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Show . 9 The Daily Herald This won't hurt a bit will frankly admit that I am afraid of medical care. I trace this fear to my childhood, when as far as I could tell, the medical profession's I reaction to every physical problem I developed, including nearsightedness, was to give me a tetanus shot. Not only that, but the medical professionals would always lie about it "You'll hardly feel it!" they'd say, coming at me with a needle the size of a harpoon. As a child, I was more afraid of tetanus shots than, for example, Dracula. Granted, Dracula would come into your room at night and bite, into your neck and suck out all your blood, but there was a positive side to this; name- I Sunday, January 21, 1995 By MARCIA DUNN AP Aerospace Writer v-v- J The Miami Herald tion; his w ife feared he'd gone into shock. Greg Jarvis' remains were the last ones found, three long months ORLANDO, Ha. They were entertaining friends and relatives when the phone rang that January night. It was Greg calling to say his father and stepmother hello hadn't heard from him in a while and to tell them tomorrow appeared to be The Day. After months of being bumped from flight to flight and enduring multiple launch delays, Greg Jarvis felt sure he finally would be heading into space aboard the shut-- . 4 - -- laws. ; For Bruce Jarvis, peace, such as it was, lay in the Astronauts Memorial Foundation, established shortly after the accident, and in ' cards. - the 4:;. thank-yo- u "Greg would appreciate what! we're doing, what they're doing, what we're helping them do, much; more than anything else I can think; of," he says. It helps Bruce and Ellen feel" closer to Greg and, maybe, just' maybe, Jarvis says, makes up' for! all the time he should have, and could have, spent with his son over the years. "I wish I'd had more time for; all of them," he says of his three.; sons. "But now that I've got, the time ..." His voice trails off." He cannot finish. He explains it another day, this", it: lx4 i ! before. Right then and there, in front of his wife' and their J . out-of-to- Bruce Jarvis, normally .v, unemotional, broke down in tears. "I love you, son," he replied. He'd never said that before, not in all of Greg's 41 years. That was their las"t conversation, their very last words to one another. An omen, Bruce Jarvis now ' M 1 V or : H v lv j W i, -- I r 1 ... s way: The Jarvis family wasn't panic-ularl- y close while Greg and his! feels. brothers were grow-- ; two 6' younger On Jan. 28, 1986, at 11:39 a.m. N.Y. Like his; in Mohawk, ing up Bruce and his Jarvis EST, Gregory Bruce Jarvis; father before him, six Challenger crewmates died in a the was too running busy fireball in the sky.. dote his on children. to Ten years later, his father is still So it was only natural that after ' heartsick and bitter about the deciGreg left for the State University sion by NASA and booster-make- r of New York at Buffalo, he ; Morton Thiokol Inc. to launch 1 returned home less and ! iff 4- less, espe-- : Challenger that fatally cold mornj daily after he married Marcia and KJff ing, despite engineers' warnings his parents divorced. about the Bruce Jarvis' subsequent marHe no longer dwells on it, though, riage to Ellen, who encouraged and is trying to make amends for him to be a more expressive father, his son's lost life, and their lost gradually improved the relation- - . relationship. ship between father and son. Greg At age 78, he figures it's now or kept his father abreast of his grownever. ing number of achievements in the This is his story. satellite world, first with the Air V V Force and then with Hughes AirIt's a sunny Orlando morning craft in Los Angeles, as well as all .and,, as usual, Bruce Jarvis is his outdoor adventures with Marprowling his neighborhood and 100-mil- e cia bike rides, white-- '. nearby shopping-ma- ll parking lots water rafting, cross-countskiing. in search of Challenger, license, shut-- ; selection as a " space Greg's (. plates. AP Photo tie payload specialist in 1984 was, He used to go by foot, striding Crew members of the space shuttle Challenger walk seven crew members, including, from front, pilot for father and son, a professional up and down the endless rows of from their quarters at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., Mike Smith, school teacher Christa McAuliffe, mis- pinnacle. His phone call to his, cars and leaving blue thank-yo- u en route io the iaunch pad Jan. 28, 1986. Chal- sion specialist Ellison Onizuka and payload specialfather the night of Jan. 26 or 27, cards on the driver's-sid- e windows lenger exploded moments into the launch, killing all ist Gregory Jarvis. 1986 Bruce and Ellen Jarvis of vehicles, with the commemorasurwhich night it was For Greg, though, this was "the disagree tive plates. Nowadays, Jarvis has peddling something. But for the the schoolteacher from Concord, in least the at of that, passed eyes trouble walking, so he bikes. Even most part, motorists are touched N.H., who was going to use Chal- ultimate trip." father. the and seconds. lasted as 73 an orbital It classroom. lenger grateful. though he's slower and doesn't get "Oh God, I was ecstatic," He figures he and his wife, also Schoolchildren everywhere tuned out as much "I just don't have Challenger ruptured 8.9 miles Jarvis recalls. the health" he won't stop. He 78, have handed out some 5,000 in to watch her soar; their joy above the Atlantic Ocean while in one horrific instant, all But turned into cards the at first Challenger quickly since 1,460 mph, or nearly can't. anguish. traveling