European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 23, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 columns the stars and stripes James j. K1lpatrick a remarkable Story of heroism and ingenuity president Reagan watched a movie Thi other night. Nothing new in that but this movie was enough to move a Man to tears. It was a Brier him pre pared by inc Navy on the saving or the Sammy  The Story is More than b month old but it will Bear retelling for years 10 come. The Sammy b., of course ii Ike frigate Samuel  Roberts Fig 53commissioned iwo years ago. She is or Wai and will be again a Beautiful Swift ship 453 fret Lone 3,740 tans carrying a Crew or 224 officers and enlisted men. 1 know a ship just like her on april 14 the frigate was engaged in what had become a routine task or escorting kuwaiti tankers through the per Sian Gulf. A Clear Day. Cairn seas. Months had passed without a hostile incident. Twenty five convoys had gone through. Then at 6 o clock in the eve Ning came o startled cry from a Lookout on the Bow. Mines three of them had been sighted. The Roberts Captain cmdr. Paul x. Rinn ordered his engines halted then reversed carefully delicately he began to Back out of danger s Way. Forty five William Buckley minutes ticked by in apprehensive silence. The tension abruptly ended. A submerged mine packing the destructive Power of 250 pounds of int brushed against the Roberts Hall. The explosion a Ppd a 22-foot Hole in the frigate s Side. In a fraction of a second disaster struck. The ship s two Gas Turbine engines spun off their mounts. Burning fuel formed into a fireball that shot through the main stack and dropped fiery debris on inc ship. Decks and bulkheads buckled. By All the roles of Nanu War fare the wounded frigate should have sunk but the Sammy  Was a ship not meant to follow Ordinary rules. Over the nest five hours before the peril of sink ing passed the Crew wrote a Story of heroism and ingenuity. They literally bound the frigate together with steel wire. They kept her alive to fight again. When the three mines were sighted Rinn immediately sounded a Call to Gen eral quarters the Navy s condition of highest readiness. The disciplined Crew cued watertight door throughout the ship manned damage control stations and donned newly developed firefight Lini gear. Lessons had been Learned Botn from England s experience in the Falk lands War and from the terrible damage done last year to the frigate Stark when an iraqi missile nearly sent her o the Bottom. Out of those lessons came new oxygen by calling apparatus and other equipment for fighting tires at sea. It was the courage of the Crew rather than the excellence of equipment that made the difference when the explosion came. Three problems had to be tackled in an i sum fire flooding and immobility. Make it four problems ten members of the Crew had been injured and their injuries had to be treated. The Sammy  Was dead in the water a thousand tons of water in the damaged spaces. Her main engines were disabled. Fires fed on ruptured tanks of fuel. Flood Waters pushed at bulkheads. The explosion had badly shaken the ship s helicopter. Cracks were developing in the superstructure ail ibis in inc Middle of a minefield. But everyone did every thing right the ship was relatively intact for Ward. An auxiliary room Forward of the main engine room was flooded with fool of water but generators and Venti lating equipment were working. Rinn put two auxiliary Power units to work electric motors with propellers and the ship regained limited mobility. Mechanics got the helicopter working. Damage control units fought the fires and shored the sagging bulkheads. Crew members struggled through blinding smoke to it move ammunition from the fire zone. To hold onto the after end of the ship sail ors rigged cables of steel wire thai kept inc Sammy  In one piece. At last free of the minefield she travelled slowly in Low to Dubai. Vice adm. Henry Muslin Deputy chief of naval operations told reporters Las month that the Story of the frigate Huberts will become part of the curriculum to damage control at the naval Academy. We can t speak highly enough he said of those Young fellow who brought us Back a ship. We Don t think it could have been done better by anybody and we think that we re the finest Navy in the  i me add a word As the father of a senior chief Petty officer on the frigate Nicholas Lister ship to the Roberts which went on duty this week in