European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 28, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse Saturday september 28, 1985 the stars and stripes o is dungeons and dragons a Safe school game Page 17 by James Brooke new York times a suicide by a Putnam. Conn., youth who often played a fantasy game called Dungeon Sand dragons has triggered a debate in this Rural northeastern Connecticut town about whether the game should be allowed in the Public schools during free periods. It is another of satan s ploys to pollute and destroy our children s said Kathy Dewey one of nearly a dozen parents who urged the Board of education to ban the playing of the game at Putnam High school. But the game sometimes called a and 0," also has its defenders. It s a harmless game i have parents who come and thank me for having a place where kids can go and not be exposed to drugs and drinking said Larry Macnaughton who holds saturday afternoon competitions at his toy store in nearby Hampton. After listening without comment to the parents appeals members of the Board said that they intend to allow the game to be played at the school this year. There Are More important things on the Agenda Shan dungeons and dragons mathematics Reading or smoking for example said Raymond b. Leduc a Board member. My daughter played d and d since she was 16, and she is now happily married. There is no evidence that links d and d to controversy Over the game sharpened last april when a local boy Roland Cartier aged 13, committed suicide. Opponents of the game stressed that he had played it regularly at the Putnam Library. In in Echo of the fantasies of . Tolkien s lord of the rings Dungeon and dragon players become imaginary characters and following Complex rules try to overcome traps and tricks wizards and monsters to annihilate each other in a search for treasure. Campaigns often involving seven or eight players can last for years and characters can be reincarnated in different forms. Several of the hundreds of characters include basilisk a reptile that can turn enemies to Stone Black pudding a Blob that can pass through Small holes and eat away Armor and Stirges a feathered Anteater that sucks blood. Designed by r. Gary Gygax the game became popular among College students in the mid-1970s and More recently among adolescents. In a Telephone interview several school boards around the country have banned the game on the ground that impressionable teen agers cannot handle the violent role playing and occult imagery. Dieter Sturm a spokesman for Gygax s company str inc. Of Lake Geneva. Wis., said that 8 million sets had been sold including versions in French German and italian. Sturm estimated that 3 million to 4 million people in the United states regularly play the game. Several school boards around the country have banned the game on the ground that impressionable teen agers cannot handle the violent role playing and occult imagery. Opponents of the game have cited several suicide notes As evidence that the game is responsible Tor some teen age suicides. The link to suicides was repeated at the school Board meeting in the Putnam elementary school Library. You have authorized russian the Rev Robert o. Bakke. Pastor of the Faith Bible evangelical free Church told the Board. Over the months to come there will be Many thrilling and harmless Clicks of the gun As dungeons and dragons is held to the Heads of our Young people. But another deadly explosion will a spokesman for the Christian information Council a local group said that a petition with 450 signatures demanding the game be banned was delivered to the Board in May. Playing these games can desensitize players to murder suicide rape torture robbery the occult or any other immoral or illegal act the spokesman for the Council Thomas Riley said. The company. Str. Is making a profit while familiarizing its millions of followers with terms and rituals of occult forms of but the nine member school Board seemed unimpressed. Several indicated that they had no intention of overturning a unanimous vote last month to permit the game to be played during activity periods at the High school. Al a meeting in May the state police trooper who investigated the suicide. Paul Roy said. Dungeons and dragons in no Way killed this he said the youth had become involved with drugs and had had confrontations with his Mother. The chairman of the school Board Joseph v. Pempek said that Banning the game could be construed As censorship and As violating the students rights. Standing on the fringe of the crowd of about 50 people four Putnam students who regularly play the game watched the proceedings with distaste. I m sick of them saying that Roland killed himself because it was d and d it was drugs said Erik Bergeson 14, who used to play with the dead youth. Helping Vietnam veterans who suffer stress disorders new York times f Ive years after the Vietnam War ended Tom eiss a former Marine drove off a was just sitting Home one Day in the living room he recalled the other Day and that s the last thing i remember. My family said i put on some of my old Vietnam clothes got on a motorcycle and drove out of the garage mumbling something about finding the pos and the the incident left him with a fractured Skull and he had to spend two months in Buffalo . Veterans administration Hospital. He also lost his Job. Now. 10 years alter the War s end. Eiss is working with Sharon Mcgrath. A Lormer nurse at a veterans administration Hospital who has opened a residence or Lormer veterans such As himself. The veterans administration estimates that 700,000 men suffer from a syndrome first officially recognized by psychiatrists five years ago called Post traumatic stress disorder. The disorder whose symptoms in veterans of earlier wars had been called Shell Shock or War neurosis can have debilitating effects on a person years after a traumatic event. Mcgrath said that when the residence called Copin House for care of people in need opened on july 8, it was the realization of a dream. During her 17 years at the veterans administration the last seven of them at the psychiatric Ward of the Hospital in Buffalo she said she had become not Only a healer but also a Friend and a Counselor to Many of the Man she treated. She was through work at 4 10," said her husband. John but she d stay at the Hospital until 9, 10 o clock at night just talking to these when she was t at the Hospital the veterans knew they were always Welcome to Call or Stop by her Home. Many of them she said were continually in and out of the Hospital As their problems with nightmares and flashbacks or alcoholism and drugs became acute. But what the Hospital v 2s missing Mcgrath believed was a Way to help them understand their problems and to readjust to the world outside the Hospital. You re looking at a group of Young she said who were out in the work Force until their problems got so great that they could t hold she said she hoped Copin House would serve As a Halfway House helping the men Deal with the often incapacitating mental aftershocks of the War. It is crucial she said that the veterans know there Are Many others like themselves. The House can take in 15 veterans at a time and 11 Are now in the program. While at Copin House the veterans have group As Well As individual psychological counselling and sessions on drug and alcohol problems veterans benefits education careers and it needed physical therapy. The veterans administration screens the veterans for medical problems and pays the program s Cost of $46 a Day Mcgrath said. The vets Are going to be with each said eiss. Who helps Magrath with the various details of running Copin House. They la be Able to talk to each other when they feel like they re going off the since 1980. The veterans administration has opened 153 storefront readjustment counselling centers Lor veterans and 11 special stress treatment centers in psychiatric wards of veterans administration hospitals around the country. Officials of the veterans administration said Copin House was one of Only two hallway houses Tor victims of the disorder. The Mcgrath used their savings and some Low interest Loans to buy an abandoned House on a big lot on Buffalo Avenue in Niagara Falls . Mcgrath persuaded some of the unemployed veterans she had treated to help fix it up and get the project started. In the month since the residence has opened the constant Stream of veterans in and out of the House looking for help advice or just someone to talk to has increased said Mcgrath. Many of the veterans Mcgrath welcomed into her Home were on the verge of committing a crime or killing themselves or doing something said the regional director of sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan s office in Western new York Matthew Chadderdon. Who helped to arrange funds for the residence. Since Robert Andrzejewski who has been suffering from deep depression started to work at Copin House Chadderdon said the Guy has changed 180 degrees. It s really a wonderful thing to most of All Andrzejewski said. Mcgrath and his Lellow veterans Are helping him to overcome the distrust of others that he brought Back from Southeast Asia. She was one of the people he said who had kept him from killing himself. We re he said. If we weren t hero we might be in the
