Newspaper Page Text
Griffin Daily News
Small Town Pays Big Price for Viet War
By TOM TIEDE
NEA Staff Correspondent
BEALLSVILLE, Ohio— (N E A)—R i cji ar d Rucker's
family, again, are gathered at the kitchen table, Kenneth,
the father; Betty, the mother; and sisters Cynthia, 14,
Linda, 11, and Patricia, 3.
Richard Rucker’s papers are cluttered about the chrom
ium dinette. A scrapbook, an official photograph, some old
letters, a few citations of war.
Richard Rucker is dead. Killed in Vietnam.
“It happened last Memorial Day, 1968,” says the father,
a thin, shirtless man whose occupation is repairing tele
phone wires. “The way we got it is that Rich and a
couple other guys were trying to take this bunker, or some
thing. An artillery shell blew off. And that was it.”
The man pokes at the piles of papers.
“The Army sent us all these personal things and we keep
’em in a box in the house. It’s all we got to remember
him. Ever’ now and then we git it all out, spread it on the
table and do just that—remember him.
“You know, ever’body said the hurt would go away.
That’s what ever’body said. But it don’t. It’s almost a
year now and it ain’t gone away yet.”
One reason the hurt remains, the father explains
somberly, is that peculiar circumstances won’t let the
family forget the loss of its kin for even brief moments.
This tiny village, situated in a region of about 400 families,
has in the past three years lost six young men in the war.
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5
Thursday, July 24, 1969
FBI Arrests Blow To Cosa Nostra
WASHINGTON (UPI) — The
FBI announced today the arrest
of nine persons and indictment
of three others In what It called
“a severe blow to the Cosa
Nostra.”
FBI Director J. Edgar
Hoover said the nine arrests
were on the basis of a sealed
indictment returned by a
federal grand jury in New York
' Tuesday.
The indictment charged them
with violations of federal laws
controlling union welfare and
pension plans and banning
interstate travel to abet racke-
That’s five more than in Korea, four more than in World
War 11.
The region has suffered more, on the basis of population
percentage, than anywhere else in the nation. Roughly, one
of every 200 local people have died in Vietnam. The un
official national percentage is about one of every 6,000.
“Let’s see,” says Betty Rucker, the mother. “Jack Pitt
man got it first. He was shot in 1966. Then there was
Charlie Schnagg. Then there was Duane Greenlie. Then
there was Robert Lucas. Then there was that boy who
moved away some time ago. What was his name—Jimmy
Davis?”
Then, of course, there was Richard Rucker.
“It don’t seem fair,” says the mother. “We’ve had all
kinds of newspaper people come in here and they say it’s
unfair, too. Really, it’s like our boys are fighting the war
by themselves.”
The mother drops her eyes.
“But there isn’t anything to be done. We’ve written our
congressman and the Army. But it didn’t help. And for
sure it didn’t bring back our boy.”
Cynthia Rucker, the oldest sister at the table, opens up a
small gray scrapbook. She says her brother used to send
home every photo he could from Vietnam, most of them
in color. The pictures, pasted down with tabs, are neatly
arranged, but most are bent and marked from fondling.
“Here he is with his gun,” says Cynthia.
"Where?” the mother asks.
“Here.”
“Oh, why do they always show off their weapon?”
teering.
The arrests were the culmin
ation of an extensive Investiga
tion throughout the New York
City area, western Pennsylva
nia and in Detroit. Hoover said.
The nine named in the
indictments were charged spe
cifically with conspiring to
obtain an increase in a loan for
the Mid - City Development
Corp., a Detroit real estate
firm, from the central states,
southeast and southwest areas
pension fund of the Internation
al Brotherhood of Teamsters in
Chicago.
The indictments said at
tempts were made to have a
• loan of $1,050,000 increased to
$1,250,000 through the payment
-of a kickback.
Arrested were Salvatore Ce
i lambrino, 65, Staten Island,
• N.Y.; Edward Lanzieri, also
' known as “Eddie Buff,” 52,
' Brooklyn, N.Y.,; Frank J.
; Roas, 39, Penn Hills, Pa.;
i Sebastian John Laßocca, 68,
. Ingomar, Pa.; Gabriel Manna
> rino, 53, New Kensington, Pa;
• Joseph Sica, 60, Monroeville,
i Pa.; Dominic Peter Corrado,
also known as “Fat Dominic,”
Kenneth, the father, empties a packet of mail. It is
mostly military stationery and the communications are in
even, bold print. The father explains Richard was a
mechanical draftsman and not given to script writing.
“I remember he had a job all waiting for him,” the
father says, sorting the mail. “There wouldn’t have been
any problem there. He was a hard worker and able.
Everybody he ever worked for liked him.
“I think he would have made about four something an
hour to start. But he’d have went up real fast. He was a
damn good worker, remember. If he’d a got back, hell, no
telling where a kid like him woulda went.”
The family, as one, nods in agreement. They grow quiet.
