European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 25, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Wednesday thursday. December 25/26, 1991 the stars and stripes Page 13 commentary Tom Wicke Cuomo s decision won t ease Bush s worries which Oam a has a a each Tomkov in free fall. A poop and Fogl hoc?tag�,5 Fot Matt people. A Une Mylotta amp to plants cd Oslo. A Hoosik amp Shoft fuses. A All. Of the Apcie Mario Cuomo warned the nation that he would not run for president unless new Yorkus massive budget crisis was resolved first. Those who thought he was merely playing games found out last week that he meant what he said. That s a Welcome change from the usual political double talk and deniability. But there s no use pretending As some democrats Are doing that the party a chances for 1992 have not been Hurt. Cuomo would have been the most commanding and articulate figure the democrats could have put up a and articulate Ness is one Quality among Many badly needed in a White House. George Bush is undoubtedly relieved that Cuomo has taken himself out of the race but the president is by no Means out of the Woods. A Gaggle of administration experts met with him last week to it debate his economic options including whether to declare an emergency that would permit him to break last years budget agreement with Congress. What a to debate general motors has announced it will close 21 plants Lay off 9, 0 White Collar workers in 1992 and eliminate More than 70,000 jobs in the next few years. The company a troubles Are not All due to the recession but a sluggish Economy seeded this Long needed a restructuring a of what used to be the flagship of . Business. And All those lost jobs wont help recovery. For the week ended dec 7, first time claims for unemployment insurance Rose by 79, my a about twice the number forecast and a Strong sign that the Economy is not slowly recovering As usually claimed bul is contracting. In the new York metropolitan area More than 40 1,000 jobs have been lost since 1989. And that was Only a sampling of the pre Christmas bad news with stores still uncrowded and layoffs increasing everywhere. And since pm has not specified which of its plants it will close uncertainty about their personal futures must be a matter of real worry for Mosi of that huge work Force. Chairman Alan Greenspan of the Federal Reserve a which dropped the discount rate a full Point on Friday a has conceded that he had underestimated the seriousness of the situation and that a the Economy is but Greenspan in testimony to the House ways and Means committee continued to insist that nothing should be done that might increase the budget deficit. There s the rub for the White House in last year s settlement with Congress it was agreed that any Revenue losses or increases in spending would be offset by gains or cuts elsewhere so that the deficit would not Rise. Bush would have to declare an emergency to break the agreement which he has so far refused to do. But All the options discussed at the White House this week would run up the deficit. They apparently included an increase in the personal exemption for income tax payers a tax credit for Middle income earners and a one year Cut in the onerous and regressive social Security payroll tax. With a presidential election coming up the struggling Economy is an acute political concern for the White House. With so Many unemployed and so Many fearful of losing their jobs taking stimulative action might Well be More immediately popular with voters than holding the line on the deficit. So some administration aides want to Send Congress a stimulative proposal designed to have bipartisan support and win Quick passage. Others argue for a distinctly Republican proposal based on conservative ideas like Bush a familiar Call for a reduced capital gains tax. Such a plan they concede might win Little congressional support but would provide a Strong conservative platform for the Campaign. Greenspan meanwhile cautions against Quot Short term fiscal stimulus that might not be helpful to Long term growth. This debate seems mostly defensive and technical what a Best for the administration politically what a Best for the Economy in the Long term there a Little suggestion of acute administration con Cern Lor the human misery of recession a which occurs in the Short term and surely seems like an emergency to those who suffer it. Mario Cuomo Heller than anyone else could have dramatized that for the nation. I Thi now York times now Ernest b. Furgurson a any War a never disappear horror of War Tony Zdanavage of Berwick pa., was a Field medic with the 2nd inf div in Korea. The Day his artillery outfit arrived at Pusan it moved Forward by train then by truck Convoy to a Hill at the Edge of the desperately defended perimeter the last toehold on the korean Peninsula. Within an hour mortar shells started falling. At first Tony did t realize what that meant. A this dumb kid the medic just sat there in a a ton truck writing a letter Home a he remembers. A i heard the explosions and saw people running. One kid called out a medic a he asked me where my Hole was and i pointed to it. He ran for it. Before i could get out of the truck to join him. A Shell landed in the Hole at the same time. A it became my first lesson of War and what was expected of me As the medic. We had Only been in Korea for hours and no one even suspected we were in a danger zone. Yet a kid had just disappeared from the face of the Earth in a split Tony writes of that first Day and much More in a self published Book that lets go a Long muffled cry from his heart. It cries on behalf of the hundreds of thousands who served and the 54,000 who never came Back from the War America forgot to remember. For several years i have been searching the diaries and letters of civil War soldiers who left literally millions of them behind. Their accounts Are almost interchangeable with the agonized memoirs of Tony and his friends from 1950. If we had individual soldiers letters from the peloponnesian War 2,400 years ago and if the soldiers of desert storm last Winter had written More and telephoned less their record would sound the same. War is As old As mail and the stories of Napoleon and Grant Macarthur and Rommel Westmoreland and Sehward Kopl touch Only the Bare impersonal surface of it. A at that level changes in weapons and technology May affect strategy greatly. For the Man in the foxhole with the Spear the Musket or the m-16 a of the first Aid kit a hardly anything has changed. Amid that mortar attack outside Pusan Tony Zdanavage says Quot i never knew what was happening because it was new to when the shelling stopped he seemed in Shock. Quot i picked up a trenching tool and a poncho and started to pick up pieces of what was a living human being just seconds before. Some soldiers were still crying and throwing up while others were very hysterical with pieces of flesh and blood on their clothing. Most just hid not Able to As he scraped away with his shovel a sergeant named Mcdonald said a let me do that. but Tony said he was the medic and it was his Job. Mcdonald helped anyway. Quot he held the poncho while i gathered the pieces. We carried the half tilled poncho Over every Inch of ground to be certain we had not missed a single after that things got worse. Mcdonald became Tony s Friend and adviser. A without his help in a not sure today if i would have been Able to do what i did a Tony says. For Days and months he shifted from unit to unit Quot each time i was the Bastard a medic i was nameless and was nothing More than just Doc or medic a Over and Over As he patched Soldi ers together. Sliced sizzling phosphorus fragments out of menus flesh tried it close their Frozen eyes the thought came to Pony As it comes to All who see combat Why him and not me a strangers became friends. As a buddy or Friend would depart by death or wounds the new would arrive. But the pain of each departure never left our minds. The thought of being next never left us. Some wanted to go with their buddies at any Cost. Many fell guilty. No one who has never been in that position could feel the hurl the pain and Shock and heartache of leaving your Best Friend to die or he and when Tony came Home after being wounded left for dead captured and freed Only those who had been there could comprehend what he had been through a i of course Means Guadalcanal St. , Dak of Khe Sanh. Wherever men have had to Light. A in War we must do things we would not do in Normal life Iony says. Quot having done this and much More in combat men and kids Are unable to talk to others about it Hirst they try not to remember. Next they know they would not be understood. That Shell has to be opened hard As it is to do a because it is so hard men who have been there find each other to talk. Only in i9h4, at such a gathering did Tony learn that his Friend sgt. Mcdonald had been killed at the Kunu i Sunchun Roadblock in the same Nattle where Tony was wounded. Thirty Finui years late he wept again. the Foj Whimore Sun
