Servicemen in Laos receive combat pay
WASHINGTON (UPI) — The Defense Department disclosed Tuesday that U.S. servicemen in Laos have been receiving combat pay since Jan. 1, 1966 and announced that an Army captain killed there last year received the Silver Star for Valor.
The disclosure came a day after
President Nixon, criticized for allegedly withholding some aspects of U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia, instructed the Pentagon to identify all U.S. casualties and aircraft losses in interior Laos.
The Pentagon said combat pay,
$65 a month in excess of a serv-
KU professor, student to present urban paper
Forrest J. Berghorn, professor of American Studies, and Robert E.Huitt, a doctoral candidate in the department will present a paper at the 15th annual meeting of the Midcontinent American Studies Association.
The paper, "The Urban Observatory and American Studies," is an account of American Studies participation in a nation-wide urban observatory project. The University of Kansas is one of five American universities selected for urban observatory research.
The chairman of the session in which the paper will be presented is John Hancock, professor of urban planning at the University of Washington, Seattle. Wash. Hancock, a former member of the Department of American Studies at KU, has maintained close ties to the department through a student exchange program arranged between the two departments.
Edward F. Grier, professor or English and Stuart L. Levine, head of the American Studies department, will also participate in the conference, entitled "American Urbanism and Its Processes."
The conference will be March 20 and 21 at the Hotel Blackstone in Omaha, Neb. Sessions include "The City in Literature," "The Changing University: Black Studies and Open Admissions."
Mar. 11
1970 KANSAN 9
"Social Perspectives on the City"
and "The Arts and the City."
Grier is chairman of the editorial board of the Midcontinent American Studies Journal, published at KU and sponsored jointly by the association and KU. Levine, editor of the journal, will preside at the meeting of the editorial board and will present the editor's report at the business meeting.
Attendance at the meeting is not limited to members of the Association. Persons in related fields who would like to attend may obtain detailed programs and registration forms at the American Studies departmental offices, 165 Oread, UN 4-4263.
Profs get grants for brain study
The National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Strokes has given Ralph N. Adams, professor of chemistry, a grant of $26,654, and Richard L. Schowen, associate professor of chemistry, a grant of $14,945.
Adams said his research would focus on the "mechanism of electron transfer reactions, especially in organic systems of biological interest."
Schowen is studying small molecular catalysts which act similarly to a particular enzyme which affects the brain.
iceman's normal pay, was given to all American servicemen in Laos, but that they were not granted income tax exemptions given to Americans serving in Vietnam.
A spokesman also said U.S. airmen stationed in Thailand and flying missions over Laos received combat pay because Laos was routinely considered hostile territory because of its location.
Combat pay is officially termed "hostile fire pay" by the military and it is ordinarily given to those who are expected to be exposed to enemy fire.
in South Korea.
Virtually all Americans in Vietnam receive it as well as those near the demilitarized zone
The Pentagon said Capt. Joseph K. Bush Jr. of Temple, Tex., whose death in Laos was revealed during the weekend, was decorated for his part in defending a compound attacked by 20 North Vietnamese soldiers Feb. 10, 1969.
The White House said Sunday that Bush, a military adviser to the Laotian army, was one of 27 Americans listed as killed or missing in Laos. The rest were civilians.
Before he died, the citation said, Bush killed two enemy soldiers as he and an unidentified American sergeant sought to establish a defensive position
within the compound. The sergeant was seriously wounded.
Sen. Harrison A. Williams, D.N.J., said Nixon's recent statement on U.S. involvement in Laos had done "very little" to inform Americans of exactly what is happening there.
State Department spokesman Carl Bartch said the United States would be satisfied with any agreement reached by the Laotian government and the Communist Pathet Lao if it bruught real peace and neutrality to Laos. But he said any agreement would have to include removal of the 67,000 North Vietnamese troops which Nixon says are in Laos.