Journal Gazette from Mattoon, Illinois • Page 8

World of 1994 stops to remember a world long past i Trance (AP) Among the monuments and the graves of fallen soldiers, President Clinton sum-, njqned the heirs of D-Day to wage modern missions of freedom. "We are the children of your sacrifice," he said Monday, commemorating he 50t anniversary of the Normandy invasion. Clinton said freedom carries both price and purpose because "the longest day is not yet over." At the American cemetery above Omaha Beach, deadliest of -he D-Day beachheads, Clinton said that after words of tribute "we come to this hallowed place hat speaks, more than anything else, in silence." --JBut not on this anniversary, norliona 10 OHO nonnla awarded the Medal of Honor. Eleanor Thomas went to a graveside ceremony at Belmont Cemetery in Massachusetts for her husband, Harold. She had met him at a Glenn Miller dance in Boston; they had a son and seven good years, before he died at Normandy.

"I think of Harold every day and every minute," she said. But this was not entirely a day of sadness. The gray heads wearing American Legion and Veterans of Foreign War caps, their wives with matching decorations, clapped and swayed to Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman music in the amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery. Somehow, it seemed fitting, even in the midst of more than 200,000 graves representing veterans of every war the United States has fought. After all, these were once young people, living at center stage during times both horrible and exciting; they sacrificed much, but they achieved even more.

These are not memories that die in 50 years, or a lifetime, Al Frank went back to Nor mandy, to Utah Beach, where he had landed with the 191st Engineers Special Brigade; Why did he come? mm President Clinton pauses on Omaha Beach with Chief Army Chaplain Matthew Zimmerman, back to camera, along with D-Day veterans Walter Ehlers, Buena Vista, left, and Robert Slaughter, Roanoke, after a series of observances of the 50th anniversary of D-Day on Monday. For one day, the world of 1994 stopped to remember a world long past a time when the difference between good and evil was so obvious, when civilization itself was rescued, when ordinary people became heroes in the flash of a battleship's guns. D-Day plus 50 was a day for old soldiers and their long-loved brides. It was a day for remembering on the beaches where men died, in the small towns where they lived to grow old. There were grand speeches: "On these beaches, the forces of freedom turned the tide of the 20th century," said President Clinton, at the American cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach in Normandy.

But they paled beside the quiet moments. Like Charles Neighbor, surveying the same cemetery and its 9,386 graves, peering intently but not too carefully for fear of seeing the names of men with whom he served. "I got a lot of friends buried here," he said. "I haven't tried to see any of them. I want to remember the way they were." Neighbor is 69 years old now, and lives in Roanoke, Va.

But 50 years ago, he was a teenager, thrown into the bloodiest battle of the day with the 29th Division, fighting alongside men like Charles MacGilli-vary. MacGillivary of Braintree attended a ceremony at the Massachusetts Statehouse. He recalled watching as men drowned at Omaha Beach; he survived the battle, only to lose an arm at the Battle of the Bulge. "I wasn't thinking of medals. I was thinking of living," said MacGillivary, who was km AP Photo Ken Bargmann, of Kensington, at 20, a corporal in the D-Day assault, captured the next day by the Germans and a POW until 1945.Nowhewasbackwith his son, Michael, a disabled veteran of Vietnam, and his grandson, Kyle.

A band of 16 U.S. soldiers on leave, history buffs, posted themselves in the American cemetery in World War II uniforms twice their ages. On the pathway, a white-haired veteran in a sergeant's shirt walked by a colonel and smiled. "I'd salute, but I'm out of uniform," he said. "Thanks for being here," the youthful colonel smiled back.

Now, and then. dom's reach forward "Our parents did that and more," he said. "We must do noth-ingless." He clapped the backs of veterans wearing treasured uniforms long preserved, others in civilian clothes but with ribbons and often medals to bespeak their wartime service. But the pageantry paled to the stories of the men who fought. One, Martin Waarvick of Yakima, was among the veterans on the aircraft carrier; he carried a scrapbook for Clinton, grainy black and white photographs, each with a note of description.

At Pointe du Hoc, Clinton walked along the clifftop with ways between the white crosses and stars marking the 9,386 graves at Colleville. "They were the fathers we never knew, the uncles we never met, the friends who never returned, the heroes we can never repay," Clinton said of the war dead, his voice was husky. At the cemetery, at Utah Beach, where Americans also came ashore that day, at Pointe du Hoc, where U.S. Army rangers scaled cliffs to knock out German gun emplacements, Clinton spoke both of history and the future. "Avoiding today's problems would be our own generation's appeasement," said the first president born after World War II.

