The Columbian from Vancouver, Washington • 3

Monday May 24 IfAaMflUies IIImL The COLUMBIAN A3 rV K'i Mariima crime worries police tenants By DAVE JEWETT The! love to see the people being able to watch and take care of the Sexton said The first hint of serious trouble was the theft of a boat about two weeks ago The boat was recovered but a $3500 motor still is missing Sexton said Then over the weekend of May 17-18 someone stole items from six other boats having a couple of problems" Sexton said have always had problems with the parking lot residents getting their cars broken Generally Sexton said he believes local juveniles have done the vandalism in the parking lot "But" he added beginning By JIM 8TA8I0W8KI Tho Columbian RIDGEFIELD Crime isn't much of a topic in Ridgefield have car prowls (break-ins) and a lot of malicious mischief but the damage is usually less than $100" Police Chief Dave Sexton said But now Sexton is investigating a rash of thefts from boats at the Ridgefield Marina and the dollar loss totals about 110000 As a result Sexton is organizing a meeting of houseboat residents and renters at the marina to see if they can thwart the bad guys The meeting will be at 7 pm Thursday at the Union Ridge Elementary School library to think a lot of the boat problem is from people coming in by water It might be somebody making the rounds like (marinas in) Portland SL Helens and fylama" His reasoning is the items taken are not traditional items a missing 70-horsepower Evinrude motor local kids take 70-horsepower Sexton said "A woman who has a commercial-fishing boat had 18 fishing weights totaling 900 pounds taken I think local kids What are they going to do with 900 pounds of lead and how would they get it out of On the other hand Sexton concedes some of the break-ins have earmarks of juvenile vandal ism At his Thursday meeting Sexton is going to stress that the only way to catch the criminals is to have boat equipment marked for identification The equipment taken thus far has not been marked he said "This stuff might be sitting at a sporting goods store in Kalama right now How do I know if this marine radio or this depth finder is from here (if the items are not marked)?" In addition Sexton will try to get the people who either live or rent space at the marina to watch out for crime too tough an area to watch" he said But if a watch" program work Sexton recommends the marina hire a security guard "I see that as a 100 percent solution almost" he said Jeff Frank of Portland a representative of the owner of the marina said if plan to organise the neighbors work there will be type of security up there a guard or a system of gates" Frank said he believes such break-ins occur each year when the weather turns pleasant "The parking lot (vandalism) sounds like kids The boats? I don't know" There are about 250 tenants at the marina Frank said with about 25 houseboats and the rest in boat slips and covered boa( houses 'Vertigo' game nas apt name Hands From Page A1 so glad the kids are part of this The sense of unity is Elaine Garcia as focused on actors Dudley Mom and Daniel TravanU and actresses Cicely Tyson Donna Mills and Raquel Welch Yet sane of the most interesting personalities are standing in the line just got out of the hospital because my cancer is in said Beverly Lavender who brought her son and husband from Torrance Calif here to celebrate life and this is a beautiful way to Darlene Kettelson was in tears "I'm a paraplegic so it means a lot to me to see so many people share like said Kettelson a native of Corona Calif should do this again and By 2 pm the line had dispersed to cars jammed on the freeway and the empty pier was polka-dotted with smashed Coca-Cola cups The mood among the last to leave was reflective "The woman next to me just grabbed my hand and says Cathy Neis a senior from the University of California San Diego was a total stranger It felt Kurt Guanriiar ii a 1979 gradual of Fort Vancouver High School who now Rvm and works in Washington DC Springsteen but I think on the other A local TV crew reported a homeless family named Jones is the official end of the line But here in the shadow of Queen Mary's hull a lot of folks were trying to keep up with the Joneses The end of the line was at least a block wide A limited number of tickets were available earlier this week for admission to the final mile of they let us bring 1000 "I'm so glad the kids are part of this" says Elaine Garcia his wife and La Habra's drill team coach "The sense of unity is Celebrities were a strong attraction of the final mile Camer the coast-to-coast chain About one in 10 of those tickets went to students of La Habra High School in La Habra Calif as part of a radio promotion "We raised more money than any other school in California for this explains Jorge Garcia La Habra's band director As I settled into the cockpit seat ZA and took hold of the controls my sweaty palms told me the enemy was out there somewhere just waiting to blast me out of the sky I shivered in excited anticipation and remembered one of the lines the Navy Jet jockeys use in the current movie feel the need the need for With that I pushed the electronic starter control to rev up my engines grabbed the throttle and soared off into adventure Enemy ships appeared almost immediately doing lightning fast maneuvers to stay out of my weapon sights They need not have been concerned I was having enough trouble just keeping my craft flying on a halfway even keel The cockpit was moving back and forth and sideways Ibe sound of weapons firing rattled in my ears and things like tracer bullets or lasers swept across the window I was shooting back but seem to be hitting anything Then suddenly the battle was over and I crawled out of the cockpit expecting to be drummed out of the service HIS ALL CAME about the other day during what I thought would be a quiet visit to Bally's Castle at Vancouver Mall where a fundraiser is under way involving two games "Circus and "Water Match" Through Thursday the 25 cent charge on those games is being donated to the March of Dimes Lewis and