The Star Press from Muncie, Indiana • Page 37

JL 'Showdown' School Board Election Leaves Situation Somewhat Murky Album of Yesteryear The Star invites persons having pictures of papers, magazines, high school or college year historical interest of the Muncie area to send them book or Postcards- Pictures should be of or bring to newspaper office. They be actual photos and not reproductions from news- publication. I 1 1 ct ft 1 I I y. By DICK POWELL The Muncie School Board election May 5 wai supposed tu be a showdown on several subjects. Paradoxically, the top two vote-getters among.

the six candidates have widely divergent views on all the For that reason, it's difficult to in-teipret what message if any Muncie residents were trying to get through to the school board by re-electing one im-cumbenf and electing an outspoken opponent of board policies while, at the same time, dooming a second incumbent to defeat. Hurley Goodall, the first Negro ever elected to the school board, was second high vote-getter. The man who led the race was Jack Peckinpaugh, an incumbent who had served as board president In his last term. GOODALL SPOKE OUT against at-large election of school board members and in favor of a district plan during his campaign. Peckinpaugh on the other hand, contends that it is the caliber of people elected that make a good school biard, not the geographic location of their Goodall opposed present school policy, Including the northwest high school, saying he felt the entire community's views weie not given full consideration by the school board.

In several instances, he said, the board was unreceptive to the concerns of parents and special interest groups. All the specific issues aside, there are factors that could make Goodall's election to the board interesting when he takes of-fic- in July, 1971. He will be seated with Peckinpaugh, J. Richard Marshall, Sam Reed and Raymond Rothhaar. PECKINPAUGH is a successful insurance agent.

Marshall and Reed are attorneys. Rothhaar is a dentist. All four are white and live on the northwest side of lift mwm siiiiiiif liifef p. i a SpiaMtes hCl'iT3ww. rzJL GOODALL Murcie.

Goodall is black, he is a fireman and comes from the other side of town. Trouble? "I don't think there will be any radical changes because he's on the school board," says Peckinpaugh. "I think he will make a good member. "I think his election means that the black community will have a representative on the board, although I think we've represented them in the past. I'm looking forward to working with Hurley.

I've known him for a long time. "We haven't always seen eye-to-eye, but there has been no animosity. He is aft one person, like the rest of us. I see no problem in working with him." GOODALL says he has no personal animosity toward the present board, although he opposes some past decisions it has made and thinks the board has been cool and unreceptive to citizens on several occasions. "I think it was a combination of things that made the election go the way it did," Goodall said.

"Some people apparently thought representation was needed from parts of the community other than the northwest side and felt genuine changes need to be mace. I think this accounts for my votes. "Jack Peckinpaugh's re-election meant to me that the people want change, but don't want it to be made too quickly." "I'll say this it took over $1,000, endless hours of work by hundreds of people and many hours of meeting people by my PECKINPAUGH wife and I to get the Job done. And I am proud and happy about it. Still, I came in second.

It would be difficult if not impossible for anyone else to garner the kind of help I received, and I am. still humbled by the kindness and help given me. If this does not convince the people that a change in our school board election process is needed, I don't know what will." GOODALL DOES NOT expect to clash with the board. However, "if I feel something is wrong, I will speak out. "I hope to do this in a constructive way, to promote serious consideration of the issue so that it will be resolved in the best possible way." He said he expects to be pressured by blacks to vote on some issues as a black, but hopes he can vote from an Informed position and can vote for the best interests of the entire school system.

Until he takes office next year. Goodall dcesn't want to be a thorn in the board's side, nor does he want to undermine his position with the men before he becomes a fuH voting member. "I have a lot of things in mind I want to jet done when I am a member," he said. PECKINPAUGH and Goodall list almost identically the same problems they see will confront the board in the next few Both list: Implementation and completion of the elementary school building program. Student unrest.

The possibility of direct negotiations with teachers on wages and working conditions. Goodall figures mapping a plan for the integration of the new Northwest High School also will he an issue. Figuring no what Hurley Goodall's effect will be on these school board decisions is mere speculation. He thinks, however, that "one person can make a difference." SUNDAY, MAY 17, 1970 I "''immr i-wn-i r- For 91 years, the Kirby House in its final years the Huron Hotel served travelers. The four-story hotel, a fine one in its eariy days, was built in 1871 and was razed in 1 962.

