Texas A&M
The Battalion
WEATHER
FORECAST for TUESDAY:
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Vol.88 No. 109 USPS 045360 14 pages
College Station, Texas
Monday, March 6,1989
The Battalion
... and the crowd goes wild
The Twelfth Man stands behind the Lady Ag
gies basketball team as the team takes the
lead against the University of Texas in G.
Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack
Rollie White Coliseum Saturday. The A&M
team fell behind in the last two minutes of the
game and lost 78-70. See related story/Page 8
Eastern Airlines urges
pilots to return to work
MIAMI (AP) — Eastern Airlines
warned its pilots they risked their fu
tures by honoring picket lines in the
2-day-old Machinists strike, which
cut flights drastically, stranded w-
eary passengers at airports and
threatened to expand to a nation
wide transportation snarl.
Eastern pilots, who virtually shut
down the money-losing carrier by
honoring picket lines of the striking
Machinists union, are risking not
only their careers but “the very exis
tence” of the airline. Eastern spokes
man Robin Matell said.
“By continuing to stay out, the pi
lots are committing economic sui
cide,” he said at a news briefing.
Eastern was hit with a strike at
12:01 a.m. Saturday by the Machin
ists union. About 8,500 mechanics,
baggage handlers and ground crew
workers walked out over Eastern’s
demand for contract concessions, es
calating a 17-month union-manage
ment battle at the nation’s seventh-
largest airline.
Eastern ordinarily schedules
1,000 flights with 100,000 passen
gers daily. On Saturday only 85
flights took off; expectations Sunday
were for 125 flights, Matell said.
Nineteen had gone by 1 p.m. CDT,
the pilots said.
The strike threatened to spill over
into a union sympathy action against
as many as 12 commuter railroads
around the country, which could
create rush-hour havoc Monday
morning, especially in the New York
metropolitan area. Strikers planned
picketing at commuter railroads and
received assurances no rail workers
would cross their lines.
But U.S. District Judge Robert
Patterson on Sunday signed a tem
porary order blocking sympathy
strikes by workers at three railroads
in the metropolitan New York area,
a spokesman for the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority said. The
order was not made public immedi
ately.
Ed Yule, general chairman of the
United Transportation Union which
represents conductors and trainmen
on the Long Island Rail Road and
Metro-North Commuter Rail Road,
said his workers intend to obey the
law. But he said he has asked the
railroads to have any pickets re
moved.
If his members try to cross picket
lines, Yule said, “they could get their
heads bashed in, they could get their
cars turned over, they could get
their families threatened.”
Greyhound prepares
to capitalize from strike
DALLAS (AP) — Greyhound
Lines, Inc., began shifting buses and
drivers from across the nation over
the weekend to the Eastern seaboard
to take advantage of the transporta
tion crunch being created by the
Eastern Airlines strike.
The Dallas-based bus line an
nounced it is immediately adding 32
express runs that could move thou
sands of passengers between New
York, Boston, Washington, Philadel
phia and Providence, R.I.
Greyhound spokesman George
Gravley in Dallas said top officers of
the firm’s East Coast subsidiary,
Eastern Greyhound Lines, were pre
paring over the weekend to meet
heightened demand on the nation’s
roadways.
David W. Batchelor, president of
Eastern Greyhound, said the com
pany hopes to take advantage of the
air strike that is threatening to dis
rupt much of the nation’s travel
structure.
Eastern has been crippled as
union pilots walked out to join strik
ing Machinists, and the transporta
tion situation could worsen consider
ably if as many as 12 commuter
railroads join the work stoppage.
“This is our opportunity to show
people how great bus service is,”
Batchelor said.
He said many of those who will be
riding won’t have been on commer
cial buses since their college-age
days, and Greyhound sees this as an
opportunity to win them back as full
time riders.
Batchelor said about 200 buses
are being shifted to the East Coast
but that it is not much more of a
problem than meeting other peak
demand periods.
Four A&M cadets conquer Ranger training
By Andrea Warrenburg
REPORTER
Try to imagine nine weeks of three hours
of sleep and one and a half meals per day. On
top of that, add walking about 50 miles daily,
jumping out of helicopters and rapelling
down a cliff with your buddy on your back.
It may sound like scenes from a Hollywood
war movie, but to four senior Texas A&M
Army ROTC cadets, it was reality.
Micheal Bottiglieri, a management major
from San Antonio, Paul Cooke, a meteorol
ogy major from College Station, Robert Har
ris, a recreation and parks major from Sara
toga, Calif, and Bryce Reeves, an industrial
education major from Houston recently
graduated from the LT.S. Army Ranger
School in Fort Benning, Ga.
The purpose of the school is to teach lead
ership skills under the mental and physical
stress in realistic combat situations. The train
ing takes place in four phases and environ
ments, each lasting 14 days.
