The American Legion Magazine [Volume 81, No. 6 (December 1966)]
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THE AMERICAN 20c-DECEMBER ^^^^ ^^^k. Hi i ^^^1 MAGAZINE % THE STORY OF THE GREAT INDONESIAN BLOOD BATH \ 4 4 ,i A ^ HOW CHRISTMAS AND ITS CUSTOMS BEGAN WHAT WILL LASER BEAMS DO NEXT? DOOLITTLE'S RAID ON TOKYO "SEVEN-UP" AND "7-UP" ARE REGISTERED TRADEMARKS IDENTIFYING THE PRODUCT OF THE SEVEN-UP COMPANY COPYRIGHT 1966 BY THE SEVEN-UP COMPANY : The American DECEMBER 1966 Volume 81, Number 6 LEGION POSTMASTER Send Form 3579 to P.O. Box 1954 Indianapolis, Ind. 46206 Magazine The American Legion Magazine Editorial & Advertising Offices 720 Fifth Avenue New York, New York 10019 Contents for December 1966 Publisher. James F. O'Neil Editor Robert B. Pitkin SHOULD THERE BE A DEPARTMENT OF CONSUMERS? 6 Art Editor Al Marshall TWO SIDES OF A NATIONAL QUESTION Assistant Editor pro: rep. benjamin S. ROSENTHAL (D-L, N.Y.) John Andreola con: rep. JOHN N. ERLENBORN (R-ILL.) Associate Editors Roy Miller James S. Swartz Assistant Art Editor THE STORY OF THE GREAT INDONESIAN BLOOD BATH 8 Walter H. Boll BY THOMAS A. HOGE Production Manager Art Bretzfield narrative A account of the great anti-Communist explosion in Copy Editor Indonesia that has seen Sukarno toppled and nearly Grail S. Han ford half a million Reds wiped out si7ice Oct. 1965. Circulation Manager Dean B. Nelson Indianapolis, Ind. Advertising Director WHAT WILL LASER BEAMS DO NEXT? 12 Robert P. Redden Chicago Sales Office BY ROBERT P. ISAACS iSick Amos 35 East Ifs just a beam of light, hut the seven-year-old laser is doing \^"acker Drive Chicago, 111. 60601 fantastic things that will touch all our lives. of Here's 312 Clilntral 6-2401 a summary of what the laser is, what it has already done and what it may do. CHANGE OF ADDRESS: Notify Circulation Dept., P. O. Box 195-i. Indianapolis, Ind., 46206 using Post Office Form 3578. Attach old address label and DOOLITTLE'S RAID ON TOKYO 18 give old and new addresses with ZIP Code number and current membership card number. BY COL. CARROLL V. GLINES, JR. Also be sure to notify your Post Adj ntant. Within a few minutes on April 18, 1942, 16 American bombers zeroed in on the Japanese mainland, dropped their bombs The American Legion and headed for China. What had it taken to achieve Publications Commission: those few minutes and lohat followed afterwards? James E. Powers, Macon, Ga. (Chairmnn } ; Howard E. Lohman, Moorhead, Minn. ( Vice Chnirman); Bob Whittemore, Wntertoivn, S .D. (National Commander's Representative ) ; AN OLD RUSSIAN BEACHHEAD IN CALIFORNIA 23 Lang Armstrong, Spokane, Wash.\ Charles E. Booth, Huntington, W . Va. Adolph F. ; BY ALDEN STEVENS Bremer, Winona, Minn.; John Cicero, Swoyer- ville. Pa.; Clovis Copeland, Little Rock, Ark.; A travel article for today's motorists on an early Russian settlement Paul B. Dague, Doivnington, Pa. ; Raymond in the continental United States. Twenty-eighth in Fields, Guymon, Okla.; Chris Hernandez, the series "Seeing Historic America." Savannah, Ga.; George D. Levy, Sumter, S.C.; Dr. Charles R. Logan, Keokuk, Iowa; Frank C. Love, Syracuse, N.Y.; Morris Meyer, Stark- ville. Miss.; J. H. Morris, Baton Rouge, La.; Robert Mitchler, Oswego, III.; Harry H. HOW CHRISTMAS AND ITS CUSTOMS BEGAN 24 Schaffer, Pittsburgh, Pa.; Bradley J. Stephens. BY ROBERT SILVERBERG Los Altos, Calif.; Wayne L. Talbert, Delphi, Ind,; Benjamin B. Truskoski, Bristol, Conn.; Worship and revel; Santa Claus and gifts; mistletoe, holly wreaths, Robert H. Wilder, Dadeville, Ala.; E. Moade Wilson, Mulberry, Fla.; Edward McSweeney, Christmas trees, yule logs and candles; wassail and carols— how New York, N.Y. (Consultant) did they all become attached to our best-loved holiday? The American Legion Magazine is published monthly at 1100 West Broadway, Louisville, HOW WILL WE WELCOME THE VIETNAM VETS? Ky. 40201 by The American Legion, Copyright 30 1966 by The American Legion. Second-class BY NATIONAL COMMANDER JOHN E. DAVIS postage paid at Louisville, Ky. Price: single copy, 20 cents yearly subscription, With the opening of Legion membership to many veterans, ; S2.00. new Order nonmember subscriptions from the Cir- the Legion has assumed some obligations to them. culation Department of The American Legion, P.O. Box 1954, Indianapolis, Ind. 46206. Editorial and advertising offices: 720 5th Ave., New York. N.Y. 10019. Wliolly owned by Departments The Ar. rican Legion, with National Head- quarters at Indianapolis, Ind. 46206, John E. Davis, National Commander, EDITOR'S CORNER 2 NEWS OF THE AMERICAN LEGION 33 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 4 PERSONAL 45 Advertising Sales Representatives BOOKS 17 LIFE IN THE OUTDOORS 46 Northivest DATELINE WASHINGTON 29 LEGION SHOPPER 54 The Harlowe Company 2012 N. E. Ravenna Boulevard VETERANS NEWSLETTER 32 PARTING SHOTS 5fi Seattle, Washington 98105 Far Tr-.it Manuscripts, artwork, cartoons submitted for consideration will not be returned unless a self-addressed, Jess M. Lauglilin Co. stamped envelope is included. This magazine assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material. 