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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 1965)
Air Force Sweetheart To Be Elected At Ball Saturday Night I i CORDY HORNBERGER SUSIE VERMERSCH BEVERLY HAVEMAN DARLENE YARBROUGH LINDA MOLTZ Che Battalion ^>NTESf|}^ ppears ;er lets paper! heavy d 500' Volume 61 Burn Victims Still Critical; Wilson Moved Texas A&M freshman Joe B. Wilson, critically burned in an automobile accident in Fort Worth Friday, was moved from the intensive care unit of Harris Hospital to the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio iWednesday evening. The Texarkana, Ark., student’s S mother, Mrs. J. B. Wilson, said her son’s condition was still criti- ~ cal, but his doctor thought it ad visable to move him to San An- Paper tonio - The second student in the acci dent, Wayne H. Werdung, a sophomore from O’Fallon, 111., was taken to Brooke immediately after the crash. His doctors re ported his condition late Wed nesday as “critical—no change.” Mrs. Wilson said her son was conscious and “mentally helping his doctor.” “He told me he loved me,” she said, “and I think that’s a very good sign.” Mrs. Wilson thanked the nu merous A&M students who had sent flowers, cards and letters. “My son often told me how Ag gies rally around their friends,” she continueed. “Tell them I know Joe appreciates their prayers.” The A&M students, in Fort Worth for the A&M-TCU foot ball game, were injured when a car struck their auto from be hind at a traffic light. The im pact of the crash slammed their vehicle into a third car, causing a gasoline tank to rupture and : ignite. Passers-by pulled them from the wreckage. Both students had burns over 80 per cent of their bodies. Aggie Players Start Advance Ticket Sales Advance tickets for the Aggie Players’ production of “Death of A Salesman” are on sale at the Aggie Players’ Publicity Office, Guion Hall; Student Programs Office, Memorial Student Cen ter; First Bank and Trust, Bry an; Carroll’s Corner (Ellisons’) North Gate; Lew Ann’s, North Gate; and Gibson’s Discount Cen ter, Redmond Terrace. Tickets are 75 cents for A&M students with ID cards. General admission is $1. COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1965 Number 219 ARCHITECTS BOOST TOMB BOOM Architecture students try to drum up busi- costumes and a ready-made coffin. The ness for their yearly Tomb Boom dance dance will be held after the Baylor game through the use of appropriate ghoul-like Saturday night. Cushing To Start New Checkout Plan The long-awaited automated book charging system is due to begin operation Monday in Cush ing Library. According to Rupert C. Wood ward, the associate library di rector, there has been a delay because the plastic badges have been late in arriving. These badges, to be distributed to the students, are the first step in bringing this new system into reality. In attempting to keep the li brary up-to-date until the new one is built, there have been many changes other than intro ducing the new automated book charging system. This year, the authorized em ployment of the library has been increased from 46 to 59 persons including larger clean-up crews working in the stacks. Not only will the stacks be kept cleaner but the lighting will be greatly improved with the installation of fluorescent lights. More stools have also been scattered through out the stacks, enabling many more people to sit down. Changes on each floor of the library have relocated many items. These changes on the first floor include the security door check re-established, and the moving of the circulation desk to the rear of the lobby. Students used to finding the microfilm readers in the Refer ence Room on the second floor will now find them in the lobby. SCONA Filing To Continue Deadline for filing for Tex as A&M delegates to the eleventh Student Conference on National Affairs has been extended through next week. Applications may be filed at the Memorial Student Cen ter director’s office, the main desk of the MSC, the Com mandant’s office and the Stu dent Affairs Office in the YMCA. Prospective applicants must have reached junior classifica tion and must have an overall grade point ratio of 1.5. Stu dents must also have achieved a 1.5 GPR for the previous semester and must not be on any type of probation. SCONA XI, scheduled here Dec. 8-11, has for its topic “The Far East: Focus On Southeast Asia (The Chal- langes of