the per Sian Gulf. I think so too. Soviet s Pepsi generation not a free generation because i am a journalist 1 have Here in front of me a pretty Litile while stopping bag on which is printed in red and Blue letters. Tint Stolichnaya then Pepsi and Ihnn Moscow Summit 1988," a packet of printed Mailer begins with dear editor or reporter a hopeful sidebar to the Moscow Summit meeting will be improved Trade relations Between the United slates and the soviet  and then the gifts one Stolichnaya to shirt marked Moscow Summit 1938," one Street map of Moscow one can of Pepsi and one two Jigger Bollie of Stolichnaya Vodka. The packet includes a news release from Hill & Knowlton Public relations Counselor to Pepsi the heading is Moscow Summit leaders might draw inspiration from beverage  it s the last word that docs it. Plenty of people gel inspiration from drinking Vodka. In Russia its con sumption is the principal form of escapism from what another journalist Henry Kamm of Trie new York times called a few years ago the greatest assault on the human spirit Ever mounted namely. Soviet communism. But the word Accord bounces happily about in the material sent out to us journalists in the Diviny iambic literature of Pepsico celebrating soviet american Trade relations. We get a printed chronology of the great Way stations of Pepsi s cultivation of soviet Trade it begins "1959 Donald m. Kendall president of Pepsi cola International arranges for a Pepsi Chi Iii at the american National exhibition in Moscow. Us. Vice president Richard a Nixon and soviet Premier Nitoiu Khrushchev visit he exhibit and photos of Khrushchev drinking Pepsi arc car ried by papers around the  there arc 17 chronological entries carrying through developments in 988. We Are told How inc Cru Deal was consummated the Pepsi people can sell Pepsi in the soviet Union and in return they import russian Stolichnaya Vodka and sell it to the United Stales As of 1988,1 billion pepsis per year to the soviet Union and 676,000 easel of Stolichnaya sold to americans. The landmark year the literature informs us was 1972. That was when the Deal was made. President Reagan and general Secretary Gorbachev might consider having bottles of Stolichnaya and i Psi cola on display at the Moscow Summit meeting to remind them of the fact hat the two countries have been cooperating successfully for Many years it quite evidently never occurred la Hill &. Know ton trial if Gorbachev and Reagan do drink a Pepsi and slug Down a Stolichnaya exactly nothing will be symbolically different from when Nixon and Khrushchev did the identical thing Back in 1939. Nor did it occur to the Pepsi people that the other Deal signed in 1972 is called Salt i which Wai designed to contract the number of nuclear missiles the soviet Union has sitting there aimed at the american prop. As the sales of Pepsi mounted so did inc creation of nuclear missiles. Eighty percent of existing missiles in the soviet Union were manufactured since 1972, one wonders whether or. Kendall who does t like to miss commercial  has put in for Pepsi conces Sions in gulag now it is assumed that this is nowadays an insignificant Market but Michael Makarenko has recently released a report the startling conclusions of which air that them is More forced labor now in the soviet Union than there was under Leonid Brcich nov. Who s be Makarenco is a founding father of Resis Tance International . Box 70265 s.w., washing ton. . 20024and Ever since he himself left gulag but it Rose under Brezhnev to 9.4 million. It would Surprise the Pepsi people Hal the figure. Maka Crnko believes is higher now for one very a Good Rea son. It is that russian labor we Are miking about millions of pople is no did in Paru of the soviet Union that no free Man would consent to live in. It is far that reason that parasites and hooligans arc shipped by the hundreds of thousands to Siberia to mine the Coal Hack Down the lumber and Drill the Oil and Gas on which the soviet Economy depends among other things to make in possible to buy i billion shots of Pepsi every year. A but obviously inc Public relations people figure it s better for the Bottom line to go this Way and who knows maybe under Crest Rota the gulag people will receive tree pepsis Down inc line. One won ers whether Hill ii Knowlton would like an account for Pepsi if in decided to Crank up the am  with South Africa the problem is academic for those of us who pause for refreshment with coca cola