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Show The Salt Lake Tribune OPINION Friday, April 28, 2000 ‘United Way Fails Diversity Test With Inaction on Scouts BLUMNER ROBYN ST. PETERSBURG,Fla. — Ifyou've ever America then bigger programs. » It all seems so uncontroversial, so beyond the fray. And it was . . before the Boy Scouts. Not since the early 1990s, when the United Way's disgraced director, William Aramony,stole $600,000 to lavishtrips and luxury on himself and his girlfriends has the organization been engulfed in such a firestorm of controversy. The exclusionary policies ofthe Boy Scouts ofAmerica, a major recipient of United Way funds, are testing the United Way’s commitment to inclusion, diversity and tolerance — test it’s failing miserably. The Scouts say part of their mission is developing character in boys through the inculcation of morals. Therefore, they say, they choose to bar atheists and homosex- uals from membership and leadership. This Wednesday, the organization argued in the U.S. Supreme Court thatit is private and as such should be free to discriminate. yers blocking certain kids from the campfire. You would think this openly discrimi- natory stance would havethe 1,400 member United Ways defecting in droves. coming home. I had taken college entrance interview in my dress This April 30 marks the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. It means little to Vietnam veterans. To be an anniversary of something, a date has to havea personal significance. Like most Vietnam veterans, I completed my combat tour years before April 30, 1975, and felt no ‘more connected to thefall ofSaigon than did to the recent earthquakes in Turkey. Also, like most other veterans, I was busy getting on with mylife. During the eight years between my combattour andthe official end of the war I had worked my way through college with the help ofthe G.I. Bill, then attended a computer echnical school for a year. By ese April of 1975 I had been employed _jv8iX_ months as a computer programmer in a four-man startup aj eompany. I rarely watched television dur¥ ,ing college and during those early aj Work years, so the Television War 7ie posted me by. But I had not escaped jp the Vietnam War entirely since green Marine uniform just days after returning home, I sat proudly in front of the dean with my crewcut, newly-sewn sergeant’s chevrons, and two rows of combat ribbons. After citing how thecollege accepted students from all over the world, the dean ended the interview with, “Frankly, Tom, youjust wouldn’tfit in here.” Ayear later a freshman English class coed at anothercollege com- mented on the military’s wanton defoliation of anything green in Vietnam. “There must be a dozen shades of green in the Vietnamese countryside,”I said. “You've been there?” she asked. “Sure,I just got back last year. I was in the Marines.” “Whydid you go?” “T was doing myjob.” Thenext class she sat four desks away. After graduating second in my class in computer school, I found it difficult to get job interviews. Soonafter I removed “Vietnam veteran” from my resume, When the Santa Fe County, N.M., United Way dropped the Scouts in 1994 because of the policy on gays, there was an initial dip in contributions and a barrage of angry calls from donors. Since then, Ron Stevens, the organization's executive and got a job. Three Vietnam War anniversaries are etched in my mind. On July 2, 1967, the four understrength 125-man rifle companies in my battalion lost 84 dead and 190 wounded. That battle became known simply as Two July. Four dayslater, we ambushed a column of North Vietnamese after they crossed the Ben Hai River into South Vietnam. Weinflicted 200 enemydead in theall-night battle, with only one ofour own killed. Six July wasnot only a demonstration of the American military's resil- ience andfighting spirit, but also a reminder that no battle is won withouta price. I was one of four men who carried our machine gunner’s body out of the DMZ the mile back to the landing zone. My third anniversary is Halloween, October 31, the night I came home. I rememberthe per- plexed look on my mother’s face whenI walked into the living room -in my crumpled uniform; she thinking how brazenofthis trickor-treater to walk right in without knocking. Every Vietnam veteran holds his own memorable dates of the Vietnam War, but April 30 is not one ofthem. discriminate, whichhas led to a series of lawsuits from atheists and gays. ‘The Scouts’defense to these suits is the urged to do by numerous civil rights groups and upholds the New Jersey court's ruling, our right to interact with people of