Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 4, 2006)
Local soldier shares Afghanistan vision Steven A rntt, currently serving in Bessie Wetzell Newspaper Library Afghanistan, recently sent Univ ersity o f Oregon this update to his parents, Eugene. OR 97403 Gene and Sharon Arntt of Heppner: “ I am taking a Lieutenant Colonel's job on Kandahar. 1 will be the new Civil Affairs officer for RC South, which means 1 do village medical operations, C ER P (C om m anders Em ergency R ebuilding Projects— the largest single budget in the army in Afghanistan), managing all of the Titan Linguists across RC South (something like 200 or so of these guys), in addition I am responsible for knowing the culture and religious habits of our host nation. 1 think it is going to be a great job. It is a lot of stuff all rolled together, a little bit of pssops, a little Civil A ffairs, some c o n tractin g and some medical m anagem ent. I should not be bored. 1 go from sharing a desk with six people to having an entire building that is mine on camp Shir Zai. The new position is pretty cool. I should be able to get out and do ev ery th in g 1 have been screaming about doing dow n here. IO (inform ation o p e ra tio n s) cam paigns, village school projects, building new medical clinics, roads, drilling wells and 8 Pages Wednesday, October 4, 2006 Morrow County, Heppner, Oregon making better farm ing processes possible. I kept getting told no on my projects, so they gave me the job of the guy who kept saying no. how funny is that. Looking forward to living on KAF. sort of. I am used to my life here in Tombstone and will miss it some, but I get to come out here every so often. “This is a great photo of Nigel Booker and 11 1 1 1 1 •111 ■ 11 1 •• 11 1 11 111 1 1 VOL. 125 NO. 40 1111 1 1 2006 Heppner Homecoming Court Steven Arntt (right) and friend Nigel Booker, an officer in the British military, celebrating Afghan Independence Day. I. Nigel is a proper British officer and never arises before noon. We are here cele b ra tin g Afghan Independence Day. Afghan In d ependence Day is a celebration of kicking the British out of their country. It's okay, they are getting used to it. “Nigel and I were the only two to dress up like Afghans. I was the only one to learn to sing and dance with them. This was the best thing I ever did. I was resistant at first, but it made us a lot of points with the locals and General Mujaiden now calls me his Afghan Brother. It also made it possible for me to be w orking on building a school, a well, a clinic and a road outside of Gareshk. The local village elders were on hand and they trust me now. I am a one man IO campaign. “I came back from KAF yesterday. The roads are getting worse. The ANP has given up any pretense of policing anything. They just set up check points and demand money. Half the time you cannot tell if they are ANP or Taliban. They look basically alike. I talked to my A fghan buddy yesterday; he was charged $50 US to get through a check point. To give you an idea of how much money that is the ANA soldiers make $70 a month. The general next door makes $280. Yes, corruption is a national past-time here. That will not change during my time here or for a long time afterwards.” Rep. Greg Walden to appear at Appreciation Dinner Homecoming Court: (Hack Ron L-R): Jay and Haillie Keithley, Mark and Mahaley Huddleston. Wayne and Queen Regi Seitz. Mark and Lyndi Patton. Cyde and Jay Coil; (Front Ron L-R): Tim Hauer, Casey Mahen. king Aaron Allstott. Zack kurtz and Luke Kasile. Junior Crown Bearers: Shania Osmin and Koby Daugherty. Photo by Sandy Matthews. City of lone dedicates memorial rose garden A non-partisan appreciation dinner is being held to honor Rep. Greg Walden at John's Place in H eppner on Tuesday ev en in g , Sept. 10. Rep. Walden is making a swing through Morrow County to listen to his constituents and to brief Morrow County residents on such issues as school funding and medical care issues. He is an advocate to pressure C o n g ress to continue payments to rural counties hurt by cutbacks on federal logging. Walden has introduced a bill before C o n g ress that could generate up to $13 million a year for the schools program. Walden said that post forest fire logging is a key to funding but the bill has been stalled in the Senate. Walden has recently been honored by residents of Klamath Falls for his work on water for irrigation in the Klamath Basin theTulelake Irrigation District. His most recent visit to Oregon last month p resen ted a substantial check to Gilliam County for the Children and lone Mayor Mark Bruno and City Recorder Gayle Eynetich worked on creating a Fam ilies M entoring memorial rose garden to be installed by the new lone public restrooms (inset) at lone Program. City Park A dding to the lone City Park memorial stone placed next A ttendees then enjoyed ev en in g event will be received two new eye to each w ith “In honor o f..." refreshments as they took O re g o n 's L egislative catchers- one a brand new inscribed on each. Roses tim e to view the new Representative Greg Smith, restroom facility and the were purchased in memory additions to the park. The city o th er a m em orial rose of family m em bers or m aintenance crew will garden. A d edication groups. the roses. cerem ony for the rose Forty-five people m aintain Remaining proceeds from garden was held Thursday. attended the d edication Sept. 28 in lone. ceremony and listened as the purchase of the roses will Thirty-three roses Mayor Mark Bruno read a he used to pay for the roses' were planted with a list o f the d ed icatio n s. upkeep. ALL NEWS AND ADVERTISEMENT DEADLINE: MONDAYS AT 5:00 P.M. Rep. Greg Walden from our district, who will be acting master of ceremonies. Rep. Smith is willing to say a few words and answer questions following Rep. W alden's remarks to his constituents. Starting o ff the Appreciation Dinner is a no host wine tasting party by Murrays. It will be held at John's Place, beginning at 5:30 p.m., with a possibility of a string ensemble during the wine tasting. •A full dinner by John and Nancy Gochnaucr will be presented at 6:30 p.m., for pre-sold tickets holders. There are a limited number o f tickets that can be purchased at Murrays or at Bueknum's. As of this date over half of the tickets have been sold. No sales at the door. Price of the tickets w ill be $17 dollars including gratuity. Greg Walden invites you to come and pose questions to him on any issue so that he can accurately represent those of us in his district. Walden returns home to Oregon most every week from our n a tio n 's capital to stay in close touch with the residents of the 20 counties in eastern, central and southern Oregon in O re g o n 's Second Congressional District. Last week. Walden completed his 283rd round-trip between Oregon and Washington, D.C. since first being elected. Congressman Walden is currently serving in his fourth term representing the people of the Second Congressional District of Oregon, which includes 20 co u n ties in central, southern, and eastern Oregon. He serves on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce as well as the Committee on R esources. He was re elected in 2004 with 72 percent of the vote in a four- person race.
