News, 14-15/2/99
hyt...@my-dejanews.com
HANOI (LAT, 14/2/99) --Museums have never been Vietnam's long suit, with most
focusing on the war years. But Hanoi's new Museum of Ethnology, devoted to
that country's 54 minority groups, offers a refreshing perspective on
Vietnam's diversity and is proving popular with tourists. The museum, which
opened last November and was designed with the help of the Musee de l'Homme
in Paris, has more than 15,000 artifacts on display and is a center for
research and conservation. Guides speak Vietnamese, French and English. A
nonprofit shop next door sells traditional handicrafts. Museum admission is
about 70 cents. The museum, telephone 011-84-4-756-2193, is open daily except
Mondays, from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. The 20-minute cab
ride from downtown costs about $4.
* Demonstrators demonstrate that free speech cuts both ways
WESTMINSTER, Calif. (AP, 14/2/99) -- Protesters in Little Saigon say they
don't need a communist sympathizer to tell them about their First Amendment
rights -- they can demonstrate what they know about free expression right in
front of his shop.
"We paid a high price to learn about freedom of speech," said Ky Ngo. "That's
why we are here."
About 50 protesters, many carrying miniature South Vietnamese flags, milled
around in front of Truong Van Tran's Hi Tek video store on Friday, two days
after a judge upheld Tran's right to display the single-star Vietnamese flag
and a picture of communist icon Ho Chi Minh in his shop window.
The Ho poster and flag had been in the window for years, but no one took much
notice until Tran sent out faxes taunting neighbors about the display in mid-
January, said Ngo, a liaison worker with the Vietnamese Community of Southern
California.
"This provoked the community. It challenged the community," Ngo said. "He's
abusing freedom of speech."
Tran is known for supporting better relations with Vietnam, a minority view in
the biggest Vietnamese enclave outside the homeland. The community of about
200,000 is predominantly, sometimes violently, anti-communist.
Slapped by a protester after the judge's ruling Wednesday, Tran collapsed on
the ground while television cameras rolled. He wasn't at the shop Friday, nor
was his window display in evidence.
There were plenty of pictures of Ho on his shop window, however.
Protesters taped up more than a dozen fliers showing Ho inside the circular
international symbol for "no." Some had devil's horns penciled in on the
forehead.
"This guy looks like Hitler. He looks like Pol Pot," said Long Nguyen, a
former South Vietnamese Army lieutenant who spent seven years in a
re-education camp before immigrating to the United States in 1994.
Nguyen Hoai, another army vet, made an appearance wearing red flannel cutoffs
over his sweatpants. A yellow star with the initials "H.C.M." decorated the
rear end. Hoai rattled off a few wisecracks in Vietnamese, triggering
laughter from the crowd.
Reaction would be similar if someone flaunted a picture of Adolf Hitler in a
community of Holocaust survivors, a picture of the late dictator Pol Pot in a
Cambodian immigrant neighborhood or maybe a picture of Saddam Hussein in a
Marine camp full of Gulf War vets, said Ngo.
"They get hurt when they see this picture," he said. "They have nightmares."
"Keep moving," a policeman told the group.
"That's right, keep moving," said Vietnam War veteran Mike Miller, formerly of
the 1st Marines. "Just like the hippies used to."
Miller came to show sympathy for his former comrades-in-arms, he said, and to
help keep things peaceful.
* Happy New Year (Chinese New Year)
The Post-Dispatch, 16/2/99
Out of sight of most St. Louisans, Asian markets have been enjoying their
busiest season as hundreds of customers make lavish preparations for the Year
of the Rabbit.
The lunar New Year, which begins with the new moon at the stroke of midnight
tonight, is the most festive and important annual celebration for the 20,000
Chinese and 10,000 Vietnamese who live in the St. Louis area. This year, the
celebration lasts until midnight, March 16.
Asian stores rack up a steady stream of sales as their customers get ready to
entertain families, friends and neighbors. Loved ones travel long distances to
see each other again, and sumptuous meals are prepared.
For a merchant such as Alex Fung, owner of Seafood City at 7733 Olive
Boulevard in University City, during the weeks before the New Year he can
expect to make 35 percent to 40 percent of his annual revenue from his
wholesale fish business and his richly stocked grocery store.