"Today our mission is to expand free A''Ju iJ- so massed in front of the memorial, with bands, honors, the boom of a 21-gun salute, the roar of U.S. warplanes sweeping overhead. It was the climactic ceremony of Clinton's week-long journey to Europe to mark the anniversary, the last of five stops on Monday, this sixth of June. It was a cold, grey day of remembrance, but the sun burst through just as Clinton was introduced at the cemetery by one of the American heroes of Normandy, Joseph Dawson, of Corpus Christi, Texas, who, as a 20-year-old captain, led his company up the bluff above Omaha and first broke the German line. "And asrothers followed his lead, they secured a foothold for freedom," Clinton said.

The veterans are older now, pjeir ranks thinning, their step slower, he said. "But let us never forget when they were young, these men saved the world." With that, he asked all the Normandy -ifcroranc uir of a rl if oxr nan and be recognized." Thev did. several thousand of 7 i them, row after row in ranks reaching back along the path- A XK i I i. J. i.

Onparade Surreal scenes: a lone American in surfer shorts takes Omaha Beach D-Day veterans attend a ceremony at the American Military Cemetery above Omaha Beach. A U.S. Army unit passes in review during D-Day ceremonies on Omaha Beach, Normandy, on Monday. World War II allies met in France to observe the 50th anniversary of "D-Day was the biggest day of his life bigger than getting married, bigger than having kids, anything," said his wife May. As Bill Clinton said, "Oh they may walk with a little less spring in their step, and their ranks are growing thinner, but let us never forget, when they were young, these men saved the world." On Day plus 50 years, no one forgot.

"1 AP Photo good friends, and both assume their mothers will get along fine after 50 years. With all the VIPs, media people and other outsiders, at times it seemed like the veterans were an afterthought. "I'm trying to get absorbed, but I think the meaning is sort of losing itself in all the ceremony," observed Brian Roberson, 24, of Trenton, N.J., who came with his uncle. And only the lucky veterans got to see the ceremony. Jack Weaver, 79, of League City, sat dejected at L'Om-aha Bistro and watched non-veterans stream into the stands for the main event with Bill Clinton, Queen Elizabeth and the rest.

He had landed at Omaha during the first hour and stayed there for seven days ferrying supplies, but he had no pass for the show. Finally, a TV producer sneaked him inside. "I didn't realize you needed anything," said Weaver, who came on his own rather than join a tour. "Last time I was here, you didn't need a ticket. And it was all expenses paid." In its civil suit, the government alleges that Hyde and the other 11 directors "carelessly, negligently and with gross negligence mismanaged Clyde" and that they ignored warnings and recommendations from regulators.

The government hopes to recover more than $17 million. Hyde insists that as an outside director at the thrift, he was mi-mvolved with, or unaware of, the doings. I IP I ustices bar drug offense taxes i Lk AP Photo Halley and her husband, Clayton, son Douglas Kurth and his wife, Rhonda, and son William Kurth all drew suspended prison sentences. The family filed for bankruptcy protection but lost its ranch and farm. Now on parole and living in Post Falls, Idaho, Kurth does odd jobs for property management companies.

In an interview with The Associated Press in January, Kurth said he wasn't sure what stake he had in the Supreme-Court case. "They certainly can't get anything from us, because we don't have anything. The government has seen to that," Kurth said. "They know that they've taken absolutely everything from us." The Constitution's Fifth Amendment says someone cannot be tried twice for the same crime, and the high court ruled 120 years ago that multiple punishments also are banned. Writing for the court Monday, Justice John Paul Stevens called the Montana drug tax "a concoction of anomalies too far removed in crucial respects from a standard tax assessment to escape characterization as punish-.

ment." States instead could impose bigger fines for drug convictions, but another part of the Constitution, the Eighth Amendment, bans excessive fines. OMAHABEACH, France (AP) At dawn under a drizzle, on D-Day plus 50 years, the same gray shapes loom again out on the choppy sea. This time, the beach is empty but for a curious little band: a few Italian war buffs in costume. an American who took a flag for a swim and newspeople. "Move along," commanded two French cops, who for unknown reasons wanted to end this early-morning communion with history.

No one paid any attention, and the cops wandered off. shouted a television cameraman, a little later, as he panned what he wanted to be a swath of empty sand. That cleared the beach. Off-camera at D-Day ceremonies, poignancy is masked by shades of P.T. Barnum.

