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Show KEN REMEMBERS the 50s... Bob Waite, Jim Dean, Blaine Busenbark, Neldon Christensen, Richard Elzinga, and myself. At Capitol Reef, we met Charles Kelly, the custodian of the park, sitting on a wooden chair next to a small shed. We sat there for a couple of hours entranced with his tall tales about the canyons. I didn't know it then, but Kelly wrote gobs of books and articles on outlaws, old pioneer trails, and Mormon history. We also visited Elijah Cutler Behunin’s one-room sandstone block cabin on the Fremont River. Tabitha Jane, Elijah’s wife, was a second cousin of mine. Though they departed long ago, I felt a kinship to them and their 13 children and sensed the troubles they must have endured as they pioneered the land. Nearing Monticello, we stopped at Marie Ogden’s Home of Truth Colony, a religious community that she founded in 1933, and we visited with her for a while. An accomplished musician, she played her piano for us. She told us as how she hiked to the top of nearby Shay Mountain each year to receive revelation and inspiration. And we drove to Monticello and looked about the old flourmill erected in pioneer times by Chester and Sarah Black. I claim Sarah as another cousin of mine. This trip began shaping up as a "meet your kin" trip. We journeyed south to Monument Valley. The sandy road proved difficult to negotiate and while the other guys were digging our stuck car out, I hiked up and over some sand dunes and came upon a Navajo family. The woman of the house, weaving a beautiful blanket, showed me other blankets that she had made and were for sale. I wished that I had the money to buy one. After a short chat, I hurried back to the car where the guys were waiting. : We drove over to Father Liebler’s mission to the Navajos on the San Juan River near Bluff. At his invitation, we camped near his chapel that night. The next morning, it being Sunday, we attended his Episcopal services. We listened closely as he told us mission. By Ker Sleight And so in the spirit of this edition of the Zephyr I search my memory, notes, and my journal for a few personal happenings in the 50s. The horror of Sept 11 remains with us all, and now in jotting down these isolated notes I share with you too a brief sketch of my army experiences, which decidedly determined the course of my own life. At twenty-one years of age, in 1950, 1 went through a hellish year, as national and international events seemed to pull me into areas in which I had little control. Distractions were many. Continuous war talk left my mind immobilized, an ominous beginning for the decade. President Truman ordered the development of the hydrogen bomb, and in short order, on March 8, 1950 the Soviets announced that they too had possession of an atomic bomb. I still hung on at the University of Utah--my third year. The Dean told me thatI wasn’t a good student. My grade point average plummeted to a C average, and I flunked a few courses. Too much cutting of classes and hiking the mountain trails. On a shoestring budget, I didn’t even have a car. 1 pondered on buying a used one, but then I asked myself, for why? I’d probably not be around much longer to enjoy or pay for it anyway. After all, some 40 percent of American households still didn’t have a car either. Considering my lust for travel and wandering about, it would have lent itself to my cutting even more classes than I did. As I said, there were many distractions. During this time, my bishop asked me to go on a mission after the school year was over. This was tempting. Wanting an assignment in Peru, I took a course in Spanish to prepare the way. I’d be able to explore Cusco and Machu Picchu, and Lake Titacaca and the hundreds of other ancient archeological ruins that Iso wanted tosee. Ominous clouds lay on the horizon. U.S. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy made an ass of himself with his announcement that he held a list of 205 known card-carrying communists working in the State Department. Though he didn’t produce much, a nationwide frenzy of communist hysteria followed. People everywhere was searching under pillows and in closets for evidence that family members, friends, and acquaintances might be a bit pinko. North Korean forces had gathered north of the 38" Parallel for an invasion of South Korea. America had grown tired of supporting the chaotic situation. Korean leader - Syngman Rhee angrily took issue with the American people’s apathy, and in disgust, he pushed his own troops northward across the 38" Parallel into North Korea in order to provoke war. On June 25, 1950, another day of infamy, Communist North Korea forces invaded South Korea crossing the 38th parallel, capturing Seoul, and the war was.on. It was a "bandit raid,” the President retorted. The war brought the president, as he had counted on, overwhelming support for his "police action” encounter. That day, the most fateful day of my life, sped me down a road that I didn’t want to travel. I attended summer school at the time, the military draft loomed on the horizon, and I was at the prime age for induction. U.N. forces completely controlled South Korea by September. By that time, thousands of troops and civilians lay dead or wounded. Then all hell broke lose again. General MacArthur sent his troops north across the 38", all the way to the Yalu River and the border of Manchuria. At that point, Chinese communist troops joined the North Koreans, and their combined forces, some 300,000 troops, fought the U.N. back to the 38th parallel. The casualties: 15,000 marines had been trapped and 3,000 of