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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (April 11, 1963)
"Operation Friendship" Wins Panamanian Acceptance By PHIL NEWSOM UPI Foreign News Analyst Quarry Heights, Panama Canal Zone-WPIi-Capt. David Hanrahan is glad he is a boy from Brooklyn because, he says, a boy from Brooklyn can do anything. At any rate. Captain Hanra han is the only U S. citizen to have a school in Panama named after him and he is one of the thousands of reasons for a vast change of heart among the Panamanians in their feelings toward the United States. Panamanians who in the riots of Nov. 3, 1959, were throwing rocks at the Ameri cans, today toss off smiles instead, and the rocks are going into new homes and roads. There are two root causes, one so simple as to make it seem odd that the idea hadn't occurred years ago. It is "Op eration Friendship," under taken in July, 1960, by Maj. Gen. Theodore Bogart, com manding general, U.S. Army Caribbean, and now bearing its first fruits. Alliance Helps The other is the Alliance for Progress whose funds al located to Panama so far are not large but which are pro viding Panamanians with con vincing examples of what can be done. A third element will be Introduced next month when the first Peace Corps workers arrive to help in Panama's back-country heal t li problem. But to come back to Cap tain Hanrahan, a lanky boy from Brooklyn. It began on Thanksgiving day when a woman from the little town of Colinas de Ca cercs wondered if the 112 men in Battery B of the 22nd Artillery couldn't help the I town put a new roof on its I tiny school. Hanrahan made himself an jjS advance party of one to in Jyspect the problem. Need School I The school not only needed '.a roof. What it needed was ' . a whole new school. I Back- at base, Hanrahan drew up a set of plans. Meet ings with the townspeople fol- lowed. Merchants in Panama ;; City contributed goods and I money. The townspeople man ufactured their own bricks. Lots of hand labor and $2,000 turned the trick. When the town dedicated the new school, they named il after Hanrahan and once each year, on May 4, the United States flag flics beside the Panamanian in the school yard. In 1961, it was discovered that Cuba had smuggled I 100,000 pencils into Panama and was distributing them ' among school children. Two pictures of Castro decorated fly' the lop of each pencil and js below were flags of every 5 Latin American country. Cuban Pencils In the country schools of Panama pencils are a luxury, a stub end frequently being shared by several children. . So when the Panama govern ,mcnt began taking up the pen- i cils, Castro had won at least a negative victory. It was Capt. Jack Leonard who filled the gap. He wrote to each Catholic diocese in I Connecticut, New York and H New Jersey, appealing for I pencils. Within weeks he had I collected 300,000. They were I distributed by air, horseback I and Jeeps. To make delivery to one tchool, Leonard made a nine hour trip on horseback. The list of such things is long in what the Army calls its "Civic Action" program. Schools and orphanages have been adopted by the Army. Sgl. Harry Raymond discovered a woeful lack of supplies in the country's blood bank. Prospective donors cither feared to give blood or were rejected for health reasons. Give to Needy Ravmond instituted a pro- cram of education and action under a slogan of "Give to the Needy." Now the hospital of Panama, if the supply still docs not meet the demand, at least are better off than they were. The shacks and lean-to's ol the poor, built of tin and dis carded lumber, cluster in upon Panama City's outskirts and huddle in vacant lots alongside modern city build ings. But gradually, they arc disappearing. With hclD from the Alii ancc for Progress, the people of one small community out side Panama City built 20 new hniTK-s even before they had decided who would live them. The effort was so suc cessful that now 50 more arc coin2 up Under the self-help require ments of the Alliance, the people elsewhere are build inn mnre homes and schools Links Villages a nrw road links three amall villages on the Allan tic side and eventually will jive them access to Colon and a market for their fruit. On the Pacific side, a fish ing village has received a refrigerator truck, enabling ihcm to market their fish. A freezer plant is being planned. Just outside Panama City and today's modern living, the jungle reclaims the land, a rain forest of towering trees, palms, trailing vines and a dense undergrowth. An airplane could crash there or a man could die there and the jungle would close over without leaving a trace. The Panama jungle is the home of the deadly poisonous fer der lance, the bushmaster. the boa constrictor, trees whose sap can blind and fruits that are beautiful but which also are deadly poison. But it also is the home of fur bearing animals that can be eaien, plants that preserve water and other plants that preserve life. Know Jungle It takes special men to know the jungle. One such is Morgan Smith, a stocky muscular man with a wide smile who began adult life as an anthropologist and now heads up the Air Force Tropic survival school, Al brook Air Force base. Another is Gcrtrudis Arauz, a dark-skinned, leathery man who was born in a small jun gle clearing in the Chyman district of Panama. He travels the jungle by day or night as easily as most men cross a city street. A third is chief Antonio Zarco, a Choco Indian who owns the jungle by tribal right. Visitor? in the jungle are there by his consent, an enemy at his own risk. Chief Appears Zarco is only his Spanish name. He believes that to dis close his real name to a for eigner would be to surrender something of his own spirit. The chief and his men ap peared at the edge of the hacked-out clearing suddenly and silently, small men, mus cular and beautifully propor tioned with finely chiseled features and great dignity. The chief, in borrowed shirt and trousers, had visited Lt. Gen. Andrew P. O'Meara, commander - in - chief of the Unified Caribbean command. at his headquarters in Quarry heights. He had witnessed a review and seen the general shaking hands along the ranks. The general, too, he real ized was a chieftain. And so, in ihe desert clear ing, in bright red loin cloth, his body streaked with black and wearing a straw head dress decked with red hibiscus SECTION B Medford PAGES 1 to I Tribune MEDFORD. OREGON, THURSDAY, APRIL 11. 1963 flowers, tne chief drew up his visitors in a solemn line and greeted each. Morgan Smith said the chief had paid his guests a great honor. Chief Zarco and his men do occasional jungle rescue work for the military and play what under other cir cumstances would be a deadly game. Paid for Seise In air commando exercises, the Indians, operating silent ly and unseen, are paid SO cents for each commando that they can seize. In effect, each is a dead commando. Air Force instructors say the Indians aren't getting rich from these games but admit ruefully they manage to do quite well. This dispatch is being writ ten in a moment of aching rest, with a sore backside ac quired from a slide that seem ed halfway down the moun tain from the jungle clearing, a slightly sprained ankle and a great respect for the Mili tary Tropic Survival school. It is written with respect for the pilot who airdropped cold drinks into the clearing. His aim was good even if the parachute did fail to open. 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