"The most important thing is the color, which is red for good luck," said
Fung, 33, a Chinese man who was born in Vietnam and fled more than a decade
ago. As he talked, Fung waved at crimson paper lanterns and oversized fake
firecrackers hanging in rows above a heavily laden display table.
One day last week, Fung showed off a stack of gift boxes of dried foods:
premium mushrooms and scallops from Japan and slices of abalone from Mexico.
Swimming in glass fish tanks near the front window were dozens of long, gray
eels. Waiting in metal tanks to be chosen for someone's dinner were clams on
ice and live bullfrogs. Fung was sold out of his usual inventory of
soft-shelled turtles. Out back, he pointed to boxes containing live carp,
from a farm near the Lake of the Ozarks.
"They are leaving tonight by airplane for markets in San Francisco and Los
Angeles, in time for the New Year," Fung said.
The activity is similar at other Asian markets throughout the area as buyers
walk through the front door and begin choosing their holiday merchandise.
For the last several weeks at Cho Grand, a 3,800-square-foot Vietnamese-owned
store at 3469 South Grand Boulevard, Jennifer Lam, 40, and her sister,
Margaret Ly, 30, have been wrapping plastic dishes of candy made in Vietnam
in red cellophane and tying them with bright ribbons.
Like Fung, the sisters and their husbands -- all of Chinese heritage -- left
Vietnam to get away from the communists, just as their parents or
grandparents had left China in the 1930s to escape the Chinese communists.
They came to the United States nearly 20 years ago. "After working our butts
off," as Ly put it, they opened their market in 1992 so they could be their
own bosses.
Now they import goods from throughout the Pacific Rim to cater to the large
Asian community in south St. Louis and throughout the area. The coming of the
New Year means much planning for orders from distributors as they try to
anticipate what their customers will want. Fortunately, the demands for
gifts, food and clothing fall along traditional lines.
Everywhere you look in the Asian communities, people wear their best clothes
as they toast their good fortune and hope for more in the year ahead.
Everywhere, people wear red to bring good luck.
One thing that never goes out of style is the red envelopes into which adults
place money to give to children.
"Some people give their children lots of money," said one merchant. "Some
parents hold the money back from their children, but others let them have it,
so the children may gamble."
One of the games children play involves three dice bearing symbols on each
side. As they roll the dice, they wager their gifts on which sides will turn
up.
Visiting is part of the celebration when people aren't working.
"When you go to a friend's house, you could take a tray of candied or fresh
fruit," said Ly. "If they don't like candy, they can bring cookies for the
younger kids."
At Cho Grand, which means "Grand market" in Vietnamese, a top-of-the-line
candy arrangement goes for $27 and includes candied ginger, water chestnuts,
sweet potatoes, soursop and coconut in pink, white and green strips. Also in
the container are fried watermelon seeds, tangerines and "lucky candy."
Sections of a cooler near the front door are full of fresh duck (with head and
feet on) in sealed plastic bags, waiting to be bought and roasted as the
centerpiece of a family's new year's meal.
As in many Asian groceries this time of year, the one owned by Ly and her
family has set up temporary tables near the cash registers to hold mounds of
specialty candy and gifts for the New Year, called Tet in Vietnamese.
Anything with the word "luck" attached is sure to sell, as people getting
together traditionally wish each other good health and prosperity for the
coming year. Many red banners trimmed in gold have sayings like "Have peace
in your house" and "Good luck for the New Year." The gold lettering also is
an allusion to wealth and good fortune.
Chai Lu, owner of Din Ho, a Chinese market at 8322 Olive Boulevard, pointed to
the drawings of fish on items throughout his orderly, well-stocked store. It's
good luck to eat fish such as carp, as well as other special foods.
"We eat lotus root soup so we can live a long life," Lu said as he showed off
his wares, fresh vegetables and meats. "You also should stir-fry some Chinese
lettuce to ensure a long life."
Several days of eating and renewing family ties and friendships lie at the
heart of the lunar New Year's activities, Lu said.
"Everybody will fly to St. Louis," he said. "Mother will have to cook for
three days. We want to enjoy really good food. There is lots of waste, and
you have food left over for days."
Which makes the lunar New Year festivities sound very familiar: like
Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day, for most Americans.
