STATE VOLLEYBALL CHAMPS
The
PAGE B1
Blue Mountain
EAGLE
Contributed photo/Tanni Wenger Photography Studio
Grant County’s newspaper since 1868
W EDNESDAY , N OVEMBER 8, 2017
Forest
reform
bill passes
House
• N O . 45
The Grant Union Prospectors celebrate during their rise to
the top at the OSAA Volleyball State Championships.
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Celebrating Veterans
Rep. Walden
applauds
effort in
conference call
By George Plaven
SOPHIA
NICODEMUS
EO Media Group
For the fi fth time in as
many years, the U.S. House
of Representatives passed a
bill Wednesday
that would ex-
pedite certain
forest thinning
projects
to
lower the risk
of destructive
wildfi res across
U.S. Rep.
the country.
Rep. Greg Greg
Walden (R-Or-
egon) hailed it as a big day for
the Northwest during a confer-
ence call with reporters, say-
ing the bill not only solves the
issue of “fi re borrowing” but
gives agencies more leeway to
thin overcrowded and diseased
forests.
Fire borrowing refers to
the longstanding practice of
taking money away from for-
est management programs
to pay for fi re suppression,
making it even more diffi cult
for the Forest Service and
Bureau of Land Management
to get ahead of the problem.
Instead, the Resilient Feder-
al Forests Act of 2017 would
create a new account under
the Disaster Relief Fund —
See FOREST, Page A9
joined Air Force
for career, service
Vet recognized for top secret work
By Richard Hanners
Contributed photo
Navy Radioman Third Class Bob Kimberling, left, stands with some war buddies
during their service in World War II.
BOB KIMBERLING
recalls WWII service
Navy vet a 70-year member of American Legion
in the harbor and have a small
ship go in and tell them where
to fi re.”
He added, “You’d be
avy World War II
copying all the messages
veteran Bob Kim-
from the planes and boats in
berling of Prairie
the invasion, and we were
City was 16 when he heard
supposed to copy that on a
about the Dec. 7, 1941, attack
typewriter and turn it over to
on Pearl Harbor.
the superiors.”
In 1944, at age 18, he
When asked if his ship
signed up for the selective
ever came under fi re, he said,
service. He and his friend Ver-
“We may have dodged a tor-
non Reynolds drove together
pedo or two.”
to Pendleton then rode a train
Toward the end of the war,
to Portland where Kimberling
he was aboard a ship headed to
Bob Kimberling
signed up for the Navy and
the invasion of Japan, he said.
Reynolds for the Army.
“When the Japanese sur-
Entering the service in September of 1944,
rendered, the ship turned around back to
Kimberling went from working on his dad’s
Maui,” he said.
ranch, to boot camp in Farragut, Idaho, to the
He said, after his ship came back to base
Pacifi c Fleet Radio Strikers School at Pearl
camp, “It was kind of like a vacation — it
Harbor.
was Maui.”
He was in radio school for 22 weeks, he
Kimberling was honorably discharged June
said, learning to send and receive Morse code.
4, 1946, a radioman third class.
Kimberling was a part of the Air Support
His friend Reynolds returned earlier from
Control Unit Amphibious Forces Pacifi c Fleet.
the war after being shot in the thigh in Okinawa,
“We were in a unit invasion of an island,” he
See WWII, Page A8
said. “We might be in the communications ship
By Angel Carpenter
Blue Mountain Eagle
N
DEAN NODINE recalls Navy
time during Korean War Page 8
Blue Mountain Eagle
F
or Sophia Nicodemus, joining the Air Force
was a career and service decision.
“It was a career option with college bene-
fi ts,” she said. “I also want-
ed to serve my country.”
Nicodemus graduated
from high school in Mesa,
Arizona, in 1999 and was
working at a car parts store
when someone suggested
she join the Air Force. She
had been a good student in
high school and was con-
sidering going to college,
but she had scored well on
the military’s ASVAB gen-
eral competency test. The
Air Force recruiter she saw
signed her up for a linguist
Contributed photo
job in intelligence work.
Air
Force
Staff Sgt.
“At fi rst, I wanted to
see some action and get de- Sophia Gutierrez,
now Sophia
ployed,” she said.
Nicodemus.
Intel training
Nicodemus was sent to Phoenix, where she under-
went the Defense Language Abilities Battery tests.
“I was already bilingual and had taken four years of
French, but these tests used made-up languages with
nonsense sounds,” she said.
Next was six months of boot camp at Lackland Air
Force Base in Texas.
“I wasn’t an athlete in school – I always worked,”
she said. “But Air Force boot camp is not as hard as
Army and Marine boot camp.”
Nicodemus was sent to the Defense Language In-
stitute in Monterey, California, for technical training
in Spanish and different dialects. She learned native
speakers couldn’t be complacent and had to study hard.
“It was full-time on top of my military responsibili-
ties, such as exercise,” she said. “It made for long days.”
She was next sent to Goodfellow Air Force Base in
San Angelo, Texas, to learn how to perform her job for
the Air Force.
“Altogether, I spent about a year training for my
job,” she said.
Nicodemus was at Medina Annex at Lackland
awaiting top secret clearance for her job at the Medina
See SERVICE, Page A8