Clark Chapter which includes this area "Circus and Match" looked like games I could quietly lose and slink away But before I got around to them I made the mistake of asking about the toughest and most elaborate game in the building I was directed to something called one of the new games that wrap you in an environment Instead of standing next to the game you climb into it In this case it was into a simulated cockpit For reasons I still understand I accepted a challenge to climb into the thing and give it a go Because I didn't want to make a fool of myself in front of a crowd I took a quick look around and determined no one was nearby What I count on was that there is a lot of interest in People came running the minute they saw someone getting set to blast off Strolling shoppers stopped dead in their tracks By the time I was set I could feel people all around me watching and chuckling I wondered if an announcement had gone out on the mail's public address system HEN I GOT out and recov-W ered my balance they "call it for good reason I tried to blend into the crowd Aaron Dobbins a student at Brush Prairie Christian School had finished his classes for the day and was watching a guy play another popular game Dobbins said "Gauntlet" is a favorite because of its fast action large cast of heroes and villains and special controls that allow anywhere from one to four persons to play at the same time Randy Smith a Clark College student and a friend Bryan Zimmerman were hovering over the Clmu Hockey game one operating the American team and one commanding the miniature Russian players The game has sensors that track the action so noise from the crowd and action is synchronized to the action "Circus offers circus fun like balancing on balls and walking a high wire "Water Match" has all kinds of water-related challenges for mind and hand And the money from those two goes to a good cause this week And if you feel the need the need for speed there is always -Vertigp" Death March survivor remembers horror prfr Twice Kindler nearly went down with those ships The second time he was one of only seven men to escape from a hold containing 600 people "The plane dropped four bombs Three of them went into our hold One hit the deck You could see them coming You just had to wait and see where they The Japanese fished Kindler out of the sea and put him on another ship The third time was a charm He made it to Japan and was put in another prisoner camp his fifth in three years Kindler cheated death once again The camp was near Nagasaki One day after finishing work on the Nagasaki docks Kindler and a group of prisoners returned to camp About six miles out of town they saw a flash and felt a huge explosion he said The city was in flames The guards marched them back to town where they were forced to search the still-hot radioactive rubble for survivors After Japan surrendered Kindler returned to Minnesota and went back to work on a road crew Later he worked for 15 years in mining He moved to Vancouver about 12 years ago after retiring Kindler still gets together occasionally with other war survivors Once a year company has a reunion in Minnesota Only 17 men are left from the original 111 be said "It's funny how some of the guys went through the war he said fingering his Purple Heart medal guy had no wounds no sickness" "But by the end of the war all his hair had fallen out" By STEVE SECHRIST The Columbian He was shot forced to march 140 miles in five days and lived for 40 months in prisoner-of-war camps He survived malaria two prisoner ship sinkings and a dose call with an atomic bomb But Bill Kindler was lucky Incredibly lucky The 74-year-old Vancouver veteran cheated death many times during his years as a prisoner of war in the Philippines and Japan He was one of 4000 who survived the infamous Death and he hasn't forgotten these who didn't make it Kindler's Minnesota National Guard unit in Pine River was among the first called to active duty in spring 1941 With his hometown buddies he was shipped to Fort Lewis for training By October he had joined the Army's 194th Tank Division's Company on the Bataan Peninsula of the Philippines In December Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States declared war When Japanese troops overran the Philippines in April 1942 the American and Filipino troops on the Bataan Peninsula were already in bad shape Kindler recalled Dwindling food supplies forced the Americans to cut their rations in half Most of the troops were sick with dysentery or malaria Some like Kindler were wounded just before the surrender He had been shot through the foot The Japanese pushed the prisoners together and forced them to march in groups up the Bataan Peninsula to San Fernando where CMCV Vancouver veteran Bill Kinder a Bataan death march survivor remembers the war vividy days and were fed bug-infested rice twice a day "You didn't dare take the worms out of it or starve to he said On rare occasions the Japanese gave them vegetables or meat Death continued to stalk Kindler In 1944 the Japanese started shipping prisoners to labor camps in Japan Because the Japanese didn't mark the FOW ships American submarines and bombers often blasted ships carrying hundreds of prisoners below drek they were taken by train to prisoner camps "They told us to walk out four abreast until they thought there was enough of us in a group then they moved us out" he said Over five days in 100-degree heat the guards marched the prisoners relentlessly They gave the Americans no food or water Those who tried to drink from puddles along the road were beaten or shot Although he was in terrible pain because of his wound "I walked all the Kindler said He couldn't stop Those who fell were shot or bayoneted He saw several men beheaded along the way "They didn't want us too close to each he said No one could help Kindler "You would get in too much trouble if you did They started clubbing About 10000 men began the march Only 4000 survived At the end of the line the prisoner-of-war camps were not much better In Camp O'Donnell the men were forced to work long.