European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 29, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 4 r the stars and stripes Friday july 29,1994 by Marian Hamilton. Mediterranean Bureau aboard the Salvage ship grapple in the Black sea a Petty officer 1st class Theresa West called out for everyone to look overboard at a Bunch of wobbling White shadows below the Waters surface a wow look at those jellyfish Quot she said. A they re huge i saw one the other Day and i thought it was a trash bag floating in the her shipmates razed her about her enthusiasm. With 14 years in the Navy this is the Winthrop n.y., natives first shipboard deployment and she is easily amazed. A the grapple was one of two . Ships a the other is the destroyer Deyo a participating in Breeze �?T94, a naval exercise involving countries that Border the Black sea. Bulgaria played Host to the exercise which started sunday and ends today bringing together ships from Greece Turkey Romania Ukraine Russia and Bulgaria. For West the biggest problem during Breeze �?T94 has been the grapples Smalt sleeping quarters. A the Only problem adjusting to shipboard life is learning How to sleep on a Little rack a she said. Quot and everybody corrects me. Ill say mop and say swab. We done to have stairs we have lad a a a a a a a a a a a ass Marian Hamilton Terca Elliott a Petty officer aboard the . Salvage ship grapple exchanges a lighter for a bulgarian sailors hat this week during the exercise Breeze �?T94. Dots. We done to have ceilings we have overheads.�?�, a. West had served ashore in a Squadron with Navy pilots she said. Now on the grapple she must prove herself by qualifying in a. Lot of different vocations control firefighting ships administration postal services Legal servies and a whatever else they want me to however the 33-year-old Sailor is not alone. Almost one third of the Small ships Crew is female. A out of 90 enlisted and six officers 31 Are female a said it. Cmdr. Bill Lewis commander of the grapple. A a it a no big Deal. We have our Job and we do it Well a he , the ars-35s auxiliary Rescue and Salvage at sea ships were the first class of ships that were built from the ground up with women in Lewis said the sleeping areas and restrooms Are built so that they can be changed around when necessary. A the berthing compartments Are built with different numbers of Racks so that we can accommodate one female or Many with maximum efficiency a he said. The grapple was commissioned in 1986 and is based at Little greek naval amphibious base a. The ships main Mission is to provide diving firefighting towing and Salvage operations. During Breeze �?T94, the ships Crew members have displayed firefighting and Rescue techniques to their Eastern european counterparts. Chief Petty officer Regis Mcdonald a who served As a Cook on two submarines a tender an aircraft Carrier and a destroyer in his 17 years in the Navy a said that he was on Only one other ship with females aboard a a tugboat a when he first came in the Navy. But he says that he has not had any special problems working with women. \ a a it a great a Mcdonald said. A a there a Good people and there a the whiners a both women and men. The women work the same jobs As the men. As Long As we re professionals everything works out Fine and that a what we arrives to assess rwandan capital by Joseph Owen Heidelberg Bureau army it. Gen. Daniel r. Schroeder arrived in Kigali Rwanda about 4 . Thursday to assess the potential for a . Humanitarian Aid Mission inside the War ravaged country. Later in the Day the number of . Service members he is commanding in Central Africa Rose to More than 600, according to . European come Headquarters in Stuttgart Germany. The deployed troops Are now in Kenya Uganda and Zaire to help masses of rwandan refugees. Schroeder commander of the operation support Hope joint task Force originally had been scheduled to land in Goma Zaire where about 1.2 million rwandan refugees had gathered. It was not immediately Clear Why he went to Kigali instead the command said. However Gomas Airstrip has h a d Trou ble accommodating Relief flights and the command already has announced plans to conduct humanitarian Relief operations inside Rwanda Navy cmdr. Ron Morse a . European come. Spokesman acknowledged that some Africa bound aircraft remained on the ground in Europe on thursday because they were unable to obtain Landing clearance in the crisis area. But the reason for the delay was not immediately available. A c-141 Sta Lifler transport plane arrived thursday morning