them killed and 7,000 wounded. On the home front, the New Deal died. Wallace F. Bennett won the race in 1950 for the Senate in beating out Elbert D. Thomas, an old Roosevelt liberal. Bennett wrote a book that year, Faith and Freedom. It surely must have helped his candidacy. He clamored fora strong in a Mormon Dance Festival on the local high school grounds. We danced the squares, rounds, polkas, and waltzes. Later we would dance on the stadium grass in the All-church Dance Festival at the University of Utah in front of thousands of people. It was great fun but a bit much. Better to dance on the river bank. Basic training toughened us up and rewarded us many times over. It's a remarkable body buildup and conditioning factory. No need for conditioning-spas and the like, and it was all paid for too. ...no need for Lycra tights either. Frustrated with schooling, I decided to enter the Army. I gave up my education deferment and told the draft board to place my name on the next call up. This the board did, and I was directed to report to Fort Douglas for my arraignment. My father was pissed. The army gave me the rank of Private E-1. Lining up that first day, I endured the wait for initial dental and medical exams. Sizing up in the nude, I weighed 160 pounds and measured six feet tall. A skinny kid indeed. By bus, rail, and shank’s pony, I made it to Fort Lewis and then to Camp Roberts, California for basic training. My new army buddies from Utah included George W. Hatch, Newell B. Ostler, Robert.D. Pettit, and Rey Wiser. We had an integrated unit: whites, blacks, Hispanics, Texans and a few Mormons. At times, we were granted leave time. I wanted to wanted to for morale they told spend a weekend at Sequoia go too. Therefore, I made a if the Army conducted a bus me to organize the trip. We and Kings Canyon National Parks and other guys proposal to the officer staff, that.it would be great trip to a national park. I was very surprised when recruited two: busloads of enlisted men and one . officer. The eating expense was to borne by each of us. We'd camp out for one night. The people of Fresno generously gave us a banquet en route And John Muir was right when long ago he wrote, "Going to the mountains is going home." I surely felt Muir’s presence there at Sequoia and Kings Canyon. Basic training toughened us up and rewarded us many times over. It’s a remarkable body buildup and conditioning factory. No need for conditioning-spas and the like, and it was all paid for too, and there was no need for lycra tights either. Each day of a 16-week course, we'd arrive back to the barracks exhausted. We'd take a shower and just collapse. On graduation from basic training on March 8, 1952, I earned the rank of Private E-2. I had also applied for Officer Candidate School (OCS). Here’s a checklist of things to do: an OCS application form, high school diploma, birth certificate, transcript of college credits, fingerprint card, a security investigation, recommends from the commanding officers, referrals from an OCS Interview Board, copies of their proceedings, appraisal sheets and their recommendations--all to be sent to the Sixth Army Commanding General for approval. After security clearance, which encompassed investigators asking my employers, friends and neighbors back home of my character and such, a directive came down that I needed an 8-week "Leaders Course" before acceptance to OCS. It was essentially a repeat of basic national defense and later lobbied hard for the Glen Canyon dam. I voted for him then, but training with an emphasis on leadership training. This done, I was promoted to Private T regret my vote now. The city of Bountiful, population 6,004, annexed our farm. Excitement ensued on the completion of the new sewer system and the fact that it worked. Some of us worried about sprawl. Taking over the farm lands. Nuclear tests began on Jan 27, 1951 when a B-50 dropped an atomic bomb that detonated more than a thousand feet above the desert floor of Frenchman Flat in Nevada. Tn the next 11 years, 100 atmospheric tests would take place, sending hazardous and life- First Class. At the end of the grueling course, though I had one of the highest grades acceptance to OCS. The officer said it bearing.” The unit officers cut my rank killing radioactive dust storms all over Utah. After summer school ended, a bunch of us students took a road trip to southern Utah to explore the canyon country. In the party were : fe 3 his This great trip exerted a great influence on my later life. Blaine Busenbark enjoyed telling us about his uncle Bert Loper, the grand old man of the river. Also Jim Dean had run the river with Loper. Before our trip had ended, Jim invited me on a private trip through Lodore Canyon in the fall, and I took him up on it. My first trip on the Colorado River system excited me greatly. The trip list: Jim Dean, Malcolm "Moki Mac" Ellingston _ and Al Quist, and other veteran river runners. We became life-long friends as it was such an eventful trip; I knew now what my life’s profession was destined to be. On an evening in June, my girl friend Carleen Buchanan and I participated as a couple ee ee I appeared before the Board of Review and even of the class, the members of the board refused my right out, "Private Sleight, you don’t have military to Private E-2 again and sent me to a replacement company. While awaiting reassignment and licking my wounds, I had the pleasure to meet Gene Fullmer, from West Jordan, Utah, later to become the middleweight boxing champ of the world. He prepped me up and told me that sometimes he’d got clobbered too. After talking a ee |