European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 19, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Tuesday november 19, 1991 the stars and stripes Page 13 commentary Sydney h. Scha Bergfast food diet of news takes time to digest events whoosh past us so fast these Days that it is important every once in a while a important for retention of sanity and sense of humor a to turn off the idiot Box and the Telephone and take Stock. Consider the flashing nanosecond images of the last couple of weeks for example. That blur with a Bible was it Gates being sworn in or Barr which one of them is it who plays the bagpipes which one lied More to Congress or was it a dead heat sorry we done to remember its All a Jumble of business suits and sincere tics. Anyway in t lying the Norm for such people As sen. Daniel Patrick Moynih Nan said in his sparkling speech during the vote on Robert Gates As Cia chief a if in my View the most serious charge against or. Gates was dishonesty i would vote for  lying by such apparatchiks has become so common Moynihan said that a there is no great ground for Surprise in  the new York Democrat found a More substantial reason to vote against the Bush nominee a the fact that Gates had been so wrong for so Many years perhaps intentionally in overestimating the soviet Economy and therefore the extent of the soviet Challenge to us. Another image president Bush visited new York again this week a he never stays overnight Only Long enough to foul up traffic and drive a few Hundred More locals into madness. This time Bush was tired. He gets tired on these Domestic trips invigorated when he goes to places where they Don t ask him about unemployment and Dan Quayle. You could Tell he was tired from the Limp oration he gave to 2,000 of his partisans who were Loyal enough to pay $1,000 each to listen but not so far gone As to respond with rapture. The new York times noted a the relative Lack of loud or sustained  Bush probably blamed the tepid atmosphere on the democrats for he blamed them for everything else. There is no recession the president told these ailing business people the democrats made it up. The rest of the speech he spent chanting the word a Liberal Quot which is a curse word left Over from his 1988 Campaign but which three years later dribbles from his easy to read lips and slides Down his Chin. But now the president is gone from our screen vanished in a nanosecond and within minutes we re hungry again a something like the feeling alter a chinese meal. A but the Mario Cuomo image suddenly fills the breach.  he says in a thinking. Maybe i la do it maybe i wont. I can pin George s ears Back in any old election but first i have to decide whether 1 feel comfortable about running. How do i feel Matilda and Andrew and Fabian and mama and 1 have been discussing it around the Kitchen table. Well let you know look i know you reporters Are cracking jokes about How Long in a taking to make up my mind but there Are some heavy things to weigh. What about my image do 1 need cosmetic surgery for the suitcases under my eyes a Hairpiece to cover the sandlot on my dome i done to know i gotta think. Its easy for you to say but this is a big decision and while Cuomo was ruminating in slow motion a More solemn picture seized the screen. Magic Johnson sports hero and role Model As Well As cult figure in pop America takes the breath out of the image Industry by telling us he has the aids virus and therefore cannot play basketball. He says he got it by sleeping around with Large numbers of groupies and also says god has chosen him to undergo and overcome this Challenge. This is confusing. We do Admire him for his earned Success his optimism the help he has always Given to those less fortunate. But is he saying god made him be promiscuous and mess up in this Way magic should Tell us it was he who made the mistake All on his own. Even our heroes can be allowed to have Clay feet As Long As they have the courage to say so. And magic has courage. Bush quickly sidled into the magic picture on the advice of his image spinners. Realizing Liis incantation of the Quot la word Wasny to impressing All those out of work americans George went for a new gimmick. He asked magic to be on his aids commission hoping to ride the Star s coattails Back into Public favor. Until magic s tragedy George had pretended that aids was about As important a disease As the mumps and had Given it scant attention and research Money. But now George was frantic for a r be it ii the 92 pemoc�,4tic car no amp Mas so amp he 3v re opem ratings boost. What a photo of George and magic tossing horseshoes at Kennebunkport. Gee Whiz and of boy said George i better go Tell mom. And Here i am at the end of my space and 1 Haven to even come to the tabloid perfect death at sea of tabloid Mega pub Isher Robert Maxwell who somehow fell off his yacht in Calm Waters David Duke and his top of the hit Parade song hotly Totsy i m a nazi Geraldo and Bette in the bathroom sniffing glue Quayle a Battle with a cartoon character who says Quayle sniffed glue. I feel much better now having purged those images from my system. But strangely in a starting to get hungry again. I la be All right though. Just As soon As next week s chinese takeout arrives. C new Day James j. Kilpatric Kold salts made War sea lift smooth sailing every War has its Unsung heroes. Operation desert storm was no exception. Now that the army Navy air Force and marines have received the Praise they earned it May be time to say a word about 2,500 civilians you Haven to heard much of. They manned the cargo ships that kept the operation going. There is quite a Story Here. In some ways the Story is not a Happy one. At the end of world War i the United states had an oceangoing merchant Fleet of roughly 4,700 ships. Then a steady decline set in. Today the . Fleet of deep water cargo vessels is Down to 498 ships. Their average age is 27 years. The soviet Union has 2,400 merchant ships at sea Greece has nearly a thousand. There just Isnit much of a . Merchant Fleet any More. As a consequence there Are fewer licensed merchant seamen than there used to be. When desert storm blew up in August 1990, the military sea lift come undertook the staggering task of Manning 78 ships called up from the ready Reserve Force. It proved to be no insurmountable problem after All. The combat merchant mariners of world War ii sent out a Call for volunteers. The maritime unions pitched in. And out of retirement or from their regular civilian jobs came 2,500 sailors Middle aged and old. Ready to move cargo once again. Some of these Salty Fellows were old salts indeed. Many were in their 60s, some in their 70s. One Volunteer reportedly in his 80s, served As watch officer on a Container cargo ship. These old sailors came out of the same sense of patriotism and Pride that motivates members of the armed services to Volunteer for extra duty. The old timers had the old skills. It is a mistake to describe All the ships in the ready Reserve Force As rust buckets for some parts of the forces Small Fleet Are in Good shape. Most of the ships had antiquated boilers. Some engines had not been fired up in years. Gauges were broken or missing. The sailors who were 20 years old in the 1950s had Learned How to make the ships go. They still knew How to get them to sea. So they came from All Over the country to plunge into the Day and night labor of making things shipshape. Before the task was done the sea lift had landed 2.5 million tons of vehicles ammunition and equipment plus another million tons of containerized food uniforms and other supplies. Ninety five percent of the cargoes delivered to the persian Gulf came by ship. Eighty percent arrived in . Flag vessels 15 percent in ships of foreign registry. A vice adm. Francis r. Donovan commander of the military sea lift come says of the old sailors Quot we could not have done the Job w thou them comparatively speaking the eight month operation for desert storm was a Arcee. In world War ii members of the merchant Marine sailed through seas infested with German submarines. Enemy bombers were overhead. I Llis time was better. Before the War ended in 1945, hundreds of cargo shins had been lost to enemy action 5,662 sailors had died in action and 600 had been taken prisoner. The casually rate of the merchant Marine almost exactly matched the casualty rate of the Marine corps. Theirs was a dangerous valiant service yet it has gone almost wholly unrecognized. The merchant seamen were denied status As veterans they received none of the go benefits that went to men and women of the armed forces. True during the War they were paid civilian salaries which Are much higher than Navy pay but a . District court found that Over the years after world War ii everything roughly evened out. Sad to say the combat mariners remain generally unrecognized. Those who were actually at sea in August 1945 belatedly were accorded veterans status in i9v0, too late for i benefits to mean a great Deal. My hat is off to the old salts. They have gamed a nations thanks the hard Way. They be earned it. Pc  in is try flu Milit