711 South Vermont Avenue Los Angeles, California 90005 THE AMERICAN • LEGION MAGAZINE DECEMBER 1966 1 IS THE WORLD GONE NUTS? WHY ASK? Department than we were. Sukarno smiled THERE SEEMS TO be more talent in the while mobs attacked our libraries and con- modern world for doing things wrong, EDITOR'S sulates in his land. We finally gave up the upside down, backward or weirdo than libraries. Sukarno and his ministers as- there is just to do what naturally seems CORNER sailed our country day in and day out in right. Example: On Election Day, New language no different from Red China's. But the State Department York residents were asked if they wanted since Pershing was given his WWl com- never burned a civilian police review board. The propo- mand. all the bridges between Indonesia and the sition so put that if they United States. was meant NO Please! Is it really going to happen the they had to vote YES. and vice versa. It other way? On page 8 in this issue is a narrative was charming to listen to the partisans on Will the enemy have a war memorial account of the great uprising against Com- radio and TV cry "Oppose the board. Vote on Guam 30 years quicker than Pershing munism in Indonesia that started in Octo- ber a year YES!" or "Support the board. Vote NO!" could get one in Washington? ago—which is fittingly titled Now look at this one. Can't the Japanese put up their own "The Story of the Great Indonesian Blood Bath." Following the slaughter of per- Out on the island of Guam a proposi- memorials at home? That isn't wrong, sir. haps a half-million Communists, Indo- tion is moving ahead to erect a war me- We don't object to that—Or are we doing nesia has rejoined the morial in remembrance of all the Japanese this wrong, sir? Should we ask the Japa- family of nations who died there fighting off American nese to build the Pershing memorial in and divorced itself from the Red Chinese troops in WW2. The memorial has the Tokyo? Where will we put the shrine to line. blessing on high in our own government, Hitler, sir? In Arlington? What's that, sir? Quite frankly, Mr. Rusk, we never thought the day would come. Perhaps it which is working closely with the Japa- When we voted NO that meant YES? would not have come if you had cut a\\ nese on it. —Sir! Please! Our head hurts. ties with all Indonesians, for then Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., you might have isolated them all in the twenty years of effort have so far failed to AN APOLOGY TO DEAN RUSK Com- munist world. erect a memorial to Gen. John J. Persh- YEARS AGO we concluded that the State It is hard to take the slaughter of a ing, commander-in-chief of our armies in Department should have nothing fur- half million of any people. Perhaps that Europe in WWl. In Pershing Square, that ther to do with Indonesia. That country, was necessary in view of the Communists' is. under Sukarno, seemed plainly to be noth- own way of doing things. Kill or be killed At its National Convention in August ing but an undeclared extension of Red is their religion. the Legion voted NO—don't erect a war China. The State Department, including But it is easy to take a new Indo- memorial to the enemy on American soil. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, believed nesia emerging from the darkness. Let us It voted YES—get hopping and build the that it should maintain all contacts pos- hope that with her still unsolved prob- memorial to Pershing in Pershing Square, sible, and did so with an unbelievable (to lems she continues to enter into a new day. and give the boot to the outfit that is even us) show of patience and hope. It was And to you. Mr. Rusk, our apologies. A trying to rename the square. In a few hard to do. If we were critical (and we nation that seems to be lost to Commu- short months it will be a half century were) Indonesia was harder on the State nism can cut free from it after all —and that's worth working for. Even if it re- quires the patience of Job. THE LASER AND YOU WE aren't a science magazine, so when we publish a science article it's because the men in the laboratories have come up with something that may change your life as well as theirs. Such a thing is the laser, a unique kind of a light beam. Brand new in 1960, the laser may in the long run change your own life in more ways than anyone can guess —and that's quite a trick for a beam of light.