A Dynamic Region). Officials Recommend Parkinglmprovements New Seating Setup Explained A revised student seating arrangement will go into effect at Saturday’s football game with Baylor University. The student section has been enlarged to in clude sections 122 through 132 instead of the old nine section setup. Seniors and graduate students will enter through ramps P and Q while juniors will enter through ramp O. Sophomores will use ramp N and freshmen will enter through ramps L and M. AH students should fill their respective sections from the north to guard against a spillover into seats reserved for Baylor students. Ushers will ask students to flow northward after they enter Kyle Field. The new seating schedule was prompted after the confusion which resulted at the first home game two weeks ago. All students should advise their dates of the appropriate ramps to enter to avoid further con fusion. University Lectu re Slate Announced The University Lecture series for 1965-66 at Texas A&M has been announced by Academic Vice President Wayne C. Hall. Dr. James I. McCord, president of Princeton Theological Semin ary, will give the initial lecture Tuesday. Former dean of Austin Presbyterian Theological Semin ary, McCord is a leading member of a group exploring possibilities for union among American re ligious groups. Dr. Theodore W. Schultz, dis tinguished professor of economics at the University of Chicaco, will discuss “Public Approaches to Minimize Poverty” on Dec. 12. On Jan. 10, Dr. George Gamow, professor of physics at the Uni versity of Tolorado, will speak on “Evolution of the Universe”. Widely respected for research in nuclear physics, Gamow is best known for studies of the birth and life of the universe. Dr. Jose Maria Chaves, Colom bian educator, lawyer and diplo mat, will discuss Latin American Affairs Feb. 18. He is president of Institute Israel — Iberoameri- ca and has represented his coun try in Washington and at the United Nations. A two-time Pulitzer-prize win ner, Allan Nevins, will lecture during the spring term. A date and topic are to be announced. Nevins won Pulitzer prizes for biographies of Grover Cleveland and Henry Ford. Officers Probing Pistol Range Theft Law enforcement officers Wed nesday continued investigation of a weekend burglary of the Texas A&M Armory. Stolen from the firing range at Kyle Field late Saturday night or early Sunday morning were five .22-caliber target pistols, two .45-caliber pistols, a telescope spotter, 5,000 rounds of .22 am munition and 3,000 rounds of .45- caliber ammunition. The burglars apparently used a jimmy-bar to gain entrance to the armory, Campus Security Chief Ed Powell said. They broke six locks on three steel doors, he commented. Powell also said that the range was regularly patrolled and had been checked at 5 p.m. Saturday. The theft was discovered 10 a.m. Sunday. Assisting in the investigation are Texas Ranger D. L. Lutner, FBI Agent Bob Wiatt, and Col lege Station Police Chief Lee Norwood, Powell said. Recommendations totaling nearly $250,000 for improving campus parking were submitted Wednesday by the Housing Of fice and Campus Security, Ben nie A. Zinn, Director of Stu dent Affairs, announced. The 14 recommendations were submitted Monday by Zinn and Security Chief Ed Powell. After review by the dean of students they will be forwarded, to Presi dent Earl Rudder for possible submission to the Board of Di rectors. Zinn said there were 4,928 stu dent cars and 2,854 staff cars registered this semester. Because of the increase and the construc tion taking place on the campus which usurps many parking spaces with construction mater ials, 1,200 additional parking spaces are needed. Most of these cars are not cared for by tem porary spaces spread throughout the campus. Zinn explained that the major parking problem concerns the day students. Nearly one-half of the student cars are registered to them. The first day-student parking lot was not built until four years ago and, according to Zinn, their cars far outnumber their spaces at this time. Other parking problems are experienced by those students living in the northwest area of the campus. Freshmen living in that area are now asked to park in the “Hempstead” lot in the Duncan Area. The only recent parking lot built was at the Veterinary Hos pital last year for $1,600. Dancing Classes To Begin Tuesday The first dance class sponsored by the Memorial