The site at the southwest corner of Main and Jefferson streets is you guessed it a parking lot. At one time, concerts were given by a band whose members were seated on the balcony extending over the sidewalk. The photo by Otto Sellers, a Muncie photographer, was supplied by a person who wishes to be anonymous. tpiflllfll Ip' -Tl llj ft The Muncie Star Sunday Feature Page MUNCIE STAR On the back of the photo from which this repro- which we know today as the Chesapeake and Ohio, duction is made are the words "First train into Gaston David M. Meeks, Muncie funeral director, supplied and Station." The railroad was the R.

Cr the photo. Charlie Company Lay Screaming, Praying, Dying Editor's Note Like most Americans, Martin Cershen did not want to believe that American soldiers were the slaughterers of My Lai. Recipient of the Ernie Pyle Memorial Award for his Vietnam reporting, Cershen has known the American CI at his best, and at his worst. One thing he was sure of our CPs are not mass murderers. For half a year Cershen has been investigating the background of the My.

Lai massacre, traveling to the massacre site itself and to the homes of scores of Charlie Company alumni and their friends and relatives, piecing together a tale that is perhaps more terrible and more tragic than the massacre itself. This article is from a book Cershen is writing on My Lai for Arlington House Publishers. D-l THE Why My The Day By MARIN GERSHEN SAIGON (NANA) The two explosions seemed to come almost simultaneously, one close enough to Herbert Louis Carter that he felt the ground tremble, the other way off to the right and behind him. "What happened?" Staff Sgt David Mitchell called out to his squad. There was no answer.

Only the screams of the dying could be heard and the explosions. And with each explosion more men dropped, screaming, cursing, praying, dying. It was the beginning of the end for Charlie Company as a fighting unit of infantrymen in Vietnam, that 25th day of February, 1968. For the disaster that began that early morning near two tiny hamlets called' Lac Son (4) and Lac Son (6) with the physical, mental, spiritual and moral destruction of Charlie Company. The gaunt, war-weary, hollow-eyed survivors of Charlie Company who stormed My Lai less than three weeks later were mere shells of the boys who had come to Vietnam just three-and-a-half months before.

For in their minds, there were still the visions of the dying and the maimed from that minefield, and in their ears rang the screams of their former friends who didn't want to die. And lest anyone could forget that tragic Feb. 25, his memory was refreshed by the coup de grace given Charlie Company by the Viet Cong on March 14 when Sgt. George Cox was blown to pieces and three members of his squad horribly mutilated by a booby trap. "THE PSYCHOLOGICAL effect of the minefield was more devastating than the physical effect," Michael Bernhardt, an articulate former member of Charlie Company recalled that tragic Sunday in February.

There are times in combat, observes Bernhardt, when the wisest thing to do is to freeze. That's what Capt. Ernest Lou Medina, the commanding officer of Char-' lie Company, ordered his men to do when he heard those first explosions. But Charlie Company didn't freeze. It is to their credit that most didn't panic either when those mines went off.

But the trouble with the company was that they were too close to each other and they were green. So they did the next worse thing to panicking. They tried to race to each other's aid. And everytime someone got up to help a buddy, he stepped on a mine and blew himself up and injured the people directly in front and in back of him. Michael Brent Berry was walking at the head of a squad of the third platoon and had just crossed onto a trail when he met Lt Blemings.

Blemings, a short, bespectacled officer, had just joined the company two weeks ago after requesting a transfer to the infantry from a finance job. At the moment he and Terry met, there was another explosion. Bleming's RTO (radio telephone operator) Joe Bell had detonated a mine. "As soon as it happened, six guys were lying on the ground," remembers Terry. One of the soldiers was screaming, "I'm hit, I'm hit." Terry was about to rush to his aid when someone behind him pushed him aside and went only to step on still another mine and go down shouting.

Terry thinks he heard sniper fire but what he remembers most was the smell of burning powder and metal. He doesn't remember the smell of burning flesh although Bell was being burned to death. BELL HAD BEEN carrying six purple smoke grenades hooked behind him to his belt beneath his heavy pack and radio transmitter. When he stepped on the mine, both his legs were blown off, sending blood gushing into the black mud. At the same time, all his grenades were ignited as he fell backward on top of them.

The burning grenades were tearing holes -into the screaming boy's back and sending up an eerie purple glow. "I'm dying, I'm dying," Terry heard Bell cry feebly as he and "Doc" Bruce Foreman, the platoon medic, and other members of the squad worked feverishly and fruitlessly to save the RTO's life. Sgt. David Reed, who had been in front of Bell when the explosion ripped, was lying on the ground with shrapnel splattered in his back, and the right side of his head was bleeding. Every time he breathed, blood oozed out from his back wounds.