dreams-come-trand dreams-to-b- e the Floriissued There Francis the The were of license to sound. were commander twice for the on lookout He's always presspeed plates snuffed out. were ,, in a critical "Dick" Scobee and pilot Michael sure seals, or g the plates, even when da residents a year after the acciA commission appointed by rocket he goes down to the lake on the dent. (The couple got the first two; Smith; Judith Resnik, the second joint of the right solid-fuedge of his condominium complex his bears Greg's birth date.) The American woman in space; Ronald booster had given way in the cold President Reagan blamed the acci- it was 36 degrees at launch time dent on a frightening number of! commemorative plates have raised McNair, the second African-America- n at daybreak to feed the ducks. in space; and Ellison Onizuka, and failed to contain the commistakes rooted in history ai "I got so that I could spot one of $16 million for the Astronauts in space. bustible rocket gases. these things a half-mil- e faulty rocket-joiaway," he Memorial Foundation at the ' the first design, unre-- ! And there was Greg, a Hughes It was like a blowtorch, fast and lenting pressure to meet ;the; boasts. Kennedy Space Center, paying for Jarvis never leaves the house a huge granite monument bearing Aircraft Co. engineer w ho had been furious, creating a hole in the demands of an accelerating flight! the names of the 16 Americans bumped from Discovery by a senaexternal fuel tank, which colwithout a pocket full of the busineschedule, a silent safety program, in conline and from died the of who have Columbia so far a tor by lapsed. At the same time, the tip of poor communications, slack man-- ; ss-size cards, even though there space duty, and a space education gressman, and was going to conduct the leaking booster rotated and agement. seem to be fewer and fewer Chalfluid experiments in orbit. He crashed into the upper part of the center. The findings rocked NASA and lenger plates around these days. It is Jarvis' passion, and mission designed and managed satellites, but external tank, the final blow? forced changes: Even unwitting The cards are signed by both in w hat's left of his life. He and his w as not a professional astronaut. Bruce and Ellen Jarvis watched members of the launch team were Jarvis and his wife of 20 years, wife see it as a "This is my one chance," Greg in disbelief from the launch site as way to keep the ashamed felt guilty. and Ellen. They read: "On behalf of of the Challenger Seven, had said. chunks of shuttle rained onto memoiy Some do. still ; Greg Jarvis and the crew, Bruce and especially the memory of Neither Bruce nor Ellen Jarvis Earth. "Obviously a major malsome "There are who are today and Ellen Jarvis thank you for purwas concerned about his safety. function," Mission Control reportGreg, burning bright. the not over totally Challenger Your Of the seven crew members, he After all, NASA's winged space ed amid all the confusion. chasing a Challenger plate. The couple were hustled away event," says shuttle operations continued renewal is appreciated." is, perhaps, the one most overplanes had been flying since 1981. Shuttle flight had become almost by NASA officials, along with the director Bob Sieck, who was in the looked, the one most easily forgotJarvis has been cursed on occaten. sion and left standing in engine routine, in fact, and was generating other astronauts' families. Jarvis, launch control center that fateful; less public interest. Christa There was then 68, required medical atten morning. McAuliffe, exhaust; the drivers thought he was a , family-pharmac- ly, you could turn into a bat and stay out all night. Whereas I could see no pluses with the tetanus shot. Of course today I no longer have this childish pho bia, because, as a mature adult, I can lie. "I just had a tetanus shot this morning!" I can say, if the issue ever arises. "Eight of them, in fact!" But I'm still afraid of medical care. And I'm not encouraged by TV medical dramas such as "E.R." If you watch these shows, you've probably noticed that when- -' .ever some pathetic civilian gets wheeled into the hospital emergency room on a stretch, er, he or she is immediately pounced upon by enough medical personnel to form a hospital Softball league, all competing to see who can do the scariest thing to the victim. Apparently there's a clause in the standard Televi- sion Performers' Contract stating that every character in a medical drama gets to take a crack at emergency patients: FIRST DOCTOR: I'll give Jiim a shot! SECOND DOCTOR: I'll his chest! pound ' THIRD DOCTOR: I'll stick a tube way up his nose! ;' FOURTH DOCTOR: I'll find an unoccupied section of his body and cut it open for no good reason! JANITOR: I'll wash his mouth out with a toilet brush! : Now you're probably saying: "Dave, you big baby, those are just TV SHOWS. In real life, bad things do not happen to people who fall into the hands of medical care." Excuse me for one second while I laugh so hard that my keyboard is by drool. Because I happen to 'be holding in my hand a notice that was sent to me by a Vermont orthopedic surgeon named either "David H. Bahnson short-circuit- ed or "Oee Bali." depending on whether you're reading his letterhead or his signature. Dr. Bahnson told me, in a phone interview, that he found this notice over the "scrub sink," which is the place where doctors wash their hands after they operate so that they won't get flecks of your vital organs on their Lexus upholstery. No, seriously, the scrub M.D." . ; sink is where they wash their hands BEFORE operating, and Dr. Bahnson