Student Center will be at 8 p.m. Tuesday in the MSC Assembly Room. The class, conducted by Man ning Smith, will have ten les sons per semester at a total cost of $5, payable at the first meet ing. Girls from Bryan and campus will participate as hostesses and dancing partners. Ray Ellis Would Have Told The College By HUGH A. MULLIGAN SAIGON, South Viet Nam fA 3 )—The last time I saw Ray Ellis he was sitting on the deck of his RAG—River Assault Group—boat deep in the mangrove swamps and talking earnestly about college kids tearing up their draft cards and picketing the Army terminals. Dawn was just breaking over the Mekong Hiver delta, and Vietnamese infantry troops were piling off the little boats and hacking their way into the swamps. It was one of those exquisite delta dawns, with a vast flamingo sky swallowing up the morning star and luminous white clouds already puffing up into thunderheads far out over the South China Sea. Ray loved the beauty of it all as much as he hated the horror of war. “If only these kids would come out to Viet Nam and see for themselves what it’s all about,” he was saying in the quiet, patient way he has of making a point, without rancor, without argument. “If they could see how nothing moves on these rivers once the sun goes down because of the Communists, and what it means for a peasant to give half his rice crop to a roving Viet Cong tax collector, and what calculated terror and murder can do to disrupt any resemblance of government control in even the humblest fishing hamlet. If they could just spend a few hours on my boat talking to these Vietnamese sailors they might learn why these people still go on fighting after 20 years of it.” But, no, that wasn’t the last time I saw Ray Ellis. I saw him once again as his coffin passed through Tan Son Nhut Airport in Saigon on its way to his home in Cap May Court House, N. J. The delta that Ray Ellis had loved so much, the lovely, lethal delta, had exploded all around him. The recommendation for a posthumous Silver Star, now before the President of the United States, tells how Lt. Ray Ellis, U. S. Navy Reserve, gave his life to save the Viet namese boat and the Vietnamese sailors he had come to aid. It tells how at 5:55 one sunlit afternoon RAG Unit 27 was caught in an ambush in a narrow bend of a stream and hit from both sides by mortars, recoilless rifles and 50- ealiber machine guns. It tells how Ellis made his way across the deck from the pilot house to the radio through that curtain of fires to call for an air strike, made his way back again to take command of the ship when the entire pilot house was wiped out, and was venturing across the deck once more to help a wounded Vietnamese sailor when a 50-caliber machine ripped into his hip, cut in two the hunting knife hanging on his belt and drove the pieces into his body so that he died almost before the cry escaped his lips. Two boats were sunk that day, and two more put out of commission. In addition to Ellis, the only American on the operation, 44 Vietnamese soldiers and 13 Vietnamese sailors gave their lives in that crooked bend of a narrow, muddy river. The Viet Cong dead numbered 83. The sitation will attest to the bravery and competence of Lt. Ray Ellis, but it v’on’t say anything about what he did for the Viet namese people and what they thought of him. The citation is no place to tell how Ellis came 40 miles by helicopter twice a week from his base in My Tho to teach English at the Vietnamese school in Saigon. The citation is no place to tell about the nights he spent dining in the homes of his Picketers Vietnamese sailors, and about how he organ ized them into a volley ball team and the hours he put in trying to learn their language. No citation will tell about the flowers the people of My Tho heaped on his coffin, and the delegation they sent to Saigon for his final rites on this side of the world. The citation attests that Ray Ellis was a member of the Naval Reserve. It doesn’t say that he had been accepted into the regu lar Navy two days before he was killed but, because he was out on that delta operation, had not got around to signing the final papers. Maybe people on the picket lines would have a hard time understanding why a former teacher from Gettysburg, Pa., would want to make a career out of the Navy, but if Ray was around he’d explain it to them. He had a teacher’s patience with those who couldn’t understand.