Blemings, who had been hit in the back of his legs and toes, was lying in the mud and begging for morphine to ease his pain, And the explosions still kept going off. And each time one did, remembers Robert Van Leer, Medina's RTO, he winced, not from the sound but from the realization that each explosion meant someone being blown up. Allen Boyce froze on the ground whispering, "Oh, God! Oh, God!" "Doc" James White, the company's senior medic, was behind Medina. At the sound of the first explosion, he pushed past the Captain and raced in the direction of the sound. It was coming from whore Bobby Wilson had been.

Wilson, who had been walking 50 feet to the left of Carter, was slated to go home that Sunday evening. He had a brother in Vietnam. THE FIRST WOUNDED man White saw had been hit in the face, chest, legs and feet and was bleeding from all the holes made in hi body. He had been directly behind Wilson. "Why is this happening to me," the soldier was crying in disbelief.

"Oh, it hurts, it he moaned. Two GIs rushed to help the wounded man. At the same moment, White heard Reed shouting for a medic. White instantly leaped in the direction of the call. As he was skidding down a little embankment near a hedgerow, he saw Wilson.

"He was cleaved down the middle." White remembered with a shudder 20 thu two GIs, who were forced to throw him in the helicopter, where the door gunner left his post to sit on the screaming medic as the chopper lifted off with another load of dead and dying. "He did his job and, as far as I'm concerned, he did it damned well," Hendrickson remembers. Lee was now the only medic left in the company. Along with Medina, Widmer and M-Sgt. Isaiah Cowan Lee struggled to get Wilson's body into a helicopter.

Wilson's face was peaceful like a boy asleep. He was oing home. But the rest of his body told of the horror of the minefield. His legs were spread grotesquely in unnatural positions and his body, from his testicles to his throat, was split open like a pig in a butcher shop. Blood oozed from his liver and out of his lungs and heart, staining the men as struggled to place Wilson in a poncho.

Then, they began to drag the poncho towards the waiting helicopter. It tripped another mine. Wilson's body blew up in Lee's face. The medic's face and the entire front of his body looked as if someone had piawd a screen in front of it and tossed a bucket of red paint through the sieves, remembered one soldier. There was a religious medallion around Lcc-'s neck.

He looked down and saw a huge, red glob of Wilson's liver hanging fnm it. IT WAS TOO MUCH. Doc Lee broke. First, he mumbled incoherently. Then he started to scream.

Medina rushed up and grabbed his one surviving medic, but Lfe was completely hysterical and sobbing uncontrollably. Then Medina started to siap Lee. "Doc! Doc!" Medina was almost in tears. "I need you Doc, I need you! You're the only medic I got left Don't go, Doc. I need you.

You're all we Mrdina pleaded. Slowly, the words sunk in as Lee began to comprehend what Medina was saying. And slowly, slowly he reacted. It was a superhuman effort, but Lee came out of it and returned to what was left of Charlie Company. Twenty per cent of the company had bten killed or badly maimed in a matter of minutes that horrible morning of Feb.

25. The second platoon could not get out of the minefield and had to be removed by helicopter. In an agonizing 90 minutes, Medina led the First and Third platoons to safety by having each man retrace his foo'steps backward until they were free and clear. The company had been on its way to ferve as a bleeding force for an operation with the 198th Infantry Brigade. It never made its rendezvous.

For all practical purposes, Charlie Company was dead. stood out in contrast to his blackened muddy face. But his eyes stared glassily. "We're getting you out of here," Hendrickson whispered and the man tried to smile. Sgt.

Kenneth Carlson sat on the ground in a daze. The boot of one foot had been blown off revealing another glob of beefy red flesh. He kept staring at the ground as if seeking something. Then Carlson saw the toe, his right toe, lying by itslf in the mud. Hendrickson saw Carlson pick up his right toe, then laugh hysterically.

Then Carlson waved his toe three times over his head and threw it over his right shoulder, laughing, laughing, laughing. "He was laughing with tears in his eyes. We couldn't understand it," Hendrickson remembers. Over with the second platoon, Vernado Simpson, who would later tell publicly how he fired at Vietnamese in My Lai only to discover he had killed a woman and child, was in front of his closest buddy, Maurice Robinson. The platoon was trying to extricate itself from the minefield and thought it had.

They had almost reached a road when Robinson blew up. Simpson broke down in shock, remembers Bernhardt. He fell down on the ground and froze. "He was laying there whimpering," Bernhardt remembers. MEANWHILE, Doc Foreman was trying to treat the mortally-wounded Bell plus at least five other people, each of whom had injuries requiring the services of an experienced surgeon and a staff of assistants.