Papers are shuffled softly as each reaches for a favorite
memento.
Then Linda begins giggling at a photograph of a comical,
chicken-necked, hooked-nosed woman; she explains that
her brother used to carry the picture around and call it
“my best girl.” Little Patricia snickers, too, and then
hunches up warmly against her father’s bare arm.
The father picks up the gag photo. Smiles. Then puts it
back down.
“He was a good boy,” the man says. “Clean—didn’t
smoke or drink.” He pauses and slowly shakes his head.
“All these local kids who got it were good boys really. All
six of them.” He takes a bitter sip of coffee, now cold.
“Damn it,” he says, huskily, “look at all these papers
anyway. It ain’t much to be left of a man’s son, now, is
it?”
(Newspaper Enterprise Assn.)
39, Grosse Point Park, Mich.;
Samuel John Marroso, 55,
Warren Mich.; and Frank
Amato, 76, Braddock, Pa.
The FBI said a 10th man was
being sought in the conspiracy
as a fugitive. He was identified
as Salvatore Granello, also
known as “Sally Burns,” 46,
New York City.
Three other persons named in
the Indictment were John M.
Keilly, 40, Oyster Bay Cove,
N.Y.; James D. Plumeri, also I
known as “Jimmy Doyle,” 66, I
New York City, and David H. I
Wenger, 58, formerly an auditor I
of the pension fund, Great I
Neck, N.Y.
Business
Briefs
Tire Buying
AKRON, Ohio (UPI) - The
average American family will
buy about 60 tires at a total
cost of about $1,400 in the
usual 50-year driving span, ac
cording to the Goodyear Tire
& Rubber Co.
The company says its figures
do NOT include the tires that
come with new cars purchased
during the time period, and its
report is based on “today’s pri
ces and driving conditions.”
* * *
The Bite
NEW YORK (UP!) -
The average American family
will pay $3,927 in taxes this
year, according to an estimate
by the Tax Foundation, Inc.
The Foundation estimates to
tal U.S. tax collections for 1969
will be about $247 billion.
* * *
Men’s Shoe
Output Up
NEW YORK (DPI) -
Men’s shoes have come a long
way, but they’ve still got a long
way to
That s the way Mcinhard-
Commercial Corp, describes the
progress men’s shoe production
has made in comparison with
women’s shoe output in the
past 10 years.
The financing and factoring
subsidiary of C.LT. Financial
Corp, notes that men’s 1968
shoe production of 129,035,000
pairs rose 27.3 per cent over
1958 whereas 291,641,000 pairs
of women’s shoes represented a
gain of 7.7 per cent since then.
* * *
Project Encourages
Minority Business
BERKELEY, Calif. (UPI) -
An office of urban programs
has been established at the Uni
versity of California to encour
age student and faculty support
for minority business ventures.
The new office will offer
technical assistance, manage
ment education, and the help
of established business and in
dustrial firms to prospective mi
nority businesses.
1 * * *
Business sss
For Education
NEW YORK (UPI) -
While colleges and universities
at one time looked to individual
wealth for major support, it’s
now American business that hat
moved to the forefront as the
nation’s top contributor to
higher education. By 1970,
according to an F. W. Wool
worth executive, corporate con-
Kentucky fried
"READY WHEN YOU ARE"
tribution to colleges and uni
versities will approximate hall
a billion dollars a year.
W. R. Harris, vice president
for merchandising with the com
pany, in a commencement ad
dress at Young Harris College,
noted that since 1950 the edu
cational contributions of Ameri
can business have assumed an
increasingly important role “as
Matthews
y 2 PRICE SALE
~ Reg. Sale
No. Items °
Price Price
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8 Roys’ Coats am! Suits to ?16 W) $2.00
% Boys’ Casual Pants * 7 ’ TO WC®
150 Boys’ Sport Shirts lo $3 0 ° Off
150 Boys’ Kr.il Shirts to * 4 00
30 Boys’ Walk Shorts to ?4 °® SI.BB
40 Shoes Men’s, Ladies, Childrens l< ’ ''' $1 $4
70 Men’s Casual Slacks *° /"L PfICC
30 Men’s Sport Coats <0 /2
15 Men’s Suits SSO °° & 560 00 Vl P™®
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w 5
Baby Doll
(UPI TELEPHOTO)
LOS ANGELES — Actress Carroll Baker talks with
newsmen on her way into court for her divorce
trial against her husband, Jack Garfein, a stage and
screen director. The main issue in the proceedings is
distribution of property, two production companies,
which the couple own.
a substitute for the bounty of
individual philanthropists.”
In 1950, he said, it was esti
mated that corporations con
■ tributed SSO million to colleges
and universities.
Cast Addition
HOLLYWOOD (UPI) - Euro
pean character actor Vemop
Dobtcheff has been added to the
cast of Hal Wallis’ “Anne of the
Thousand Days” starring Rich
ard Burton.