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Show Page 16 0 R E M TIMES Thursday, September 25, 2008 NOTES FROM IRAQ News of, Staff Sgt. Brock Jones "I ri avir.g terrible I I teeth runs in ny V ' fair.:!;. . and no! Oonfy &d genetics provide me with weak teeth. I as also born ' ah a $ eet t.xxh and an unquenchable !cn e cf soda pop. 2 recipe f;r derta! disaster. Mtr.tir-n :ne , :rd de-.t:s: ir. mv eves ad f:xer- t I " V. . . 1. - t 't V . 'v r 7fi ..7V Of ,:. u :: j irftramt'd : sr3;t cc -trap' sons rd if '-'t-s rjeid or-er. v m.Tirh . :. "i s.b t . .t I T'.-"t -S -v.i t"H fi.c a- 1- t Tf High school hosts Mascot Bowl ZVi Ailred ijE.-r.t srsders race ott v :- tiy aHBonst sports mas-:-.u -:e the Utah Jazz Bear L-.i BVU's Cosmo on the Lehi H.g-. School football field. A benefit for the nonprofit Firemen and Friends for Kids program, the fifth annual Mascot Bowl is sponsored by LHS Sports Marketing and several local businesses. The Lehi Little League football team will be taking on an All-Star Mascot team, coached by celebrity coach Jason Buck, former NFL and BYU star. Celebrity quarterbacks for the Mascots include Craig Bolerjack, voice of the Utah Jazz and CBS football ana Vonsiqnment SAVFI Visit ( ) ill? I if in II i is""- WANDERING WARDROBE TT 511 South Main St. Springville, UT 489-3893 IP No hassle buying. Any price range. am- . mm wm uet tKtt uornj Bring in this coupon fprJ FREE Utah 4 (iSfe!tosJaSM? 4 Im. mi . m.-mrm Necessities of Life chair ev en time. Though somew hat mellow mel-low ed with time and age. that fear follow edme into the .Army, and as 'with many things, the Army has provided me w ith many opportunities, op-portunities, desired or not. to cord r .nt those fears In ;he summer of 2003. rSe on my first deployment to Iraq, one of my molars began to ache and 1 knew 1 ould eventually have visit ::? d-eaded field dental office. 1 was nervous. At that time, there w as often no guarantee of eating a hot meal or of a cold drink of water, let alone proper dentistry. It was the pulsating pain of a good toothache tooth-ache that finally made the de-;:)on de-;:)on for me I reluctantly set tne appointment and against r- ery impulse to the contrary. I as there on the appointed .:. . and on time. As I left the makeshift dental den-tal ct'fice that day w ith one side of my mouth numb and see mgry sliding off my chin. I rei&ed that under the circumstances, cir-cumstances, the dentists did an amazing job. Aside from the fluctuating generator lyst: Alema Harrington, host of KJZZ "Powerhouse" and former BYL' great; Frank Dulce. voice of Utah football and former NFL player; and Aaron Boone, former NFL player and wide receiver for the' Utah Blaze. The mascot team features "Bear" of the Utah Jazz, "Grizbee" of the Utah Grizzlies, Griz-zlies, "Swoop" from the University of Utah, Brigham Young University's "Cosmo," "Rocky" from the Rocky Mountain Raceway, Weber State University's "Waldo." the Phoenix Suns' "Gorilla," the Seattle Sonics' "Squach," "Slamson" from the Sacramento Sacra-mento Kings, "Blaze" from the Portland Trailblazers, "Leonardo" from Real Salt Lake, "Chief " of the Blaze, f i u ' IH uiiopaiivp Hum 1 PINNKCLE mm mm m V ' Sweet Corn!! rf power and the drills stallpd in my teeth, the pain had been minimal and the experience somewhat calming I nearly fell asleep in the chair. 1 recently visited four health clinics in southern Baghdad Compared to our standards, the conditions of these clinics are ghastly, but the local doctors and other professionals do the best they can with w hat little they have. Each clinic had a dusty little room dedicated to dentistry. den-tistry. In one. a broken chair sprawled in a corner; a few-cabinets few-cabinets lined the room, and little ambient light passed through the barred, glassless w indows. We found that none of the clinics had properly functioning dentist chairs and electricity was only available a few hours everyday. When asked what it was they needed most, the Iraqi dentist in charge of one clinic said they needed someone to come and fix their chair. "What about anesthesia?" asked the American Army doctor. The Iraqi dentist's reply was that thev needed to take Salt Lake Bees' "Bumble," and "Champ" of the Dallas Mavericks. Mav-ericks. The Mascot team will include in-clude two NFL mascots from the Denver Broncos and Philadelphia Phila-delphia Eagles. Festivities will begin at 5:30 p.m. with an autograph session ses-sion with mascots and celebrities. celebri-ties. Fireworks will cap off the evening's activities. Tickets Tick-ets are $3 a piece, and can be purchased in advance at the Lehi High School financial office. of-fice. Scrooge and Marley's in Lehi, or at the gate the night of the event. Children two and under are free. Lehi High School is located at 180 N. 500 East in Lehi, right off the freeway. The high school's Sports Marketing Team has decided to honor Captain Harold YOUR ONLINE SOURCE FOR LOCAL NEWS Family Pediatrics Cosms.,j Wj Dr.DmdBGordon,IMD f1ost Insurance accepted toon fSsis d for fill Mi XSMmln wKSi stfefit essm, x-uzp, end demlity. U "ijrav- pMr-iiayi care of "first things first," and the chairs were most important. impor-tant. "Anesteesha ees not a ne- j cessidee," he said in broken, blunt English. His candor , made my mouth ache and ; caused a slight shiver in my knees. Not only do I consider anesthesia an-esthesia a necessity, it is the only reason I am still able to convince myself to even go to the dentist. Imagine waiting wait-ing outside the dentist's office for an appointment knowing , there would be no pain killer . to deaden the drilling and the pulling. My teeth would fall , out before you could get me