said that this notice had been prominently displayed there for several I am months. It is entitled not making this up PROCE"EMERGENCY DURE: FIGHTING FIRE ON SURGICAL THE PATIENT." Yes, you read that correctly. Dr. Bahnson told me that, although it has not happened to him. Fires sometimes break (See BARRY, Page A 10) 4 1 '.V ; after the accident. His widow, Marcia, scattered his ashes into the ' Pacific Ocean, off the Southern California coast where the two had : lived ; they had no children and cut off contact with her in- -; tie Challenger. The call lasted only a few minutes. The other astronauts were waiting to use the phone at the Kennedy Space Center, and Greg had to be brief. He waited until he was ready to hang up, and then he said it: "I love you, Dad." He'd never told his father that company, Oaire : y now-infamo- us ', ry "... ' ue fund-raisin- el Asian-Americ- an nt , ! ; Various Whitewater investigations exonerate Clintons In 1992, in the midst of the presidential campaign, a story was reported about land in Arkansas that my husband and invested in during the late 1970s. Now, four years later, the "Whitewater" matter has been investigated by two congressional committees, two independent counsels, the Resolution Trust Corp. and scores of reporters. .There have been 45 days of hear- ings in the Senate and House. The W hitc House and our lawyers have turned over 50,000 pages of documents, and the president and I have answered every question put before us. I personally have been interviewed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the independent counsel, and have answered questions in writing submitted by the RTC and Sen. Alfonsc D'Ama-to'- s committee. Close to $30 million in taxpayer money has been spent investigating Whitewater. But none of these exhaustive inquiries has turned up evidence that we did anything illegal, unethical or wrong. Still, the questions keep coming. And so do the allegations and insinuations, even though we continually knock them down. I want to assure the American public that we will continue to Rodham Clinton W-,- 2 12'. tn m lMnf-t(n-i'-;'- Talking it Over cooperate with all But weeks passed before congressional investigators were willing to release these findings to the public. They did so only after heavy pressure from Democratic members of the Senate committee. So much for a search for the truth. Since most Americans never heard about this report, let me fill you in. It was conducted for the Resolution.Trust Corp. by one of the nation's leading law firms, Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro. It took more than two years to complete and cost nearly $4 million. A Republican, former U.S. Attorney Jay Stephens, headed the inquiry. It concluded that the president and I were passive investors in a failed land transaction- - and lost more than $40,000 on Whitewater, prominent reasonable inquiries, as we have in .the past. Nobody wants to end this controversy more than we do. ' But it becomes increasingly difficult to do so when the facts are lost in a blizzard of innuendo and shifting accusations. Let me give you an example of what I mean. An independent inquiry, completed last month, found no evidence of wrongdoing on our part and called for an end to the Resolution Trust Corp.'s investigation of Whitewater. as we have said all along. It also concluded that we had little knowledge and no control over the Whitewater project. Further, it affirmed what we have said from day one: that we had no knowledge of any money flowing from Madison Guaranty Savings & Lean to Whitewater, and that we did not receive any loans or dividends from the savings and loan. (Madison Guaranty was acquired by our partner in Whitewater, James B. McDougal, some years after we invested in the project.) As for matters relating to Madison, the report found no evidence that I had any knowledge of any wrongdoing on the part of the savings and loan while I was at the Rose Law Firm. Billing records located after the report was completed confirm that I did minimal legal work on Madian average of about one-houson a week over 15 months, just as I have said from the beginning. Despite these conclusive findings in the Resolution Trust Corp. report, there was no press conference, no announcement, no effort by congressional investigators to make them public. This detailed and impartial report was finally released last week, but only after one mcmlnrr of the committee told his colleagues, "The committee makes much ado about supposed failures of the White House to turn over documents, while it refuses to poor em release voluminous documents that strongly buttress the Clintons'; statements about Whitewater." He went on to caution that in recent weeks the Whitewater investigation had deteriorated into a series of unsubstantiated and outrageous accusations on matters that in some cases have yet to.be the subject of testimony. ; With each new round of allegations, we have responded with documents and facts. And each time we do, more questions are conjured up, shifting the ground . once again. As one veteran columnist - " r ; observed, the investigations "promise horrors and prove nothing." What will happen next during this presidential election year? t don't know what to expect. But I do know that we will continue Ui cooperate and give answers to questions about events that took place 10 to 20 years ago. I also knw that the American people are fundamentally fair. And in the end, I'm sure they will be able to separate fact from fiction, and to tell the difference between truth and scandal-mongering. "3 r |
