Griffin daily news. (Griffin, Ga.) 1924-current, December 11, 1969, Page 23, Image 19

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Newspaper Page TextGriffin Daily News Nam s Nonheroes Also Serve By TOM TIEDE NEA Staff Correspondent CAMP ENARI, South Viet nam—(NEA)—By any stand ard, Paul Mooney has one of the most unrewarding jobs in Vietnam, He takes care of the dead. The 22-year-old soldier from Gibson City, 111., is with the graves registra tion unit of the 4th Infantry Division. It’s a gory job. Mooney’s responsibility is to prepare the casualties for embalming. He identifies them, strips them, cleans them as best he can—then places their remains in green, plastic pouches, for shipment to the military morgue. For this, he gets nothing but regular nausea. “The dead can’t say thanks,” he observes—and nobody else wants to. No medals, no backslaps, no headlines in the hometown prints. Very few in war like to even think about body handlers, much less be grateful for their service. Mooney, however, is not alone in his thankless ano nymity. Combat is crowded with others like him. 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DAN’S PERFORMANCE EQUIPMENT, INC. 125 South 6th Street • Tel (404) 227-1336 & 7 • Griffin, Georgia 23 Thursday, Dec. 11, 1969 SAIGON — (NEA) — It is midafternoon at Tan Son Nhut airfield. And, as usual, hot. No clouds. No hint of cooling rain. Just high sun. And a temperature over 90. The boxes, however, are shielded from the heat. They are resting, one atop the other, in the structured shade of the United States Air Force’s outcountry load ing depot. They are oblong, eight feet by 30 inches. They are made of aluminum. Each of them has three lock-snaps on either side. All of them are unpainted, even free of the usually stenciled military nomenclature. There are 18 boxes today. At present, the boxes are lying on loading palettes. They are positioned under signs reading “Dover” and “Travis.” They are covered with plastic sheeting for weather protection. They are strapped down and securely netted with nylon mesh. A lieutenant from New Jersey checks the strapping. ment, nailed to lackluster positions. Other examples: Joe Alexander, 22, of Ad amsville, Tenn., is a tall, A Negro from North Caro lina looks over the paper work. A blond airman from California backs away in a forklift truck. At the edge of the depot, two Vietnamese workers squat together in soft chat ter. They are women in coni cal hats. Mama sans. They do odd jobs here at the out country depot. But they never touch the boxes. Only Americans do that. There is a thing here about the boxes. A reverence, maybe. Some of the sea soned men have removed their caps. And even the newcomers, who will bounce other cargo around noisily, approach the boxes with re straint. They are here, usually, for only a short time. Never more than 24 hours. Seldom more than just three or four. The boxes are top priority. Some clouds begin to form. Cotton candy in the sky. Delicious against the JK-XW.WSVW)... s vv. J-.'.'.-.X-.".-.-.-.'.*•> ,< ’ ~ ■ x- iff swx-" - * 2'- GRfi VE ’ REGISTRATION PAUL MOONEY: No medals, backslaps or headlines. towheaded member of the Combat Engineers. He’s a mine-sweeper. Each morn ing, he clears roads in the 4th Infantry area with a de vice that looks like a waffle iron on a stick. It’s tedious work—two miles an hour— and dangerous. If Alexander misses an area, even a tiny area—well, as he says, “My sweeper is supposed to go beep-beep when it detects something. But you always blue. But down around the horizon, on the other side of the runway, a belch of black smoke—its origin unknown. “Bomb?” somebody asks, pointing. “Can’t tell.” The afternoon proceeds. The men move at half-speed in the heat. The cargo is piled. Mounds of it. Machinery parts, jet engines, bomb casings, household furniture. Air con ditioning for Okinawa. Chairs for Hickman AFB. All of it carted in olive green cartons, lashed and standing and ready. And in the middle. The boxes. Eighteen of them today. One hundred this week. Five hundred this month. Eight thousand this year. Forty thousand this war. Waiting. Quietly. To go home. (Newspaper Enterprise Assn.) got the uneasy feeling that some day it’ll go boom-boom instead.” Mike Kragniak, 26, spent two years in the Peace Corps working with the newly de veloped “miracle rice” (IR-5 and IR-8). When he was drafted into the war corps, the 4th put him in the divi sion’s psychological warfare unit. His job: To introduce miracle rice in the central highlands and thereby win friends and influence people. He did. And he has. Planting daily, weaponless, in far flung paddies, he has helped some farmers increase their yield 300 per cent. Says he: “I haven’t got any ribbons yet, but I got a lot of cal louses.” Aaron Hodges, 45, of Ar lington, Tex., is a civilian electronics technician work ing for the Department of Defense. He supervises re pairs on Cobra helicopters, the 250-m.p.h., jet-powered, chopper fighters. He has been stationed at nearby Camp Holloway (604th Transporta tion) for two years. In that time, he has been mortared, shot at and frightened too many times to remember. Why, then, as a civilian, does he stay on? “Well, my boy Howard is one of the Cobra pilots here. And I wouldn’t trust anyone else working on his ship.” H. E. Luman is manager of the II Corps area Post Ex change. Thus, he handles considerable amounts of foodstuffs which are dam aged or otherwise rendered unsalable during shipment. He says he’s supposed to re turn such goods to their source. But he doesn’t. In stead, he takes all of it still edible to nearby villages or hospitals—and gives the candy to the kids and every thing else to the adults. “You should see them go for it,” he says. “I don’t know if it helps the war effort or not—but I sure see a lot of happy faces out there.” Donald Wayman, a 20- year-old from Danbury, Conn., was assigned as a 4th Infantry battalion clerk when he arrived here. Not much of a job. Field troop ers deride it as soft. “Paper pushing.” One day, however, Pfc. Wayman was rounded up for a special, urgent job. There was trouble in an area village and available Gls were needed for a defense force. It was Wayman’s first action. He had only been in the country 13 days. And when he reached the village, the paper pusher was shot in the chest, instantly dead. No bands plays for these soldiers. No ceremonies honor their work. But they contribute. As Paul Mooney, the man who takes care of the dead, puts it: “I’m a rifleman, but they put me in graves registration. I guess non heroes are important, too.” (Newspaper Enterprise Assn.) HRIFTC lAA A AAr FRIDAY 'TIL 8 P.M. ■■■i I■■■ UNTIL CHRISTMAS! ® jiSKx SHE W S z< Illi LI 1 I /< ! / II Wpm 1 I . if wrn JjK I C 11 Wrfwl I ’«a L / .» vu . JR JO 1r \ ? *nT. 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Georgia Historic Newspapers

Griffin daily news. (Griffin, Ga.) 1924-current, December 11, 1969, Page 23, Image 19