our own choosing’ who share our values, beliefs and interests, would be undermined. through persuasion. The Scouts’ tune would change in a hurry if boys refused to join, parents refused to volunteer and if funders walked. the Scouts should have the right to put. Shamefully, the United Wayis staying Vietnam Is Still a Victim are literate. BY DON CAYO No question, Dr. Le Cao Daiis loyal to the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. During the war years of the 1960s and "70s, he was a Viet Cong surgeon in a primitive hospital hidden underground in the jungle; then a senior bureaucrat in Hanoi; and now,at age 72, he runs the Vietnam Red Cross, working to ease burdensfor the poorestof his country’s poor. So I knowit’s a joke when he tells me, “Maybe we should have lost the war.”Not a funny joke, but one steeped in irony. Twenty-five years after the end of the Second World War,the losers were doing fine. Germany — the West, at least — had enjoyed a decade of miraculous growth followed by another of steady progress that madeit the world’s But its economy lags. In the middle years of the 1990s, thanks to adriveto endits long isolation and open up to the world, Vietnam nearly doubled its GDP per capita — all the way up to $310 a year. (With prices rock-bottom low, purchasing poweris about five times that. But it’s growing only half as fast as GDP.) The upshotis that, while a decade ago Vietnam was the llth poorestcountry on earth, it is now 22ndfrom the bottom ofalist of217. Yet Vietnam is almostasbig, and it has almost as many people with a base of education as Japan had 25 years after its war. So whyis its recovery so weak? After the United States pulled out and the communist North won thelong civil war, Vietnam turned its face to the Soviet Union. Andit fourth-richest country. And Japan had grown into a manufacturing turned its back onvirtually everyone else, to the point of sparring powerhouse. Buttoday, 25 years after the end of the Vietnam War, the winners north, and warring with the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia, its neigh- with China, its neighbor to the bor to the west. When the USSR are reeling. In health and education, Vietnam isn’t doing too badly. Its peo- ple live, on average, well into their Thomas P. Evans is a computer consultantfrom Shelton, Conn. to wrench open their membership, but Constitution — a perfectly appropriate place to hide. As a private organization, — half againas long as in most places so poor. And 90-plus percent collapsed, so did its only source of help. All the while, it got the cold shoulder from the United States. Andwithout the cooperation of the world’s only remaining superpower,it’s pretty hard for any country to get ahead. For onething, the physical legacy of the war remains a huge burden too much for a poor country without the kind of help the West gave Germany and Japan. Institutional impediments eigners to get the OK to invest or trade. But entrepreneurial energy is palpableatstreet-level. All kinds of goods are on sale everywhere — people seem to embrace newly granted economic opportunities with all the enthusiasm seen in other “Asian tiger” economies, Meanwhile, relations with the U.S. are thawing. Ambassadors have been exchanged since 1995. Trade talks continue. Delegations of American veterans are assisted whenthey cometo investigate the fate of more than 2,000 wartime servicemenstill unaccounted for. By2025,the 50th anniversary of the war’s end, the story may even be that Vietnam is starting to look like a winner. Don Cayo lives in New Brunswick, Canada and recently visited Vietnam. WHO WANTS TO T A > 0 Mw MY eaeee SS Se ee arr / 4 0 Md & @ tommy's \ fleid daze 12-6 at all Dillard's locations. 10-9 and Mall. In Provo: Provo Towne Centre. ere In Salt Lake City: FasoPce ee out Town Goran We welcome your Dillard's Credit Card, The American Express® Card, Diners Club Intemational, Mastercard? Visa® and The Discover Card A I 4 to growth are slowly waning. Open to the world or not, the Vietnamese bureaucracy can still be turgid, and it takes a long time for for- TOMM YM Hit ET Ger “wae ereonrcorreo eo” Fe gay. If the Supreme Court does as it's being That's why the best way to get the Scouts to change is not by using the courts Suddenly the United Way’s images of smiling youngsters at a marshmallow roast are replaced by the specter of law- ‘Anniversary Means Little To Vietnam Veterans BY THOMAS P. EVANS standing on the United Way is not only embracing exclusion, it's putting at risk our right to freedom of association. Allow me to ST. PETERSBURG TIMES ‘see store counter for details. |