* Feline-friendly start to year - Year of the Cat celebrated
Ottawa Sun, 15/2/99
Meow!
Vietnamese New Year is just around the corner and with it comes the Year of
the Cat -- a cunning, calculating animal that is believed to bring
prosperity.
Although the New Year doesn't officially kick off until Feb. 16, visitors got
a taste of the festivities on the weekend as the Canadian Museum of
Civilization showcased Vietnamese tradition with painting and cooking
demonstrations.
Vietnamese, Chinese and Korean people celebrate their New Year according to
the Lunar calendar which follows the agriculture cycle, said Dr. Ban Seng
Hoe, the museum's Asian Studies curator.
Vietnamese honour the day with traditional sticky rice shaped into cubes and
visits with friends and family. Money is given to children in a small red
envelope to ensure good luck will follow into the New Year, said museum
visitor Viet Pham, who fled Vietnam in 1975 and now lives in Orleans.
The first few days of the New Year are also designated for relaxation.
"If you work hard in the first three days it will be a laborious year -- myth
has it," Pham said.
The demonstrations were also organized to highlight the museum's exhibit Boat
People No Longer: Vietnamese Canadians, which opened in October and shows
Canada's humanitarian effort to support thousands of Vietnamese refugees who
arrived in the late 1970s and how they have adjusted to their new home.
"We have to know about their way of life, their hopes and aspirations. They
increase our multicultural characteristics," said Hoe.
"It's been 25 years. Many of them arrived with empty hands. We gave them the
economic environment and today they are contributing in all areas of life," he
said.
* Area's Vietnamese community formally welcomes Year of the Cat
Hundreds at a Pennsauken celebration looked forward with hope and backward in
remembrance.
The Inquirer, 15/2/99
Twisting and shaking its mighty head, the dragon stomped around the crowded
room, surveying its path with evil, bulging eyes. Children, squealing with
delight, quickly tossed dollar bills into its mouth and scurried away. From a
safe distance, they watched, wide-eyed and breathless, as the fearsome beast
welcomed in the Vietnamese New Year.
Hundreds of people gathered at a festively decorated banquet hall in
Pennsauken yesterday to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the Year of
the Cat, or Tet Nguyen Dan. The holiday, the most important event of the year
for Vietnamese people, is a mixture of joyful and solemn celebrations.
Marked by singing, dancing and games, Tet is a time to celebrate the future
and reflect on the past. Ancestors, soldiers, prisoners of war and family
members, many of them living in communist Vietnam, are remembered. Wishes and
hope for the future are expressed. Nam Tran, 52, of Camden, a former
lieutenant in the Vietnamese navy who was a prisoner of war for more than 11
years, wants freedom for his former homeland and prosperity for children.
"I hope all Vietnamese children in America . . . progress and study," Tran
said.
Alex Tan, 13, a sixth grader at Carusi Junior High School in Cherry Hill,
wishes he could get to know his extended family in Vietnam. "I've only been
there once," he said. "I wish they could come to visit us, but they don't
have much money. This holiday reminds me how I want to see them."
Tet began thousands of years ago when Vietnamese farmers held joyous feasts
and ceremonies to thank the gods that spring had arrived. It usually occurs
in late January or early February, depending on the lunar calendar.
Although the lunar year officially begins tomorrow, the festival, sponsored
in part by the Former Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association of New
Jersey, was held at the Stardust Ballroom yesterday to accommodate the
American work schedule.
"We've been doing this for three consecutive years," organizer Thuoc Tuong
Nguyen said. "It is very important. It is the most important event of the
year."
Children, adorned in bright, silk dresses, or ao dais, sang and danced for
the crowd. Men made emotional speeches to pay tribute to soldiers who lost
their lives in the Vietnam War. Customary ceremonies were performed to honor
ancestors. Huge feasts were eaten in hopes that the Vietnamese people would
be nourished the rest of the year.
And there was the dragon dance.
The dragon, constructed of papier-mache and red and blue cloth, is a symbol
of strength and goodness. On this day, a team of about six controlled the
brightly colored monster, drawing cheers and smiles from the crowd. "It is a
sign of happiness and good luck," said Hoang Le, 37 of Camden.
