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Show Monday, March 24, 2008 WbrW&Nation Page 16 Woman believes son was killed in War, Army disagrees though WAUSAU,Wis.(AP)-Joan McDonald believes her son was a casualty of the war in Iraq, but the Army says that while he did suffer a severe head wound in a bomb blast, the cause of his death is undetermined, keeping him off the casualty list. She and her family are demanding more answers in the death ofSgt. James W. McDonald. "I don't want it to bean undetermined cause of death," said Joan McDonald. "That is ridiculous." McDonald, 26, was injured in a roadside bomb blast in Iraq last May. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment based at Fort Hood, Texas. After treat- ment in Germany, McDonald returned to Fort Hood and underwent extensive facial surgery in August. His body was found in his barracks apartment Nov. 12, a Monday. He was last seen alive the previous Friday. The Army ruled out suicide and accidental factors, but an autopsy could not determine the exact cause of death, in part because of the decomposition of the body, said Col. Diane Battaglia, a base spokeswoman. As a result, McDonald's death is considered noncombat-related, with the caveat that medical experts couldn't rule out that "traumatic brain injury" may have been a factor, Battaglia said. We Fit Your Needs MATERNITY INSURANCE Costs as lillle as $75 • $175 / MONTH Pays oul as much as $5000 • $7000 Must be in effect 10 months BEFORE you deliver Works great with other health insurance policies Great prices on all Life, Health. Auto & Renters Cache Valley Insurance, Inc. 94 South Main, I,o«an (435) 752-45fi(f Ask Tor Amanda or Curtis Perfect Partner* Joan McDonald, of Neenah, has no doubts about her son's death. "If my son was not at the war, he would not be dead, plain and simple," she said. "He was a strong healthy boy. Don't tell me it was unrelated to the war. I will never accept that." Tom Wilborn, a spokesman for Disabled American Veterans in Washington, said the question of whether McDonald was a war casualty is the first that he was aware of from the Iraq war. "But it happened a lot during Vietnam," he said. "There's a long history where guys would be wounded in the jungle and they might live long enough to come home. And then they would pass away and were not counted as a combat casualty." According to an Army study in 2007.1.4 million people in the U.S. suffer traumatic brain injuries each year. Of those, 50,000 die, 235,000 are hospitalized and 1.1 million are evaluated, treated at a hospital emergency department and released. A Government Accountability Office study found that of soldiers who required a medical evacuation for battle-related injuries in Iraq or Afghanistan, 30 percent suffered a traumatic brain injury. But it was unknown how many soldiers suffered more mild forms of brain injury. The family has asked Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., for help. McDonald has a copy of a March 11 letter Feingold sent to Maj. Gen. Galen Jakman at the Pentagon outlining her concerns. McDonald said her son was a strapping 6-foot-3, 200pound soldier who served two tours of duty in Iraq and loved the military. CARS LINE UP FOR GAS I N this 1973 photo. The economic slowdown of today might better be compared with the downturn that gripped the United States in the early 1970s. AP photo How deep will economy fall? NEW YORK (AP)-For months, Americans have been subjected to a sort of economic water torture a maddening drip of bad news about jobs, gas prices, sagging home values, creeping inflation, the slouching dollar and a stock market in bumpy descent. Then came Bear Stearns. One of the five largest U.S. investment banks nearly collapsed in a single day before the government propped it up by backing emergency loans and a rival stepped in to buy it for a paltry $2 per share. To the drumbeat of signs that seemed to foretell a traditional recession, this added a nightmarish specter an old-style run on the bank, customers clamoring to pull their cash, a stately Wall Street firm brought to its knees. The combination has forced the economy to the forefront of the national conversation in a way it has not been since the go-go 1990s, and for entirely opposite reasons. As economists and Wall Street types grope for historical perspective which is another way of saying a road map out of this mess Americans are nervously wondering about retirement savings, interest rates, jobs that had seemed safe. They are surveying the economic landscape and asking: just how bad is it? They are peering over the edge and asking: How far down? And the scariest part of all? No one can say for sure. Even before the crippling of Bear Stearns, the U.S. economy was acting as a slowly tightening vise an interconnected web of factors combining to squeeze Americans from all sides. Take Jaci Rae of Salinas, Calif. She runs a company, Luco Sport, that sells golf bags and accessories. The merchandise is made with foam, which is based on petroleum, so record oil prices have taken