into that office, and I cannot imagine taking a child to the dentist knowing there was no wav to ease their pain. How thankful I am to live ' and raise a family in a place where something as small as local anesthetic at the den- ' tist's office is deemed a necessity. neces-sity. A little less pain in every " form, no matter how minute, sounds necessary to me. Especially for those of us who love our sweets and soda. Terry, and the Lehi Police Department De-partment at the event. Terry received shrapnel wounds in June while conducting a traffic stop and is recovering from his injuries. In addition to the game, activities will include photo and autograph opportunities with the mascots, Jazz Dancers, Danc-ers, celebrity coaches and quarterbacks. Entertainment will feature the Nuskin Jazz Dancers along with the Lehi Cheer and Drill teams. The Lehi Marching Band will make their season's debut. Dancers from Centre Stage in Qrem, Utah will also perform. There will be food, prizes, giveaways, contests, a silent auction, fireworks, and many different games and activities for every member of the family. h jr. . 1 I 0DO CP surrender comes weeks to learn how to pack parachutes. Then it was another furlough (a freebee the army had lost track of Bill's first furlough), on to San Francisco, and on to Lipa Airstrip in the Philippines, where V.S. troops were preparing to invade Japan. Ja-pan. Bill had some interesting experiences just as the war was ending. n ; , . . hen we arrived ar-rived at lipa Airstrip, the base for the 11th Airborne, we saw pur first enemy. Some Japanese were in an open tar ,t: on the railroad tracks, and the Filipinos were throwing rocks at them. The war was still going go-ing on at this point. A week after I arrived, some of the troops who'd been in ' combat started to come back to the base. They'd had some pretty rough experiences. A little later, as we concentrated on getting ready for the invasion inva-sion of Japan, I was fortunate. My riggers group was a pretty close-knit group of men, and our work schedule was to pack parachutes. We received some 10,000 canopies, and riggers worked 24-hour shifts packing them. That's what we were doing do-ing when news of the surrender came and we heard that our troops were being taken to Japan Ja-pan for occupation. An interesting thing happened to me at lipa Airstrfy). I received a letter from my Uncle Ralph (my dad's brother) that said he was stationed down on the other side of Manila, so we set a Sunday when we could meet at a Red Cross center in Manila. I went to Manila and looked all over but couldn't find him. Finally Fi-nally I went up on a balcony and looked over aD the men milling around down below. Suddenry someone down there started waving his arms. It turned out to be my mother's brother, Uncle Gen, and we didn't have any idea we were both in Manila. We were both dumbfounded We spent two or three delightful de-lightful hours together, hugged each other, and then both of us had to shoot back to our camps. In the meantime, the truck that Uncle Ralph was coming on had wrecked, and he hadn't made it to Manila. I never did get to see him. One incident at Lipa says a lot about human nature. The army had created a big hilfcide where we could sit and see a big stage on the lower part of the hill. One night while the war was still going on, we went to a program and the hillside was covered with soldiers. For some reason, and I still mmm) mm The 9Series&wsa8' Jcli B:m!ra of Amtarf Affina McVcoh fert Date, wth It' i' Etorlsnoie: This is the stpprtd In a series about Bill HnWri 6 Orem. After para-' chute training, Hafen was ; sent to rigging school for four don't know why, someone in the front of the crowd stood up and took off running up the hill as hard as he could go. Then the guys next to him started funning. Pretty soon the whole Conglomerate of men were climbing over each other, run-' run-' ning up the hill as fast as we could. "Something's happened," we all thought. "Maybe a Japanese Japa-nese has thrown a grenade?" 1 asked the guy next to me, "Why are you running?" He replied, "I don't know, why arejoii running?" Gradually people stopped running, and we turned around and walked back to the hillside. Then a general got up, and did he ever bawl us out for taking tak-ing off without knowing why! I learned how quick somebody could be injured, or even killed in a stampede because that's what it was. People just took off for no reason at all. It was the 11th Airborne that occupied Japan. But a sad thing happened: big B-26 twin-engine bombers vere brought in to Lipa Airstrip and loaded with men. The first one couldn't get up in the air, it was so heavily heav-ily loaded with men. I can still remember the crash. One guy in our group was able to walk away from it, but most of the planeload was killed. All the other bombers were immediately immedi-ately unloaded, and one after another, they took off empty. A few days later, transport planes became available to fly the paratroopers to Japan. Just our little group of parachute para-chute packers remained at Lipa for a while. Then all the stuff the army thought we would need was loaded on the USS Stone, an LST (number 1141), one of those old flat-bottom ships, and we started out on a long, long boat ride from the Philippines to Japan. Next week: Bill Hafen survives a cyclone on his way to Japan, then becomes one of the occupation troops. Some veterans may wish, on their own, to tape or digitally record their memories of military service. These will be transcribed and archived. For instructions on how to do this, e-mail Don Norton at don.norton.byu.edu. America! Forte 63W.M2n 753-2223 w t 1 T. I |