* Happy lunar new year Vietnamese Catholics mark Tet event
Times-Union, 15/2/99
First came the smoking incense, then the alternating sound of the drum and the
gong.
As three Vietnamese Americans bowed to honor their forebears, thesculpted
visage of Jesus with a divine crown upon his forehead looked down from behind
the altar upon the celebrants below.
More than 250 Vietnamese Americans gathered at Christ the King Church in
Arlington yesterday to mark the lunar New Year, known as Tet, blending a
celebration of their Asian culture with their strong Catholic faith.
Following the short ceremony came Mass. And then as the parishioners exited
the sanctuary, another tradition, the undulating dragon dance began,
culminating in the ignition of long red bands of firecrackers.
Tradition holds that the cacophony of the smoke, fire and noise drives away
any lingering evil spirits, said Father Thanh Thai Nguyen, a priest at Christ
the King.
A traditional Mass alone, even though said in Vietnamese, fails to incorporate
the cultural elements of the lunar New Year's celebration, he said.
Father Thanh wanted to do more to bring Tet into the church, so three years
ago, he started the special Tet celebration and Mass for local Roman
Catholics.
Yesterday's ceremony was attended by scores of non-Vietnamese as well.
The Mass was said by Bishop John J. Snyder of the Catholic Diocese of St.
Augustine.
For the afternoon service, however, Bishop Snyder left his usual vestments at
home, officiating the service in a bright yellow and red-orange robe with a
dragon on the front.
The bright yellow tone reflects the color of a cherry blossom-like flower that
traditionally blooms in Vietnam this time of year.
''We're enriched by the diversity of cultures,'' Snyder said after the Mass.
The occasion also enabled him to feel the universal reach of the church, he
said.
Vietnamese, Hispanics and the many other nationalities in the church testify
that ''all of us are united in Christ,'' Snyder said.
Father Thanh likened the importance of Tet, which lasts three days and begins
on Tuesday, to a Thanksgiving Day, Christmas and Independence all rolled into
a single celebration.
Sitting back in the pews, Therese Tran, 54, of Jacksonville stressed that New
Year is a family and communal holiday.
Last night for dinner, eight of her brothers and sisters and their children
would gather to mark the holiday with their parents, she said.
''Tet is the time we get together and feel like we are at home,'' Tran said.
In her purse, Tran had a small stack of crisp bills to give to the younger
generation at the evening's gathering.
The small gift is designed to bring good luck and prosperity.
Retiree Jim Fortuna, 84, one of the non-Vietnamese parishioners who came to
yesterday's Mass, stood happily watching the din of the firecrackers.
''It's a little different,'' he said smiling.
* Vietnam hero honored in San Antonio - Silver Star, Purple Heart presented to
survivor of '68 Tet Offensive
SAN ANTONIO (AP, 14/2/99) - Thirty-one years later his right hand still bears
burn scars and a slice of metal remains embedded under the skin above his
right knee.
But until Friday morning, Air Force Airman 1st Class Alonzo J. Coggins, the
sole survivor of a Viet Cong attack on Bunker 051 during the infamous 1968
Tet Offensive, had yet to be publicly recognized for his sacrifice.
He was an obscure hero until Lt. Gen. David W. McIlvoy awarded him the Silver
Star and Purple Heart during a ceremony at Lackland Air Force Base.
"I was the only one who got out alive," said Mr. Coggins, 53. "God placed
angels around me to get out of the hell that I went through."
Mr. Coggins, a retired railroad machinist from Jamaica, N.Y., received the
awards at Lackland because it is home to the Air Force Security Forces
Center, the successor to the Security Police units that fought in the Vietnam
War.
He got the awards years ago in the mail, but he never received them in a
formal presentation, as is typically done by the Air Force.
"This event recaptures some of the dedication and sacrifice that some of
those guys made, because Mr. Coggins here was the only guy to come out of
that bunker alive," said Brig. Gen. Richard A. Coleman, Security Forces
Center commander.
The battle for Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon began at 3:30 a.m. Jan. 31,
1968, as more than 1,500 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong waded into a smaller
group of Americans.
Over the next eight furious hours of battle, Bunker 051 was a vortex of
violence, with Mr. Coggins, then 21, first fighting, then playing dead. "It
was scary, very scary," he said.
