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Fraggin'

By Bill Shunas

There's a lawsuit presently before the courts that I find interesting. The Manville Corporation is supposed to shell out $950,000 to fifty people who worked in Navy shipyards during World War II. These people were exposed to asbestos dust and developed asbestosis and related diseases.

The thing that makes this interesting is that now Manville has turned around and sued the government for help in paying off because—you guessed it the Navy knew all along that exposure to asbestos was harmful, and Manville lawyers have documents which they feel prove this.

What strikes me is the parallel to the Agent Orange case where the chemical companies are being sued and the government knew about Orange all along. In the asbestos case, the ship is sinking and the rats are fighting each other for the last lifeboat. May some day with AO too?

You know how the Russians are supposed to be conducting biological warfare in Afghanistan, Laos, and Cambodia, the so-called "yellow rain" that's killing people. Well now two scientists from Harvard and Yale claim that the evidence we have of yellow rain may be nothing more than bee droppings. They say that all the samples of yellow rain occur in conjunction with these bee dropping. I ain't no fan of the Russkys—what with their invasion of Afghanistan and their militarization of SE Asia. However, I would want more evidence before I believe they are involved in biological and chemical warfare. (Don't forget this is one of the justifications for congress being asked to appropriate funds for U.S. CB weapons.) Remember, the people who are brining us evidence of these Russian activities are the same people who couldn't count NVA troops, used the smell of VC urine to call in air strikes and manufactured the Gulf of Tonkin incident. They didn't know shit from Shinola then, so why expect them to know bee shit from beeswax now.

Speaking of not knowing bee shit, there's Caspar Weinberger our ever alert Secretary of Defense. Old Cap said that one of the reasons for continued U.S. aid to El Salvador is that is "is on the mainland of the United States, and we do have a responsibility for the defense of the continental United States, over and above all other priorities."

I missed something here. Did Hurricane Alicia loose El Salvador from it moorings and blow it ashore in Galveston. I must have missed the nightly news on the day it happened.

Speaking of great thoughts from great leaders, consider Barry Goldwater that faithful old right winger. They've been having congressional hearings lately to supposedly iron out problems in the Pentagon—everything from cost overruns to policy in Central America.

They trotted out Goldwater to hear what kind of wisdom he had on the subject.

His solution to the problems we to end civilian control of the military because we lost the last two wars. Maybe he was thinking of Caspar Weinberger and feels that generals could better find El Salvador on the map. But then again he wasn't in Vietnam where he would have seen military leaders that would have made Caspar look like a genius.

GRENADE of the MONTH

We'll give this month's grenade to the members of the Army Board for the Correction of Military Records. Why do the nameless faces or faceless names deserve the honor? Let me explain.

There once was a major general in the Army by the name of Edwin A. "Ted" Walker.

Around 1960 he was commander of the 24th Infantry Division in Europe. He lost that job because he was using John Birch Society material for troop indoctrination.

He eventually was forced to resign from the Army and entered a career as a segregationist. He flew flags upside down in Texas and was arrested and charged with inciting rebellion and assaulting federal officials during the skirmishes, which were intended to prevent James Meredith from enrolling as the first black at the University of Mississippi.

"Imagine that son of a bitch being commander of a division until last year," is what President Kennedy said about him in tapes recently released by the Kennedy Library.

Then, last year Edwin A. Walker had retired rank restored and began receiving military retired pay following action by the Army Board for the Correction of Military Records. The way the Board did it was sneaky. They appointed Walker to the reserve grade of chief warrant officer. Then they retired him the next day and immediately advanced him on the retired list to major general so that he could receive retired pay for a two star.

Let this be a lesson for all you vets out there with bad paper. Immediately get your nose out of The Veteran. Burn this paper along with any old copies of The Veteran. Get you some right wing literature to read, do something right wing nutty in public and then appeal your discharge to the Army Board for the Correction of Military Records. You just might get your discharge changed to honorable. However, when you retire, don't expect $47,000 a year. That's reserved for heroes like Major General Walker.

In the mean time, let's give the grenade to the members of the Board who put Walker on easy street. And let's hope Walker is in the room when they receive their award.