There was no help for Bell, who had lost his legs and was burning to death from the smoke grenades. Foreman took this as a personal affront, blaming himself for a situation even God couldn't have helped. When Bell was placed in a helicopter, Foreman broke completely. He got down on his knees and raised his head to the angry Gods and wept. Tears ran from his eyes and spittle dripped from the corners of his mouth.

"I didn't do my best," he kept repeating. "I didn't do my job." The worn-out, frightened men around him tried to console the heroic medic. "You did all you could," Hendrickson said softly. But Foreman wouldn't listen. "No, I didn't.

No, I didn't," he cried. So Hendrickson took the limp medic and forced him to lie on the ground. A' other soldier threw a poncho over him. A third gave h'm water to drink. Then Hendrickson took Foreman by his feet at.d another soldier grabbed him under the arms and they tried to carry Fore-nan to a.

helicopter in which Bell had been placed. THE MEDIC fought back. "I don't want to go. Damn it, I'm not going. They need me." Foreman struggled with you didn't," the Captain said, but Van Leer could feel nothing from his knee doA'n.

He looked and saw the whole bottom of his right foot "was blown open like an exploding cigar." He could see the red meat at the heel, thick and black, wi'Ji white bone fragments sticking out. WIDMER STOOPED DOWN to try and pick up Van Leer's right leg. "Don't touch it," Van Leer screamed in pain. "It's hot, it's burning, it's on fire." Medina had always felt close to the 18-year-old radio operator who candidly says he looked to the Captain as a father. He felt bad about being wounded, as if it was his fault, as if he was letting Medina oown.

He wanted to tell Medina that he was sorry to be a He wanted to tell Medina that he wasn't afraid. But the Captain was already on his hands and knees, bandaging the injured foot. Then he picked up Van Leer and, with Widmer's help, rushed him to a waiting helicopter. "Don't worry," Medina shouted, above the roar of the rotor blades and the explosions still going off. "Be.

careful, Captain. Please be careful. Take care of yourself," Van Leer yelled back. But Medina was gone. Now he was beside Gus Rotger, whose legs had been blown off.

Rotger begged someone to tell him if his legs were gone. But M.Sgt. Jay A. Buchanon, a popular, huge black man with a booming voice, and one of the oldest members of the company, had placed his body in a position where he hid the amputated leg from the kid. Rotger recognized Medina.

"I'm dying, I'm dying," he cried. "Tell my mother I was a good soldier, Captain. I was a good soldier, wasn't Captain?" Rotger asked. Medina nodded. Then they placed him in a poncho where he died.

Richard Hendrickson remembers another soldier, lying on the pror.nd, his wrist watch blown off his hand, his M-16 rifle torn and twisted lying beside him. THERE WERE HOLES in the man's hands from the back to the palms and red globs of meat oozed from the top of his right jungle boot There was a hole in his right thigh. The white of his eyes months later, as he tried to describe a human body cut open from the neck to the crotch. "The chest wvity was open. I could tee the intestines and the stomach and his lungs were moving," remembers, White.

Wilson's body shook spasmodically as his veins and arteries pulsated, cozing blood out onto the ground. Wilson's organs still functioned because they hadn't been told by his brain that his body was dead. Today was the day the war was supposed to be over for Wileom It was. Then White began treating Reed. As other GIs came up to help, White heard another explosion.

It came from the direction of where Capt Medina and the command section had been. White leaped up to go there. He took five steps when he felt himself being hurled high into the air. HAD STEPPED on a mine. It blew his right boot off as well as his big toe.

He screamed curses and prayers simultaneously. Reed, despite his own wounds, began crying "Oh, my God, Doc Wh.te's hit." And somewhere in the distance. White heard the usually gruff Daniel Simone repeating gently: "Hey, don't worry, Doc White. You're gonna be OK, Doc White. Key, don't worry, Doc White.

You're gonna be OK, Doc White." It was more like a prayer and a plea than words of assurance. Allen Boyce started crying. He wasn't the only one. Medina, says Terry, was the coolest man in the minefield that day. When he realized the men weren't freezing, he rushed to the aid of the wounded too, followed by his two RTOs, Van Leer and Fred Widmer, and another medic.

Robert J. Lee. Medina ordered Van Leer to call for helicopters, then ran to clear a landing zone for them. Van Leer was right behind the Captain when he stepped on a mine. THE YOUNG RADIOMAN looked down anc! thought he saw his foot lying on the ground.

A searing pain burned through his right leg. Actually, the foot he saw was just his boot which had blown off his leg along with his right heel. "Oh, God, I blew my foot off." Van Leer shouted, then began to curse. Medina was instantly by his side. "No,.