a heavy toll. On the other end, her clients are feeling the pinch, too, and cutting back. Sales to retail clients are an eighth of what they were a year ago. So Rae had to cut five of her 20 employees loose. Now the company isn't buying products as far in advance. With gas prices running high, she waits for shipping companies to pick up products from her headquarters instead of having an employee drop them off. She is nickel-and-diming expenses at home, too. She eats in every night, has stopped going on road trips to visit her family, dropped her satellite dish and canceled her monthly Blockbuster movie rental. "I want to make sure I have enough money to feed my family," Rae says. Signs of the pinch are showing up everywhere: By the end of 2007, 36 percent of consumers' disposable income went to food, energy and medical care, a bigger chunk of income than at any time since records were first kept in 1960, according to Merrill Lynch. People are treating themselves less often. The National Restaurant Association says 54 percent of restaurants reported declining traffic in January, and the government says eating athome increased last year. China accuses Dalai Lama of stoking Tibetan unrest You found one partner. Now find the finest in Wedding sou are one p r i n T i n s invitations & related 630 West 200 North paper goods. 753-8875 CHENGDU, China (AP) - China accused the Dalai Lama on Sunday of stoking Tibetan unrest to sabotage the Beijing Olympics and also berated House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying she is ignoring the truth about Tibet. This month's violence in Tibet and neighboring prov- GEIC0.A15-minutecall could save you 15% on car insurance. 1513 N. Hillfield Rd., Suite 3 (801) 752-O485 inces has turned into a public relations disaster for China ahead of the August Olympics, which it had been hoping to use to bolster its international ima,ge. The Chinese government said through official media that formerly restive areas were under control and accused the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, of trying to harm China's image ahead of the summer games. "The Dalai clique is scheming to take the Beijing Olympics hostage to force the Chinese government to make concessions to Tibet independence," said the Peoples Daily, the main mouthpiece of the Communist Party. The Tibetan spiritual leader called the accusations against him "baseless," asserting that he supported China's hosting of the summer games."! always support (that) the Olympics should ... take place in Beijing ... so that more than 1 billion human beings, that means Chinese, they feel proud of it," he said Sunday in New Delhi, India. Pelosi's visit to the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala, India, on Friday was the first by a major foreign official since the protests broke out. The Democratic leader said if people don't speak out against China's oppression in Tibet, "we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world." China's official Xinhua New Agency published commentary Sunday accusing Pelosi of ignoring the violence caused by the Tibetan rioters. "'Human rights police' like Pelosi are habitually bad tempered and ungenerous when it comes to China, refusing to \w \\. Single & Pregnant? A Call For Help We're here to listen. We're here to help. FREE Confidential Services www.itsaboutlove.org 752-5302 /75 W I-IOO N, Suite A Friday Night Activity (FNA) Special Needs Dance! TOOL RUNNINGS" "My Favorite Things" Friday, March 28 Movie night at 7pm in the institute. Bring your friends and enjoy a movie and FREE FOOD! Last special needs dance of the semester! From 7-11 pin at the church behind Sam's club. Everyone is invited! check their facts andfindout the truth of the case," it said. "Her views are like so many other politicians and western media. Beneath the double standards lies their intention to serve the interest groups behind them, who want to contain or smear China," it said. Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said Sunday that Pelosi condemns the Chinese government's crackdown in Tibet and calls on it "to begin a substantive dialogue and to allow journalists and independent monitors into Tibet to find out the truth." China's reported death toll from the protests in the Tibetan capital Lhasa earlier this month is 22. Tibet's exiled government says 99 Tibetans have been killed. Xinhua said Sunday that 94 people had been injured in four counties and one city in Gansu province in riots on March 15-16. The report also said 19 rioters had surrendered in Gannan, a prefecture in Gansu, but it did not give any details. Despite the media restrictions imposed by the Chinese government, some information was-leaking out. An American backpacker who traveled to Chengdu, the capital of western Sichuan province, said he had seen soldiers or paramilitary troops in Deqen in northwest Yunnan province, which borders Tibet. Religion In Life Fri. 11:30 Pres. Scott Wyatt President of Snow College ;md former student body president of USU. Soup and bread bowls S 1 after |