in Schroeder Goma from Charleston fab s.c., with unspecified cargo. Another Star lifter carried joint task Force troops from Europe to Entebbe Uganda. A Navy preventive Medicine team left Europe for Entebbe in the morning and 169 medical support veterinary sanitation and medical logistics troops left for Africa later in the Day. . Troops produced 96,000 Gallons of purified water in 20 hours wednesday at Goma of which the United nations had distributed 14,500, Morse said. The first of 13 donated German water purification units was scheduled for shipment from Rhein main a Germany Fate thursday. Also three 3,000-gallon-per-minute army purification devices were ready for shipment at the air base. News reports of a plan to establish a base inside Rwanda Are consistent with announcements wednesday by Gen. George a. Joulwan commander of the european come Morse said but added that the assessment on the ground is not finished yet. Quot we have not made the decision to actually Send troops into Rwanda a Morse said. Navy ships under Way to the port at Mombasa Kenya Are carrying pre positioned army Relief supplies contrary to information the command released wednesday Morse said. The first of those ships is expected to arrive at Mombasa on saturday. For troops from Italy by j. King Cruger Northern Italy Bureau a plans to deploy a Large number of . Soldiers from Italy to Central Africa have been put on hold and the Vanguard of that Force returned thursday to its base at Vicenza. The troops mostly Security forces and part of an estimated 1,300 soldiers expected to deploy to the troubled Region from the Southern european task forces inf brigade had been waiting for several Days to Fly out of Aviano a Italy. A i told the troops returning to Vicenza that negotiations Are going on and that the humanitarian Relief operation continues to flow but that they Are now lower Down on the movement order a said col. James r. Mcdonough the brigades commander. A. A they will remain ready., but it is appropriate now for them to rest and to be with their friends and families. We can get them Back Here in plenty of time to move out a Mcdonough said thursday. Mcdonough said he could not speculate on when those forces Many of them crack airborne and Ranger troops might move. A we Are waiting for political decisions and from that the military guidance. This is a National news Story. In a Way Down the line in the decision making process Mcdonough said. . For r opens 4 new Camps near Goma Zaire apr in an Effort to reduce congestion and the spread of deadly cholera Relief officials opened four new Camps thursday for the 1.2 million suffering rwandan refugees jammed in and around this Border new Camps bring to eight the number of Sites staked out on the Rocky volcanic Plain North of Goma for the refugees who have been dying at a rate of More than 1,800 a Day from diseases spread by Lack of sanitation and clean water. Because latrines cannot easily be dug in the hard soil almost every Square foot of the older Camps is covered with the slime of human excrement and vomit from victims of the cholera epidemic sweeping through the wretched masses. Ray Wilkinson spokesman for the , High commissioner for refugees said officials also had won approval from the local government for the zairian military to truck refugees out of Goma and into the nearby Camps. A he estimated that Between 50,000 and 100,000 rwandans were in Goma itself which formerly had a population of 80,000, diseases Are beginning to spread through the local population he said. The estimated 1.2 million ethnic Hutu refugees fled to Eastern Zaire from neighbouring Rwanda this month As rebels led by the minority Tutsi routed the Hutu government army. The huts feared rebels would take revenge for the massacre of 350,000 to 500,000 people mostly Tutsi by Hutu militias from april to mid july although no evidence of reprisals has surfaced. The Camps themselves became immediate Breeding grounds for disease and death a a process accelerated by the mounting toll of rotting unburied bodies. About 18,000 people have died in the past week. _ some 2,500 French troops have been digging mass Graves using Earth moving equipment and explosives to blast through hardened lava but the troops Are too few to both handle the burials and protect refugees from ethnic Slaughter a their original Mission. Wilkinson the Unher spokesman said . Officials had pressed Brig. Gen. Jack p. Nix jr., the . Army commander in Goma and the state department in Washington on tuesday to Send help for the burial Effort a within 48