The four phases are the the Fort Benning
phase, the mountain phase conducted near
Dahlonega, Ga., the Florida or swamp phase
conducted in Florida and the desert phase
conducted in Utah.
T he cadets use live rounds, demolitions,
light anti-tank weapons and grenade launch
ers. They constantly battle the environment
and hunger. At times, they approach exhaus
tion.
“For the first week or two, all you have are
pizza and Baskin Robbins dreams,” Cooke
said.
Harris said, “You could have sold a Snick
ers Bar to any of us for $ 1,000.”
Cadets must complete all four phases and
the leadership requirements, which include
planning and executing a combat mission, to
graduate. Only 73 slots were open to cadets
from schools around the nation. Of the 300
cadets and enlisted men who attend, only 46
percent graduate.
'When you’re completely tired, hungry
and at your low point, that’s when they call on
you to be in charge of other tired and hungry
people,” Cooke said. “It’s your mission and
they grade you on it.”
Reeves had to repeat the desert phase be
cause he lacked the primary leadership
phase. He had to endure an extra two and a
half weeks of training while his buddies went
home.
“You have to want it all the way,” Reeves
said. “I was willing to die for it. I would have
never returned to A&M if I hadn’t grad
uated. If you go to Ranger school and don’t
graduate, your military career is over before
it even starts.”
All four agreed the swamp phase was the
toughest.
“The things that have the greatest effect on
your body are lack of sleep and lack of food,”
Harris said. “In the swamp phase you had no
food, no sleep and you were wet lor 14 con
secutive days.”
Bottiglieri said, “You start to value the little
things that most people take advantage of like
dry socks and brushing your teeth.”
Combined weight loss during'the training
reached about 140 pounds among the four
men. Cooke suffered a stress fracture in his
right foot, Harris injured his a knee, Reeves
tore ligaments in his ankle, broke two toes
and suffered from dehydration, and Bottig
lieri injured his ankle.
Was all this really worth it?
“If you graduate and want a career in the
Army, you can get almost anything you
want,” Cooke said. “And you gain confidence
knowing you can overcome anything.”
Reeves said, “It’s survival and learning by
doing, not going to class and falling asleep.”
Four more A&M cadets will attend Ranger
school this summer. They are juniors Eric
Layne, Greg Christopher, Brian Hammer
and Steve Moore.
Buddhist parade turns into Tibetan independence riot
BEIJING (AP) — Police and Ti
betan protesters traded gunfire in
Lhasa on Sunday after an illegal
Buddhist parade turned into a riot,
leaving 11 dead and more than 100
injured, the Xinhua News Agency
reported.
Hundreds of Tibetans demand
ing freedom from Chinese rule
smashed windows, looted shops, res
taurants and hotels and vandalized
police cars in Lhasa, the capital of
the disputed region, the state-run
news agency said.
The violence came on the first an
niversary of another anti-Chinese
demonstration in which 24 people
were reported killed.
It also came five days before the
30th anniversary of a failed uprising
against Chinese rule that led to the
exile of Tibet’s spiritual leader, the
Dalai Lama.
Xinhua, reporting from the
Lhasa, said early Monday that one
policeman and 10 other people were
killed in the riots. Among the in
jured were 40 policemen and more
than 60 rioters.
It said “separatists” fired at po
licemen and “the police were forced
to fire shots as no other means could
stop the rioters.”
The report said the disturbance
began at noon when 13 Buddhist
monks and nuns began an illegal pa
rade in the Barkhor marketplace
area of central Lhasa. It said they
waved banners and shouted “Inde
pendence for Tibet.”
They were joined by several hun
dred people who began throwing
stones at a police station in Barkhor,
Xinhua said.
About 3 p.m. (1 a.m. CDT), an es
timated 600 rioters emerged on East
Beijing Street, smashing windows,
robbing more than 20 restaurants,
hotels and shops and setting fire to
furniture.
Xinhua said the rioters made four
attacks on government and Commu
nist Party office buildings, smashed
traffic posts and lights and damaged
more than 20 police vehicles.
It was unclear from the Xinhua
report whether police or protesters
fired first.
Winter storm
hits Texas,
hinders travel
Record cold continued its icy
grip on much of Texas, prompt
ing business and school closings,
airline and bus rescheduling, and
plenty of video rental business.
Dallas Fort Worth Interna
tional Airport recorded 20 de
grees Sunday afternoon — a re
cord for the date — and a wind
chill of 17 degrees below zero.
American Airlines flights were
cut by about 60 percent Sunday
as the Dallas area recorded 2 to 3
inches of snow, spokesman Mary
O’Neill of American said.
The intense cold has initiated
the natural gas curtailment policy
again; several schools closed in
the Dallas-Fort Worth area today.
