European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 20, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Wednesday. November 20, 1985 the stars and stripes Page 9 profile Mechanic is More than grease Monkey motor sergeant one of 32 selected Tor top Usa eur award by Don Tate stiff writer Short tempered the vocabulary of an empty Oil cantle brains of a Monkey wrench. Cantankerous mechanics. Sure. Greasy inarticulate always in a hurry. Thai s what some dolts say. So what s a grease Monkey doing get Ting a usar or no of the year award anyway staff sgt. Donald Bretch motor sergeant for co b,3rd in 69th Armor 3rd inf div. Won top no Hon ors at battalion brigade division and Vii corps lev Els before being selected one of Usa eur s Best cos and soldiers for 1985. Bretch is one of 32 Usa eur soldiers and cos selected for this award according to Sec. De Rolph a command spokesman. By All accounts Bretch did t get noticed by being a dim bulb or by running his men until their screws loosened though some observers say that mechanics Are the hardest working longest working people in . Army. Bretch and his 10 mechanics Are in charge of keep ing 16 Abrams my tanks four armoured personnel carriers and five wheeled vehicles rolling out of ready Cavern at a Schaffenburg into one jarring Manev drafter another. Tanks Only look indestructible says the sergeant. He gestures toward a Row of worked Over worksheets hanging from clipboards on the Walls of his office. Even tanks can be so beat up coming off these exercises we just Start repairing worst things first. The Little stuff we get to when we  can they Ever even Hope to fix it All the knocks leaks and bad vibrations. Get every vehicle just singing along  Bretch 25, of Turin n.y., laughs shrugs and says that there is no Way yet known to schedule break Downs mashups lip overs blowouts we Rouls electrical outages weather damage and other vehicular inconveniences Between 8 and 5, monday through Fri Day inclusive. When the tanks come in that part of the Mission is Over. Mechanics Don t finish missions. Our Mission is endless. Always one More engine to Fin another part pts o for is by study grit Len staff set. Donald Bretch crouches to show pfc. Eugene Jones How to keep pm running. Wearing out. Taking a Day off is Tough a full weekend off sometimes impossible. But men who never Slop can run Down just like machines and sometimes the machines have to  he begins to sound like a doctor Mechanic in an emergency room garage up to his elbows in Gore and grease handling one bad Case after another. The fact is he says when 60 tons of rampaging steel throws a track and winds up full of strained nuts bolts and swearing tankers or Breaks Down out in a Snow Drift or a swamp of rain and mud at Midnight those Are emergencies. In the Field Bretch s Bunch find themselves Crank ing up the recovery vehicle they Callol 88" and roaring out at All hours to haul Back the wounded. What s depressing is to get out there make a diag Nosis think you be got it fixed up and then sput sput sputter that s not it you be got to go through it All again. But there s nothing More depressing than seeing an my tank this great big wonderful machine being Lowed Back behind of 88 looking like a piece of junk. Well yeah there is one worse thing. And that s for of 88 herself 56 tons of Cable Crane and pulling Power to conk out. For me it s like the sky falling. Because what Var s broke out there is Gonna stay broke for  if that s hell Bretch says Mechanic s heaven is seeing a Long sleek column of tanks rumbling Back from Maneu vers under their own Sweet Power. When All of them make it it s just great. Nope Idon t think our tanks and trucks break Down More than say the germans. But americans use their equipment a whole lot More. Exercise after exercise we Don t save it we Roll it out there and use  to become an no of the year. Bretch had of be Handy with More than his screwdriver. After Long Days he studied nights and his wife Gabrille drilled him on everything from military subjects to the most current of events who s hijacking what and blowing up whom in the Middle East and what to do about it questions put to him when he appeared before Spe Cial boards from battalion level up. To impress his superiors the Mechanic who look his first motor apart at the age of seven had to lift his nose out of a tank s guts and take the Long View. Had to scrub off the grime to receive a s2.000 savings Bond and an army achievement award and take a trip to Tampa fla., with his commander maj. Gen. George r. Stotser for a 3rd inf div reunion. Heady stuff says the smiling Bretch. But now his attention is Back on the nuts and bolts of things on How to keep pm running. Because if you re Way out broken Down in the mud some cold Stormy night. It s not it. Clean cans or sgt. Fast lip it s that old grease Monkey in his Good of 88 you la want to see mucking toward you through themist. World today Liberia s Leader places ban on meetings of some groups Abidjan Ivory coast a liberian Leader Samuel k. Doe has banned meetings of student business and professional groups in a crackdown on opposition following last week s failed coup a private radio station said. Some of