European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 11, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Report missions of mercy j Sas de Cravit meals for 5,000 people Are prepared each Day in the kitchens at the giant St. Petersburg medical Institute. The food is taken to the wards in palls and buckets. Tracing flight 67 continued from Page 3 should and they have the authority to return to the institutions at any time to see if anything has disappeared. Katherine Dale was one of the volunteers. A Harvard slavic studies student Dale is currently studying russian literature and language in St. Petersburg. Quot there were scandalous things happening to humanitarian Aid packages from Germany and other countries. You could find the stuff being sold in the shops downtown Quot around Midnight the Convoy marked by flashing lights and armed guards began to Roll from the Airfield to destinations in the City. Quot the militia is Here to help us get through the City so none of the trucks get lost Quot Bomberger said. But German journalist Hans Unkelbach who accompanied German Relief supplies in St. Petersburg said City officials told him the militia was necessary to keep convoys from being hijacked. The majority of packages were brought to a Central food warehouse at the port where the volunteers monitored the counting and weighing of the material. Two trucks were dispatched to a mental institution at the Edge of the City Ana two others to the St. Petersburg medical Institute. At the medical Institute the food was placed in 5 storage room with air Force combat cameramen tech. Sgt. Hans Deffner and staff sgt. Dave Vanderbrake putting their cameras aside to help. Nikolai Nikorovich Goncharov the Hospital administrator was so impressed with the americans pitching in that he disappeared and returned at the end of the operation with a bottle. As Bomberger tried to explain to the russians the nutritional value of Granola bars Goncharov organized a mini Celebration. Americans and russians drank dark brewed georgian Cognac and chewed Granola bars while toasting russian american Friendship. The shipment also included other such non russian specialities As canned Chili. Cases and cases of canned Chili. By next morning some of the food was already appearing on Hospital trays. The Institute medical director Nikolai Vasilievich Vavilova said he and the More than Nikolai Vavilova Sis Edra Avi Kitchen worker Marla Yakovleva Toro Chenova uses a Large wooden paddle to stir the soup. 2,000 patients were grateful for the help. He also noted that the 1,000 doctors 1,200 nurses and 1,100 other Hospital workers also would be fed during the Day. Quot the situation in Russia now is a very difficult one Quot Vavilova said. Quot we be received a lot of support from abroad a from the americans a through the red Cross for patients our students and our employees. Our health department does t have the Money we need for Medicine. It is very difficult to express the gratitude we All  he said that a week earlier american heart specialists had visited with nurses and technicians to demonstrate the latest methods. Vavilova was impressed by what he had seen. Quot i also saw what your american nurses can do. I saw their excellent training and High qualifications. We have nothing that could  outside the Hospital two older women interrupted air Force photographer Vanderbrake As he filmed the outside of the institution. They thanked him profusely for the american Aid and told him How important it was. They were staring up at the 6-foot-3 airman As if he had personally carried the entire Load Over from the United states on his own. Quot the reaction to the Aid in the russian press has been 100 percent positive Quot said Bomberger. Quot they Are particularly impressed that this is being run by a military Man someone who could have been on a he other Side if there had been conflict Between our  Sas id Ragovis . State department staffer Heather Bomberger listens As an official explains the plans for the american food. For Sas Toch. It. Hon doff or Anatoli Ivanovich Prokhin a heart patient in St Petersburg eats lunch in his room. Some of the food had arrived that morning As part of project Hope. Page 4 special report the stars and stripes wednesday March 11, 1992 the Abrams m1a1 tank comes in Many versions including this mine Clearing Quot Tater  America s last tank factory faces an Uncertain future by Joseph Albright Cox news service at Lima Ohio inside the Quot army s Only remaining tank factory a $15.45-an-hour welder is working on one of the last 300 tanks the Bush administration says the . Military will need this Century. Sparks Cascade Over 2-Inch-thick steel Armor As the embryonic hulls Inch Down the Assembly line slowly taking on fuel tanks turrets and Cannon before emerging into the Daylight As the finest War mobiles the world has Ever seen. To visit the Abrams m1a1 tank factory is to glimpse the waning majesty of America s military Industrial base. Here is a modern automated factory with a team of 2,000 expert welders machinists engineers and other workers. It is so specialized and so valuable to National defense that even if it closes it will not be dismantled but rather mothballed in Case it is needed for some future War. Now that the cold War threat has gone poof the Plant and its 90,000 neighbors in and around Lima face a dismal set of choices a general dynamics which operates the factory for the army must sell thousands of the world s Best tanks to foreign customers. So far the egyptians have ordered 555 and the saudis 465. That will keep the Plant alive until 1995. Meanwhile general dynamics is pursuing More orders from Kuwait saudi Arabia Pakistan Canada and the United Arab emirates. A or someone must successfully lobby Congress to buy tanks the Pentagon says it does t need. Last year Congress added $313 million to the administration budget but defense Secretary Dick Cheney has seemed Adamant against spending it just to preserve the Industrial base. A or sometime in the mid-1990s, the Pentagon will close the factory store the machinery in cos Moline grease and forget about Lima. It will be four months before Abrams tank no. 7,856 a now just starting to take shape on the Assembly line a will Complete its test drive and be turned Over to the army. It will be identical to the 1,904 top of the line m1a1 tanks that the . Army used to storm into Iraq and Kuwait one year ago along with 120 older Model m1 Abrams used by a few rear guard army units. During the persian Gulf War the m1a1 proved so . 00 Uoo Hoctor Niph he Irani lib. Report. In one Case an iraqi Shell lodged harmlessly in the Armor of an m1a1, and in another Case a Shell simply bounced off. No7,856vwllprabablyln&velhe used by the peacetime military. By 1995, the slimmed Down army and marines will need Only 4,700 tanks for All Active armoured units and All wartime emergency Reserve depots according to army spokesman maj. Peter Keating. Even so the Pentagon is committed to buy 8,113 Abrams tanks before the last . Order runs out in late 1993. By 1995, that will mean the military will own 3,000 More Abrams tanks than the Active forces need. There will be enough left Over to put almost All Reserve and National guard units in m1 Abrams tanks. Daily the 90,000 people in and around Lima Are gnawed by the Prospect that their most lucrative employer a with a payroll approaching $90 million a year a May have Only a few years to live before the army locks the Gates and leaves Only a Lew guards on the payroll. Quot to Tell you the truth Lima is going to the Devil Quot worries Mary Barton 71, a lifelong neighbor of the factory who watched it sprout from the Cornfields in May 1941 As the nation mobilized before world War ii. Quot i am afraid that the Only thing that can get our town going again is a War god  Jerry Moore 54, of nearby Harrod Ohio says Quot my boy got Laid off at the tank Plant last year. Now he s trying to get a Job at Rudolph foods making pork rinds. They Start you there at $5 an hour but you can t live off $5 an hour these  the army owns the Plant and All its tools overseeing the 393-acre premises like a mini army base. The army contracts the tank building work inside the Fence to general dynamics land systems division. One before in the Post korean War demobilization the army mothballed the Lima Plant and left it empty from 1959 to 1976. Layoffs and retirements have dropped the tank Plant s work Force from 2,500 to 2,000 Over the past 18 months everyone thinks More layoffs Are coming says Bob Mitchem 48, who doubles As a machinist in the Plant and the recording Secretary of the Plant s United Auto workers chapter. Quot people pick up the slightest Rumor and they come running to the Union office and say i heard this i heard s4s Sharon Rikja Tarrant not 11 l