The Texas Highway Depart
ment was discouraging travel
over much of Texas Sunday. The
northeast section of the state was
reporting a buildup of ice on
overpasses and bridges. Highway
officials advised travelers to avoid
venturing north of a line from
Junction to College Station. In
terstate 35 north of Temple was
reported to be icy and hazardous.
However, no roads were closed.
The Houston Cougars basket
ball team spent another day at a
DFW airport hotel, awaiting a
flight to Fayetteville. Their regu
lar season finale against Arkan
sas, scheduled for Sunday, was
postponed until today.
Students find skills test
easier than anticipated
AUSTIN (AP) — The state of
Texas unveiled its new basic skills
test over the weekend, and the
first group of students to take it
said it was less stressful and less
difficult than they expected.
As part of the Texas Academic
Skills Program mandated by the
Legislature in 1987, high school
seniors admitted to public com
munity colleges or universities
this fall must pass the test before
enrolling in classes beyond the
sophomore level.
About 8,500 students at 118 lo
cations across the state were
scheduled to take the Texas Aca
demic Skills Program exam Sat
urday.
In the Austin area, 665 stu
dents took the test at the Univer
sity of Texas and at an Austin
Community College test center in
Round Rock.
After four hours of calculating,
writing, problem-solving and
reading — preceded by days of
cramming and nail biting — seve
ral students rated the new basic
skills test as less stressful and less
difficult than college entrance ex
ams they had taken.
Although education officials
said they are anxiously awaiting
the first test scores, many said
Saturday’s test results will not
gauge how well high school se
niors will perform on the exam.
About 76 percent, or 6,500, of
the more than 8,500 students
who registered for the Saturday’s
exam are college sophomores and
first-semester juniors, most of
whom are education majors, said
Nolan Wood, director of teacher
assessment for the Texas Educa
tion Agency.
College sophomores and ju
niors with majors in education
were allowed to take the exam in
lieu of the Pre-Professionl Skills
Test, required for students seek
ing admission to a state-approved
teacher education program.
Language dorm faces obstacles at A&M
By Melissa Naumann
REPORTER
While foreign language students at Duke Uni
versity have an excellent opportunity to parlent
francais and hablan espanol, their foreign lan
guage dorm is not a feasible project everywhere,
Dr. Luis Costa, head of Texas A&M’s modern
languages department, said.
“I'm not saying they (foreign language resi
dence halls) don’t happen at public schools, but
they are more common at smaller, private liberal
arts colleges,” Costa said.
The Duke hall, which opened as a foreign lan
guage dorm in Fall 1988, houses students study
ing French, Spanish and German to encourage
immersion in the foreign language and culture.
“It’s great if you’re serious about what you do,”
Costa said. “You can immerse yourself in the lan
guage constantly.”
Trey Jacobson, president of A&M’s Residence
Hall Association, said the project faces two obsta
cles here.
“What we run into with something like that is
we have to create a new dorm or kick everyone
out of one,” Jacobson said.
Duke’s solution to the building problem was
solved easily, however. Since the response to the
foreign language dorm has been overwhelmingly
positive, the program will move to a new, $6.5
million hall, Dr. David Jamieson-Drake, assistant
dean for residential life at Duke, said.
“The number of applications we have received
for the fall has doubled since last year so we need
room,” he said.
Eric Dudley, president of the dorm, said 47
students live in the dorm and at least 72 will live
there in the fall. In the new dorm, French, Span-
“I
I’m not saying they (foreign
language residence halls) don’t
happen at public schools, but they
are more common at smaller, private
liberal arts colleges.”
— Dr. Luis Costa,
head of modern
languages department
ish and German students will live on separate
floors with other students who are native speak
ers.
Although speaking a foreign language in the
dorm is not mandatory, many students choose to
do so, Dudley said.
“Speaking in foreign languages is strongly em
phasized,” he said. “Of course, it depends on the
person, the mood and the urgency of the messa-
ge-”
The dorm is also the perfect place to learn
about foreign cultures, Jamieson-Drake said.
“We encourage most of our students to go
overseas and study for at least one semester,” he
said. “This lets them know the culture before
they go.”
Dudley said that because the dorm’s faculty
advisers are native speakers of the foreign lan
guages and frequently visit their native countries,
the students are kept updated on the cultures.
T am a Spanish student and my adviser
brought the Spanish version of Trivial Pursuit
recently,” he said.
Jacobson said the program probably would be
accepted here if it weren’t solely for foreign lan
guage students.
“If students could get involved just for the cul
tural benefits, it would get a stronger response,”
he said. “It would be a neat opportunity for those
studying international business or international
finance.”
An off-campus version of this program, such
as a foreign language/international students
house, would be more realistic at A&M, Costa
said.
Although Costa would like to start a program
such as this, he said it is not simple to arrange.
“We have thought about it here but it’s not
anything I see on the near horizon,” Costa said.