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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, December 5,1968
No white Christmas with 90-degree heat
A white Christmas was out of the question.
The 90 degree steam heat of the Mekong Delta, Dec. 25, 1967, was bereft of much of the traditional trappings and celebration of Christmas in the States.
"We had the hard bit on the meal." Perrenot said, "canned cranberries, frozen turkeys and even ice cream."
In northern Vietnam the situation is much the same, said Col. J. P. Lanigan, professor of naval science. Lanigan commanded the 3rd Marine Regiment at Camp Carroll five miles south of the Demilitarized Zone in 1966.
"I think we had steaks that day," Lanigan said. "They're
Christmas in Vietnam is much the same as any other day, KU Vietnam veterans agree. Army Maj. Frederick A. Perrenot, now assistant professor of military science at KU, was commanding C Company of the 69th Engineering Battalion, at Dong Tam 65 miles southwest of Saigon in the Delta region last Christmas.
In a land half a world away from home where Buddhism is the predominant religion, the Armed Forces attempt to make the holidays as much like those at home as possible.
easier to handle than turkey and we had a lot of patrols out and they're easier to transport.
"On Christmas we had gone 29 days without seeing the sun," Lanigan remembered. Camp Carroll is located at an elevation of 2,600 feet and the rainy season is at its peak in December. The temperature was 48 degrees and the men were constantly cold, Lanigan said.
War doesn't honor holidays, the veterans agreed. On Christmas Col. Lanigan sent out double the usual number of patrols. "We always doubled our patrols on the days we thought the enemy would try to catch us being lax," Lanigan said.
In the Delta, Maj. Perrenot's men were given an extra hour for the main meal. "We had a very tight schedule to meet. We worked about 12 hours that day." Perrenot commented.
in that same swampy Delta area on Christmas in 1966, Maj. Ronald T. Wise, assistant professor of military science, slogged through rice paddies in a search and destroy mission. Wise was the intelligence adviser for 29 companies of Vietnamese forces in the Phong Dinh sector 110 miles southwest of the Vietnamese capital.
"You try to make Christmas
Words take a back seat to Art for KU professor
By MIKE SHEARER Kansan Staff Writer
Words don't pulse. They don't vibrate. They lack a third dimension.
Richard Schira treasures his explorations into art's third dimension, but he dislikes using two-dimensional words to discuss art.
Sachira, associate professor of drawing and painting, is displaying his recent works in paint and plastic in the basement gallery at the KU Museum of Art.
The exhibit includes paintings created with spray equipment using acrylic, oil, metallic and high intensity paints on cotton canvas. It also includes light boxes constructed with sheet acrylic plastic illuminated with fluorescent and incandesent lamps.
Favoring some of the more recent additions to visual media, Schira said, "Contemporary artists are not challenging the past, but expanding the art world."
He said he thinks plastics and other modern art media are going "over the hurdle where people in the bastion of the art world are denying new media."
Schira said he believes artists will be using technology even more in the future. He uses modern plastics and lights to create intriguing light reflections and abstract perspectives in his plastic light boxes.
His paintings achieve an equally dramatic three-dimensional effect by sharp, geometric color contrasts and hazy dissimulations.
He depicts subtle humor in two of his untitled paintings by creating the unexpected with sharply defined colors against softly blended strips of more subdued color.
Sebira said he has found a teaching career can "interfere at times" with the artist's other career as a creator. Significantly,
KU receives 56 contracts
KU has received more than $1.5 million in grants and contracts for research and graduate training during the first quarter of the 1969 fiscal year.
Twenty six schools, departments and divisions obtained 56 contracts totalling $1,510,573, which includes 16 new projects worth $247,733, while the others were continuing grants.
however, he created all of the art work in the museum exhibit within the last five months.
The new art trends will not come from artists in dingy garrets, but from "environmental artists."
"The world around us is a hedgepodge," Schira said, "and some artists are interested in making this hedgepodge a more pleasant place to live."
Artist Schira chooses not to elaborate on his ideas about art. He points out that some of the world's leading artists were "next to inarticulate" and others have been completely silent about their own art.
the way it is back home," Wise said, "but considering the temperature and the situation it's impossible."
"You can only learn art through seeing it, not talking about it," he said.
He says even though an artist cannot really be concerned with public approval, he enjoys having persons view his art.
While Wise supervised the Vietnamese in the enemy clearing mission, Marine Maj. J. A. Steube, Marine officer instructor at KU, stood his watch at the Tactical Operations Center in Hue in central Vietnam. He coordinated American forces and support for the First ARVN Division.
the compound," Steube said, "I think they had some sort of Christmas celebration.
Steube recalls little about Christmas. "I went to bed early that night, about 10 p.m. The next morning I had to get up early to leave for Hong Kong for a few days R and R," Steube said.
"There were about 20 American officers and enlisted men in
"They had about 50 orphans from Hue over for Christmas," Steube recalled.
Last Christmas at Dong Tam the troops had invited orphans from a nearby village to come to the American compound, Maj. Perrenot said.
"The Viet Cong had warned the nuns at the orphanage to steer clear of the Americans," Maj. Perrenot said. The truck carrying the Vietnamese orphans was destroyed by a command-detonated mine as it carried the kids toward the American camp. "They shot the hell out of the jeep and wounded Father Brinkman," Maj. Perrenot remembered.
Such enemy activity is not an exception at Christmas. Marine Sergeant Alex Diaz, now an instructor in KU's ROTC program, was awakened at 1 a.m. Christmas morning to guard a bridge demolished by the Viet Cong on Christmas Eve.
Vietnam Christmas is not without its gifts. "We had jeep loads full of presents," Maj. Perrenot said. Wives and girl friends usually sent the GI's toilet articles or canned food. "We had a few cakes but they usually weren't in very good shape," Perrenot said. Although air mail service takes four days from the United States, parcel post takes weeks.
"Mail from home is the single most important morale booster there is," Perrenot said.
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