V ETERANS D AY
The
Blue Mountain
Thank you for your service
EAGLE
Grant County’s newspaper since 1868
W edNesday , N ovember 7, 2018
• N o . 45
• 20 P ages
• $1.00
www.MyEagleNews.com
QUILTS OF VALOR PROJECT
honors Grant County veterans
Ladies from two quilting
groups will award 63 vets
By Angel Carpenter
Blue Mountain Eagle
A
s Veterans Day approaches, at least 63 Grant
County men and women of valor will be hon-
ored for their military service with handmade,
quality quilts at two events this month.
A small army of women have joined the Quilts of Valor
Foundation in relation with the project.
Two groups, one from the Mt. Vernon and John Day area
and another from Monument, have been furiously quilting
over the past several months, preparing the special gifts.
Grant County
Piecemakers Guild
On Oct. 18, five women gathered around tables at Karen
Hinton’s quilting shop, The Shiny Thimble, in Mt. Vernon.
Hinton, who is president of the Grant County Piece-
makers Guild, said she heard about the Quilts of Valor
Foundation and decided as a New Year’s resolution to start
a quilt in January.
“I talked about it at our guild meeting, and it just snow-
balled,” she said.
She said the guild has held special sewing days, work-
ing with partners.
Betty Ricker of Mt. Vernon said there are many veter-
ans living in Grant County, and she’s enjoyed her involve-
ment with the quilting project.
“It’s kind of like potato chips; you can’t make just one,”
she said.
See QUILTS, Page A10
The Eagle/Angel Carpenter
Mt. Vernon residents Karen Hinton, left, and Maudean Brown create Quilts of Valor for Grant County veterans,
working at Hinton’s The Shiny Thimble quilt shop.
Veteran recalls Cold War Germany
Don Mooney was a soldier-tourist
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
Don Mooney didn’t get the opportunity
to learn how to fix helicopters, but he left
the Army with some vivid experiences —
including sailing across the Atlantic during
the Cuban missile crisis.
Mooney grew up in northern Califor-
nia, but he has family roots in Oregon. He
had started community college and was 18
when he joined the Army in 1959, enlisting
for three years. His goal was to learn about
helicopters.
“They asked me for my second option,
and I put down heavy equipment repair,” he
said. “That’s how I ended up in truck driv-
ing school.”
Army life
Mooney attended boot camp in Fort Ord,
California. He had played
football in high school, so
he was physically fit, but
accepting Army discipline
wasn’t automatic.
“They try to get into
your head,” he recalled. “It
took me a week to bend to
Don
their will.”
Mooney
Mooney had also been
a hunter while growing up,
so unlike other green troops he knew how
to handle a rifle. The soldiers trained with
an M1 Garand, and Mooney recalled a
black soldier from Los Angeles, California,
who’d never fired a rifle, becoming the top
marksman in the company.
At one point, Mooney considered en-
listing in the elite 10th Mountain Division,
which could have led to a tour in Vietnam
in the early years of conflict there. But the
Army required him to reenlist, and Mooney
wanted to return to the states.
Overseas duty
Following eight weeks of truck training,
Mooney traveled to Fort Dix, New Jersey,
arriving just a few days after Elvis Presley
returned from service in Europe. Mooney
boarded the USNS General Simon B.
Buckner in New York in April 1960, bound
for West Germany, but the smells and vibra-
tions of the troop ship proved too much.
“I was sick before we left the harbor,”
he said.
One of the merchant mariners on board
advised him to find work in the galley.
Mooney said he hauled sacks of potatoes to
a mechanical peeler and soon felt better. A
train took the troops from the West German
port of Bremerhaven to a military base near
the city of Kaiserslautern.
Mooney said he was assigned to drive
See GERMANY, Page A10
Contributed photo
Don Mooney weathers winter while at the
military base in Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Mt. Vernon man to be extradited for kidnapping, rape charges
Andy Vogt may still
face federal charges
By Richard Hanners
Blue Mountain Eagle
Charges against a Mt. Vernon man
accused of raping and kidnapping a
15-year-old Idaho girl will be pursued
in an Idaho court.
Andy Alan Vogt, 48, now faces Ida-
ho charges of first-degree kidnapping
and lewd conduct with a minor under
16. Bail was set at $1
million,
according
to court documents.
Grant County Circuit
Court Judge William
D. Cramer Jr. gave
Idaho officials 14 days
Andy Vogt to pick up Vogt.
“These crimes are
based on conduct that is co-occurring
with other more substantial crimes
alleged in Idaho,” District Attorney
Jim Carpenter said in a press release,
adding that the case was transferred to
avoid double jeopardy issues.
The girl, who went missing from
Eagle, Idaho, was located at a home
in Mt. Vernon after the Grant County
Sheriff’s Office was tipped off by law
enforcement in Boise. Carpenter said
Vogt met the girl through a social me-
dia app.
According to an Oct. 31 press
release from Grant County Sheriff
Glenn Palmer, the girl was taken into
protective custody, and the occupant
and owner of the home on Ingle Street
in Mt. Vernon was arrested.
Palmer said his office received a
request for an agency assist from the
Ada County Sheriff’s Office in Boise
on Oct. 29. Deputy Brandon Hutchi-
son responded to Vogt’s residence on
Ingle Street, where the girl was be-
lieved to be, and located her.
The investigation and search war-
rant service concluded in the afternoon
of Oct. 31, Palmer said. His office was
working with the Ada County and De-
schutes County sheriff’s offices along
See CHARGES, Page A10
Saluting our Veterans this Veterans Day
Grant County Veterans Services
530 E Main St., Suite 5 John Day
541-620-8057
88417