He and his men fought back and radioed information that helped commanders
launch a counterattack until the bunker was hit by enemy rocket fire, killing
everyone but Mr. Coggins.
He was retired as an Air Force sergeant after six months in a military
hospital.
* War dogs
Ledger-Enquirer, 14/2/99
Jesse Mendez's eyes moistened when he described what happened to the hundreds
of war dogs he had trained for action in Vietnam.
"We left them to die," he said, trying to remain calm, not an easy task for a
man blessed with a drill instructor's booming voice and the passion of a man
who had trained canines for most of his 30 years in the Army. "Of the 4,000
or so dogs that we shipped to Vietnam, only about 180 made it back to the
States."
Mendez relates that story, and several others detailing the use of dogs in
Vietnam, in a Discovery Channel documentary called "War Dogs, America's
Forgotten Heroes" (10 p.m. EST Monday). Mendez was one of the main advisers
on the film.
Mendez compared the treatment of war dogs from World War II to Vietnam.
He gritted his teeth, and stared down at his clasped hands.
After the second world war, he said, combat dogs were shipped back to the
United States and returned to their civilian owners . . . with honorable
discharge certificates. Many even came home with medals.
Mendez, waving his dog handler's ballcap like a baton, tried to explain the
government's thinking at the time U.S. troops were pulled out of Vietnam.
"Believe it or not, the dogs were classified as equipment, or 'surplus
armaments' in Army talk," said the Iowa native. "Do you know a lot of the
dogs were left in their kennels? Who knows what happened to them after we
left."
Many of the dogs were trained between 1966-69 near the Officers Candidate
School on Fort Benning's Main Post. They served as scouts, sentries and
combat trackers, charged with detecting North Vietnamese and Viet Cong
snipers long before they were able to fire on U.S. troops, and crawling their
way through tunnels and caves, sniffing out enemy mines and booby traps.
"There would be a whole lot more than 50,000 names on the Vietnam Wall
without those dogs," said Dr. John Kubisz, a veterinarian who served with the
764th Veterinary Detachment in Vietnam. "I don't think the average American
even knows the role these dogs played."
It was 1969 and John Flannelly and his German shepherd war dog Bruiser were
on patrol near Da Nang. Bruiser stopped dead in his tracks, his nose up and
his ears twitching. Danger was near.
Flannelly was critically wounded in the subsequent firefight, a gaping wound
in his left side spurting blood onto the battleground. Bruiser dragged
Flannelly out of harm's way, taking two rounds in the process. The two were
later reunited in a nearby mobile field hospital.
Flannelly recalls the bond that existed between him and Bruiser during an
early part of the film, which was produced by a former handler, Jeffrey
Bennett. "He saved not only my life but the lives of other Marines I was
working with. I never would have made it without him. I will never be able to
thank him enough."
Tom McCafferty, a former Fort Benning Army captain who is now an actor, is in
the film.
"I certainly gained an appreciation for what the dogs and their handlers
accomplished during the war," said McCafferty, who plays a war dog company
commander in one of the documentary's rare reenactments.
"You can't believe how these dogs act under fire," said McCafferty, the only
former soldier turned actor in the show. "They are a very special kind of
soldier."
But one that has been underappreciated, says Mendez.
He was the Army's chief war dog instructor during the early years of Vietnam
and the man who wrote the Department of Defense's manual on dog training.
"The K-9 Corps never had the kind of public relations personnel that the
Rangers, Green Berets and units like that had," he said. "Some people thought
of the dogs as a novelty. But their contributions were every bit as important
as the others."
Mendez has spent the 30 years since his retirement documenting the
achievements of war dogs and their handlers in stack after stack of carefully
prepared notebooks.
"I've poured over thousands of after-action reports from the early days of the
war until we pulled out in 1973," he said, proudly displaying the information
he's collected.
By far the most touching statistic: 235 dog handlers from 22 dog platoons
were killed during the war; 283 dogs paid the ultimate price. "That's combat
killed," said Mendez. "It's not counting those we left behind."
Mendez has listed each of the fallen handlers by date of death; he did the
same with each dog. "They deserve at least to be recognized for what they
did," he said.
