The Greenwood Commonwealth from Greenwood, Mississippi • Page 8

PageS Commonwealth Tuesday, December 7, 1999 Ships 'unknowns' may be identified U.S. airline chief warns of overcrowding crisis Goodwin describes projections of fast-multiplying traffic as 'frightening reduce noise and air emissions. AP well put in a request to disinter the remains for an identification review," he said. If DNA samples can be obtained, results will be known within a few months. Joe Campbell, 80, is pushing ahead for his little brother "so I can put a headstone on his grave where it now says nothing but "It seems all I can do is to be hopeful and wait," said Campbell, who described Goodwin as a "good-looking kid with blue eyes and blond Campbell, a World War II and Korean War veteran, is president of the USS Arizona Reunion Association based in Tucson, Ariz.

He and his wife, Ruth, requested the identification process after a Pearl Harbor survivor trying to add information to the "Unknown" grave markers found clues in records of initial burials at a temporary cemetery near Pearl Harbor. Those clues include Goodwin being one of only two Arizona crewmen in his division killed, only one body being recovered from Turret 4 where the division was assigned and the other division member's body being identified, Campbell said. The clues were found by Raymond Emory, a Navy seaman first class aboard the cruiser USS Honolulu during the attack who has waged an eight-year struggle to make the markers of the unknown more specific. "I don't understand what's so difficult about adding the information we know about some of these unknowns," said Emory, a historian respond to several requests for interviews. Congress passed a 1973 law transferring national cemeteries from the Army to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

But the Joint Chiefs insisted in 1998 that the policy on "Unknown" markers remains an Army matter, said Rep. Patsy Mink, D-Hawaii. "This thing has been going in a merry-go-round. The last word we got from the Army last year was: WeVe spent thousands of hours on this and this is the final The Army says they won't allow it because it isn't required," she said. "It may come to the point well have to do it legislatively." Gene Castagnetti, who manages the cemetery, agreed with Army policy.

"In my humble opinion, once you start putting additional information on the marker of an unknown that does not lead any further in determining identity of those remains, it only begs the question of Who was that guy?" he said. "The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier doesn't say whether he was from Texas or Alabama or wherever. The Tomb of the Unknown serves as a symbol for everyone's unknown. That's the way it is with these unknowns." Mink said even the most basic information would be a tribute to these Pearl Harbor unknowns: "It's such a small thing, but if not such a small matter. If a matter of dignity signifying the sacrifices made for this country." Goodwin, whose airline is based in Elk Grove Village, said technology may not be enough.

He noted that air traffic control systems are inadequate and airline infrastructure is "bursting at the seams." "While aviation technology allows us to offer our customers new standards in safety, speed, comfort and reliability, the air traffic control systems that guide and control them have not kept pace," Goodwin said. There also is a lack of runway space and terminals to accommodate the recent surge of passengers. By 2012, takeoffs and landings will increase 30 percent to 35 million annually and the number of passengers, now 680 million, will top 1 billion, he said. If significant infrastructure expansion isn't begun now, a third of the 100 largest U.S. airports will have more than 20,000 hours of delays, Goodwin said.

The hours lost to delays overall will triple in the next 10 years and delays will cost US. fliers $4.5 billion annually, he said. Goodwin said airspace, particularly in delay-prone Europe, must be managed as a single unit and unconstrained by national borders. 71 jii in if (i 1)11 1 Paul Joyce shows off some of his military medals and a photograph of him in the Navy In his Piedmont, home on Dec. 1.

Joyce was aboard the USS Utah when the Japanese attacked the Naval base in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Joyce, now 80, is state president of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. for the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association. "At the least, we could put on the markers the name of their ship and the day they died." His opponents include Gen.

Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who told the 78-year-old retiree that the Army, which inscribed the markers, has no intention of changing them. Officials at the Army's Mortuary Affairs and Casualty Support Division in Alexandria, did not Mos )st company checkbooks Yl txtA Wont Company Fit In By BRUCE DUNFORD Associated Press PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii Seaman 2nd class William A. Goodwin was on duty in Turret 4, deep in the bowels of the aging USS Arizona, when Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941. The 20-year-old was among 1,177 crewmen killed when bombs from 350 aircraft penetrated the Arizona's deck and detonated in the ship's forward ammunition magazine. A body was recovered in August 1942 by salvage divers removing powder bags from the turret magazine, but it could not be identified.

Now, the Army's Central Identification Laboratory is investigating whether Goodwin's remains are among the 124 unidentified Arizona crewmen buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Punchbowl Crater. This is the first effort to identify any remains of 647 unknown Pearl Harbor servicemen buried beneath the vast lawn at Punchbowl. The identification laboratory is the same one that used sophisticated DNA comparisons last year to identify a Vietnam serviceman in the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. Lab officials will compare mortuary records, Goodwin's service records and family records to determine if Goodwin's remains may be under an "Unknown" marker, said Johnie Webb, the lab's deputy director. "Well look and see what similarities there are and if they are close, No health benefits for partners of gay employees DALLAS (AP) The newly formed Exxon Mobil Corp.

will not extend benefits to the partners of new gay employees, discontinuing a policy that had been in place at Mobil The oil giant said Monday it would continue to follow Exxon's long-standing policy of extending spousal benefits only to couples in legally recognized marriages. It will also continue to extend benefits to same-sex partners of Mobil employees who were receiving benefits before the merger, spokesman Ed Burwell said. The Irving, Texas-based company prefers to use the threshold of legally recognized marriages because it "ends the need for the company to, on its own, determine the legitimacy of relationships," Burwell said. Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay-rights group in the nation, accused Exxon Mobil of taking a step backward from the trend of offering benents to partners of gay employees, a policy followed by about half the country's largest corporations. "Rollbacks or cancellations of these types of policies are very rare, and we don't understand why Exxon is doing this," said David M.

Smith, a spokesman for the group in Washington. Smith added that other major oil companies, including BP-Amoco, Shell and Chevron offer benefits to same-sex partners. Hillary Clinton: getting the furniture ready for New York WASHINGTON (AP) Hillary Rodham Clinton says she will spend the holidays at the White' House but after that home will be in New York. The first lady said Monday she expects to begin moving her belongings into the Clintons' new house in Chappaqua, N.Y., later this month if she gets a final OK from the Secret Service in time. "The Secret Service is moving forward, and making the changes that they have to make," Mrs.

Clinton told reporters during a tour of White House holiday decorations. Tm pulling things out of storage and deciding what has to be recovered, or reupholstered." Mrs. Clinton has announced plans to run for the Senate seat of retiring Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan and has said she will move into the $1.7 rnillion home she and the president purchased in Westchester County as soon as security measures are completed. But she said she was not sure whether she could move in herself before year's end. Although she is packing boxes, Mrs.

Clinton said she and President Clinton plan to spend Christmas together at the White House. CHICAGO (AP) Global skies are teeming with so many planes that the entire commercial aviation industry is near crisis, the head of the world's largest airline warns. The skies are crowded and getting more so every day," United Airlines chief James Goodwin said, citing "frightening" projections of fast-multiplying traffic. Unless something is done soon, he told an international aviation conference, severe delays will soon become routine, creating backlogs with serious or even catastrophic implications. His message Monday sounded a rare sour note at a conference at which US.

officials and industry leaders have toasted the breathtaking growth and technological progress that have helped global economic expansion. NASA administrator Daniel Goldin gave an upbeat forecast of the near future of world aviation to the gathering of officials from more than 90 countries and top executives of the world's biggest airlines. Goldin said the space agency is developing technologies to give pilots better vision regardless of darkness or bad weather, detect turbulence earlier, increase air traffic capacity by 50 percent; and Trustmark. Member FDIC aren't exactly pocket-size. Fortunately, Trustmark's new ExpressCheck Debit BusinessCard is.

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