So I went over as
a spare aerial gunner and went to
Midway.”
His arrival there months after
the crucial June 1942 Allied victory
was as one of the replacements sent
to the island where much of the
Japanese Navy had been destroyed.
He handled bombs at the airfield
there and machine guns he was fa-
miliar with.
After a quick return to Hawaii,
he was shipped to the Solomon Is-
lands, the site of another import-
ant Allied victory. But again, it was
after the island had been retaken
from the Japanese. There, he flew
again, but spent most of his time
disrupting Japanese supplies and
equipment.
“We kept their food line and
their ammunition line down,” he
said. “We’d just go out there and
put gasoline on their rice fields and
shoot up all their boats.”
Cutler believes his failure to get
his wings may have saved his life,
since about half of the radiomen/
gunners he was aware of didn’t sur-
vive the war.
“I just lucked out,” he said. “I was
in the right place at the right time.”
He met his current wife, Kate, in
Sandy, where she used to swim in a
pool he cleaned.
“It was the bathing suit that
caught his eye,” she said.
In retrospect, Cutler highly val-
ues his time in the service and
thinks the experience would be
valuable to all young people.
“I think it was fantastic. I would
go through the Marine Corps
again. They taught us to follow or-
ders and help one another,” he said.
“Every young man — who can —
should serve his four years — to
learn something, to learn to be a
man.”
Attention Parents of 2021 Grads!
Help make some
memories!
The Bulletin is publishing a special
Class of 2021 Graduation section
on May 30 to celebrate graduating
Central Oregon high school students.
Enter a congratulatory message or a short biography
along with a photo for just $25. Your messages will be
grouped together by school and published in full color.
Call The Bulletin Advertising Dept. for more information.
541-385-5809
Advertising deadline: Monday, May 17
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