Mendez spent three combat tours in Vietnam before coming to Fort Benning in
1966 as chief instructor. A member of the K-9 Corps since 1953, he took over
an eight- week basic training program that included the GI handlers, all of
whom were volunteers, and their newly assigned shepherds.
"It wasn't an easy program," he laughed. "In fact, it was pretty darn hard.
But once they had finished with me, they were ready for 'Nam. There they
would get another 12-week course in scouting, followed by a 12-week course in
mine and tunnel operations. Then they were ready to go into the field."
As one of the driving forces behind the formation of the Vietnam Dogs
Handlers Association, Mendez is directing his efforts these days to raising
money to build two war dog memorials -- one in Washington, D.C., the other at
the country's largest veterans cemetery in California.
"These would honor all the war dogs from all wars, not just Vietnam," said
Mendez. "It's the least we can do for them."
* Homeless veterans come in from cold
Deseret News, 14/2/99
Thomas H. Gaddis still has flashbacks about his service in the Vietnam War.
"I'm back in Southeast Asia, Mekong Delta, flying a helicopter — I used to
fly a UH1- D," he said.
He was a door-gunner then. But the flashbacks don't always involve combat
from a helicopter. "I'm a grunt . . . I'm killin' people with an M-60 machine
gun." Or sometimes it's an automatic rifle or a pistol.
Not that he minded killing in his country's war, he claimed. "Why should it
bother me?"
But the flashbacks really do haunt him. They are why he became homeless in
1974, after his service ended. They're the reason he can't cope with other
people.
"I was married, had a nice family — and just like I couldn't live with myself
. . . Nightmares. I had such bad nightmares — flashbacks."
They still come at him once or twice a week, he said. Sometimes more often.
"And the doctors want to give me a drug to compensate for the flashbacks, but
I won't take drugs. I'd rather have alcohol — it's the same thing."
What happens when he wakes up from flashbacks?
"I don't wake up sometimes. I wake up and my whole body's numb, (like) I
belong in a mortuary.
"I relive it all the time. Seven days a week. Do I trust? Do I have any
friends? No. No friends. Don't want one. All acquaintances."
Gaddis, 50, who served with an artillery unit in Vietnam, was one of scores of
homeless veterans who came in from the cold Friday morning for the annual
Homeless Veterans Stand-Down. The event, held Friday and Saturday at the Utah
National Guard Armory, 850 S. 1500 East, is sponsored by government agencies,
charitable organizations and veterans groups.
Their intention is to give a little boost to vets who are running low on
luck. Former servicemen and women get free haircuts and meals, counseling,
dental care, clothing, a place to spend the night. They talk with spiritual,
mental health and job counselors. They relax and enjoy themselves surrounded
by people who respect their sacrifices.
Friday, Ted Baxter, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs,
said he hopes that 300 would show up. As they arrived, they were asked to
leave backpacks and bags in a secure room. One vet complained that he did not
want to be separated from his backpack as it contained $4,000 worth of his
stuff. A volunteer assured him it would be safe.
They were frisked, volunteers' hands sometimes moving along greasy jeans,
sometimes on jackets that looked new. Next they stepped into the cavernous
armory, where they could talk with their fellows, get some coffee, stop at
tables manned by volunteers.
The tables carried signs for the Disabled American Veterans, American Legion,
HUD, a Salt Lake County agency, LDS Employment Services, the Indian Walk-In
Center, other agencies.
Gaddis wanted to talk about the Utah Legislature. He had just visited Capitol
Hill, he said. He was adamant that legislators were breaking the law and
overrunning the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, the amendment banning
illegal search and seizure.
"Put that in the newspaper," he said. "Law is breakin' the law."
He came from Ohio, was reared in Kentucky, enlisted in Cincinnati. He has been
living "on the street, or where I can" since 1974 and he is proud of it.
For now, he is staying at a mission for the homeless. But he hoped Stand-Down
volunteers would give him a sleeping bag, as they have in the past, so he can
go back to sleeping outside.
He prefers to stay outdoors, if he can beat the cold, "because my country
turned me down, my country turned its back on me."
Asked where he sleeps when he's not in a homeless shelter, Gaddis began to
tick off the places: "Let's see. Dumpsters. Behind buildings that's got trees
behind them. Alleys. And I can't give the last one because that would give
the cops all the info they need to get us all."