the banned groups had rejected the govern ment s declaration that Doe won last month s presidential elections. The Christian radio station Elwa broadcast ing from the liberian capital of Monrovia said Doe told the groups not to hold any meetings. The broadcast monitored in nearby Ivory coast also Laid the country s International Airport and seaport were reopened. They had been closed since the failed coup at tempt nov. 12. Land Borders remained closed the radio Laid because troops were still searching for some rebels. Indian minister Lowers estimate of people affected by Gas leak new Delhi India a More than 1.750 people were killed and More than 300,000 people were affected in last year s Gas leak at Union Carbide s Plant in the Centra Indian City of Bhopal a Cabinet minister told parliament. The death toll Given by the minister was lower than that widely reported. The Indian government has said it would not refute higher casualty figures because Many deaths had not been  state men was made by Industry minister . Tiwari Ai be told lawmakers his government ordered authorities in India s 22 states to regularly inspect chemical companies to prevent catastrophic accidents. A Cloud of poisonous Gas escaped from Union Carbide s pesticide Plant in Bhopal last dec. 3. Most estimates put the death toll As at least 2,000 people with 200,000 injured. It was considered the worst Industrial Accident in  number of people affected by the Gas leak provided by Tiwari was higher than what has been reported. No reason for the increase was Given. American vietnamese team finds human Bone fragments in Garden yen Thuong Vietnam a is. And Vietnam Ese workers searching for the remains of four american my As tuesday found human Bone fragments fiberglas webbing and Metal in a Village Garden where the Vietnam Ese say a b-52 bomber crashed 13 years ago. The search began in the Garden of a woman who said her husband and 12-year-old son were killed when the bomber slammed into their House dec. 20, 1972. The vietnamese say the b-52 was shot Down by missiles. Workers found a dozen human Bone fragments in clumps of wet Chunky Earth said 1st sgt. Dave Kelly of the army Central identification Laboratory. He said the fragments were Large enough to be tested to see if they belonged to any of the 1,797 americans listed As missing in action in Vietnam. We found several Bone fragments that we know to be human but we can t go any further than that without scientific investigation said col. Joe Harvey head of the13-Mcmber . Military team. Vietnamese officials said they Hope to find the remains of four . Airmen believed to have died in the crash. Two other Crew members who parachuted were taken prisoner and returned to the United states in 1973, they said. The american tide has no record of a b-52 crash on dec. 20,1972. This is a pretty big piece of Metal Here capt. Paul by they of Lombard iii., said As he pointed the humming Metal Detector at an area in the Corner of the Garden. Any other Metal in the approximately 30-by-40-foot plot believed to be the Center of the crash site May be Loo deep Tobe detected he said. Harvey said after a half Day of digging we Are not prepared to say right now that this excavation site rep resents any historical  after Metal detectors pinpointed the depth and area of the wreckage a . Soldier used a 7vi-Lon tractor to scoop out a wedge from the Corner of the Garden plot. The americans picked at the red Brown Earth with pocket knives inside the 4-foot-Dcep wedge. The excavation at this agricultural commune of 500people is expected to take 10 to 12 Days. The joint excavation the first in Vietnam since the War ended in 1975, is the latest in a series of vietnamese Steps to account for 1,797 . Servicemen and civilians still listed As missing. In a Brief opening ceremony. Trap Hoang head of the vietnamese excavation team and chief of the vietnamese foreign ministry s North american affairs department called the excavation a turning Point in relations betwee the vietnamese and the .  Harvey replied that the United states considers the joint Effort a precedent and an indication of a change in the policy on the part of the vietnamese government beginning of greater cooperation to resolve this  apparently alluding to Vietnam s desire to establish diplomatic relations with the United states. Hoang also said the excavation shows that the two countries can cooperate in Many other  Harvey commander of the Honolulu based . Joint casualty Resolution Center said the americans had come As technical workers strictly to resolve the humanitarian Issue of the mias. Vietnamese officials arrived at the Village in stiffly pressed suits. The americans wore Blue jeans and to shirts. Work began at the site at 9 18 . When by they walked slowly with a Metal Detector across the Garden plot which had been stripped the previous Day of tobacco Kerbs and sugar Cane stalks. Only a few inhabitants of yen Thuong were allowed into the Garden area and curious onlookers from neighbor ing villages wearing conical Bamboo hats were waved away by Security police. By they of the army Central identification Laboratory in Honolulu said the Metal detectors were effective up to 15 feet deep