Big events usually breed a media circus and general confusion. But here the scene falls somewhere beyond the surreal. For one thing, an ad hoc army of non-veterans is parading around in hodgepodge camouflage Gulf War chocolate chip, Vietnam tiger and the rest seeking separate statements to make. That's why those Italians were on the beach, looking like they had strayed off the set of "La Dolce Vita." Enzo Maio of Torino, 38, in combat fatigues and an Airborne helmet over scholarly spectacles, explained: "We're military enthusiasts, and we're proud of what theAlliesdid." On D-Day plus 50 years, that fit the mood. In a cemetery for 21,000 Germans who died for the Fatherland, ex-Wehrmacht officers stepped on soldiers' graves to hug the men who killed them.

Sometimes imagination ran to the extreme. The American on the beach was Mark Rooney, a 30-year-old banker who lives in Prague. "You try to find an American flag in the Senior House WASHINGTON (AP) A prominent politician has for months been trying to distance himself from a savings and loan failure, saying he's done no wrong. Another story about Bill, Clinton and his Whitewater-related problems? No, it's about Henry Hyde, a senior House Republican, and Clyde Federal Savings and Loan, a failed thrift on whose board Hyde once sat. Czech Republic," he said.

He got his in Zurich. Rooney wanted to honor his uncle, a D-Day veteran. A Boston-ian, he was used to cold water. So he swam out 200 yards and came back. In an invasion replay, a lone guy in surfer shorts took Omaha Beach.

In every village, citizens smiled indulgently as aging veterans sought to establish their bearings. "That wasn't here when we were," one old soldier told another, pointing to a 17th-century chateau. "Yes, Ralph," his buddy replied. "It was." All around there were scenes of it-could-only-happen-in-France. An engineer from Mobile, brought his family to stay with his wartime girlfriend, a Resistance fighter he met while his wife was still his fiancee backhome.

He had briefed his daughter. "My mom learned this when the woman announced it at dinner," the daughter said, laughing. "By then Mom had already invited her to Mobile." She and the Frenchwoman's daughter are cleanup. Left intact a ruling that barred a public school district in Virginia from charging church congregations higher rents than other noncommercial groups for the weeknight or weekend use of school buildings. Refused to review a most unusual death penalty case from Pennsylvania, in which both a convicted murderer and his prosecutors urged the justices to set aside his death sentence.

The court's drug-possession tax ruling freed an extended family from having to pay 181,000 in dangerous-drug taxes for growing marijuana on the Chouteau County, ranch and farm it used to own. Richard and Judith Kurth pleaded guilty after police and federal agents raided their farm in 1987 and found 2,155 marijuana plants and more than 100 pounds of harvested marijuana. Kurth had been a respected rancher and grain farmer, active in local and state affairs. He was Montana's Conservation Rancher of the Year in 1971. But by the mid-1980s, the Kurths' ranch was $2 million in debt.

Trying to save it, the Kurths began growing and selling marijuana. They recruited their adult children and their spouses to help. Richard and Judith Kurth went to prison; daughter Cindy WASHINGTON (AP) The Supreme Court, thwarting what was once considered a potent anti-crime strategy, barred 'states Monday from forcing drug 'Offenders to pay a tax in addition to their criminal fines. Such drug-possession taxes are barred by the Constitution's on double punishment for the same crime, the court said. The 'ruling marked the first time the court has concluded a tax can amount to double jeopardy.

Most states impose taxes on. 'people already convicted of drug possession. The 5-4 decision ''striking down Montana's tax cast doubt on those laws, most of them enacted in the 1980s. 0 In other action, the court: 1,1 a lawsuit by a transsexual inmate allegedly raped in 1 Indiana by ruling that prison officials can be sued successfully if they knowingly disregard excessive risks of harm confronting prisoners. Ruled in the case of a Geor-gia man that federal prison sentences may be stiffened by considering defendants' prior minor-crime convictions even if the de- jendants had no legal help at the earlier trials.

Said the federal Superfund law does not allow those who clean up their environmental contamination to recover the legal fees they incur in getting other polluters to help pay for the Republican facing suit Hyde was sued a year ago by federal regulators for his role as a director of Clyde, a suburban Chicago that went under in 1991 at a cost to taxpayers of at least $68 million. Hyde, the only member of Congress to be sued in connection with the debacle, says he had no role in the institution's demise. "The judge in the case has been saying encouraging things, but I'm still in the damn case," Hyde said in an interview..