He could change his lifestyle at any time, but he doesn't want to do it, he
said. "Why should somebody go against my own grain?"
Gaddis' marriage broke up but he never filed for divorce. He paid for the
wedding, let her pay for the divorce, he said. He is not sure whether she
actually took that step, filing for divorce. "Still don't know and don't give
a s***," he said.
Jim Williams has a different view of life on the streets. "I hate it," he
said.
Williams, 45, once served in a Strategic Air Command security unit. He was
stationed in the United States and Panama.
"The service part was OK." His trouble started "after, when I left, coming
back to civilian life. It was rough to readjust."
He was used to following orders and found it difficult to be on his own. Once
he was out of the Air Force, he felt thrust aside by society.
For a while, living in Kentucky, he was married and a police officer. He
owned a restaurant and nightclub business on the side. The business was in
his wife's name and when they divorced she got the company, he said.
He remarried and divorced again. Now, after living on the streets about nine
months, he is temporarily staying with one of his former wives. "I'd be out in
the middle of nowhere if it wasn't for her," he said.
Life on the streets is scary, he said. "You have a big drug problem in the
city (Salt Lake City), whether you want to admit it or not." He has
prescriptions for anti-depressants and medicine to treat his Tourette's
syndrome. The syndrome, which manifests itself in strange vocalizations and
tics, was part of his problem. "I had it but I covered it up," he said.
A new series of medicines seems to be helping him a great deal, he said.
During this interview, Williams exhibited no symptoms. Once while he was
without a place to stay, someone stole his medicine.
He dreams of once again owning his own business. Maybe he could have someone
run it for him while he travels around the country opening new branches.
For now, he said, he is "hopin' to get a job in spite of Tourette's, long
enough to get the business open. Takes time," he said. He is determined to
get back on his feet. "I will," he insisted. He has made contact with the
Small Business Administration and the VA, looking for ways to resume his
normal life.
There is one indication that he'll succeed, Williams believes. It is the
direction his life has been taking lately. "It seems to be going downhill,
but like a roller-coaster, it's got to go back up." Joseph Rios and his
girlfriend, Julie Miller, traveled here from Ogden, where they have been
living with friends. At 45, he is a veteran of the Marine Corps. She is 41,
from Wyoming. They met in a park, and she wasn't homeless.
Asked where he served in the military, Rios said, "Vietnam," and gave a
thumbs- up.
In Vietnam he developed a problem with drinking, he said. "I became not
sociable with a lot of people. I'm what you call a loner, because I do not
belong with other people. Maybe just the way I am."
He can't get over an ambush that he survived in the war.
"I don't sleep in the dark. I always got a light, because I don't like that
dark no more."
He became homeless, because he has a lot of problems. "I don't associate with
a lot of people. I don't trust them," he said.
"He don't sleep good," added Miller. "Always twitchin' and mumbling."
While Rios and Williams were talking to mental health counselors and Gaddis
was across the armory chatting with other veterans, an Air Force color guard
came in carrying the American and Utah flags, their polished shoes clicking
across the floor as they walked single file.
Everybody stood up and stopped talking. Most held their hands over their
hearts.
Gaddis stood stiffly with his hands folded below the waist. He was a striking
contrast to the Air Force men in their razor-sharp dress blues. He wore an
electric-blue outer parka, his yellowish-white hair puffed out around his gray
cap, his face chaffed red by the wind, his beard grizzled.
When the guard placed the flags in the stands and marched away, he delivered a
snappy salute.
* Indonesia would allow reasonable period of transition on East Timor
ABC, 15/2/99 - A close adviser to President, BJ Habibie, says Indonesia would
allow a "reasonable period of transition" if the people of East Timor opt for
independence.
Adviser, Dewi Fortuna Anwar's comments were made in the Australian capital,
Canberra.
Mr Habibie said if it was up to the government, Indonesia would grant the
former Portuguese colony independence.
Ms Anwar did not elaborate on how Indonesia would or could provide for the
transition period, nor how long it might be.
Opposition leader and presidential hopeful, Megawati Sukarnoputri, said she
was "surprised and saddened" by the government's proposal to let go of the
territory.
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