Perry Meridian High School - Passages Yearbook (Indianapolis, IN)

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us Troops Capture Grenada On Tuesday October 25, US troops invaded the small Marxist-ruled island of Grenada. The island ' s 110,000 population consisted of 1,000 .-Vmericans, many of whom were there to study at the US owned St. George ' s University Medical School. The invasion was ordered after a militant Marxist coup that left Prime Minister Bishop and 16 others dead. President Reagan ' s decision to invade was given in answer to a re- quest from the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States for a preemptive strike focused at destro Tng the islands pro-Cuban government. Initially, only 2,000 US Marines and Rangers were involved in the in- vasion, but that nimiber was soon tripled after reinforcements of the 82nd Airborne Di ' ision had to be flown in. Eight other Caribbean na- tions combined to add almost 400 troops and police to the occupation force. US commanders found the Cubans living in Grenada better prepared to fight than they had expected. The Cubans were reall y good, really dedicated . . . maybe even better than we were, said Spec. 4 Larry Wheeler of Aiken, South Carolina. Defense Secretary Caspar US troops and paratroopers, in full combat gear, advance on the Marxist-rtded island of Grenada. Weinberger stated that many of the Cubans were combatants, almost all of whom with rifles were shooting at us. He went on to say that large numbers of weapons, including Soviet AK-47s had been seized. US intelligence sources in Washington attributed Cuba ' s being well-prepared to an imintentional leak from one of the Caribbean coun- tries that aided the US in the assault. They claimed that Cuba was aware of the US invasion plans at least 24 hours before it began. The reasons that concerned Presi- dent Reagan about Grenada were identical to those concerns he had stated earlier about Nicaragua and El Savador. These concerns were threats to the US sea lanes and resources, plus threats to resupply Western Europe during some sort of an emergency. With the successful invasion of Grenada, President Reagan drastical- ly changed the US policy on threats of communist expansion in the Western Hemisphere. According to The In- dianapolis Star, the new rules were as follows: the United States was prepared to use military force to pre- vent a Western Hemisphere country from falling under Fighter Soviet- Cuban control. More explicitly, many believed Mr. Reagan had warned El Savador and Nicaragua to beware. The Day After Leaves Long-lasting Impression On Sunday, November 20, millions of Americans crowded around their T.V. sets to watch the much publi- cized nuclear disaster movie entitled The Day After . The two and a half hour movie graphicly depicted the ef- fects of a nuclear attack on Kansas City and the surrounding area of Lawrence, Kansas. The show promp- ted various groups such as the Center for Defense Information and the Women ' s Action for Nuclear Disar- I mament to do commercials. I To counter these anti-nuclear I statements, White House officials I made sure representatives of Presi- vl dent Reagan ' s power-through- strength policy appeared on Good Morning America and The Today Show on the morning after The Day After. On Monday morning, students ex- citedly compared their reactions about the movie. Some teachers began their classes with a short discussion on the movie and the possibility of nuclear war. Yukari Condon ' 85 remarked about the movie, it was more scary than anything like Jaws or the Amityville Horror because you can avoid those things by not going into the ocean or the house, but what can we do to avoid this? Surprisingly, many students felt that a real nuclear attack would be more horrifying than it was por- trayed in the movie. I thought that the movie was a low-scale description of what actually will happen in a nuclear holocaust, stated senior Tom Beaimiont. Many added that they saw a likelihood of war, but that it probably wouldn ' t happen in the immediate future. Paul Buck ' 86 said, I feel that there will eventually be a nuclear war; however, the effects will be much more severe than was shown in the movie. 46 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Ki

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space Shuttle Keeps Busy with Two Flights On Thursday, April 7, the first American space walkers in nine years floated out Challenger ' s airlo ck on the first of two flights. Story Musgrave and Donald Reter- son took a 3-hour, 40-minute walk out in space while Challenger pilots Paul Weitz and Karol Bobko viewed the operation through the rear cabin windows. Weitz and Bobko cautioned their crewmates to avoid various sharp edges that puncture the white spacesuits. The main accomplishment of the space walk was to retest the 250-potmd shuttle pressure suits which had proved ineffective during their debut five months earlier. This time, the suits worked faultlessly. Musgrave and Peterson were secured to safety lines while they swayed to and fro in the cargo bay. They tested tools and instruments that might later be used to mend broken satellites. They practiced emergency procedures to close the cargo bay manually. On Tuesday, August 30, Challenger departed on a six-day mis- sion which would take it 97 times around the globe. The shuttle ' s crew consisted of Richard Truly, Daniel Brandenstein, Guion Buford, William Thornton, and Dale Gardener. Buford was the first black American in space and Thornton, at age 54, was the oldest astronaut to fly in space. The astronauts were accompanied on their flight by six rats, scientific and engineering data, and 260,000 coUector ' s envelopes to be sold at 815.35 each by Postal Service. Challenger left behind in orbit the In- dian communion and weather watching service. A major ac- complishment of the mission was the first overnight landing of a spacecraft. The Labor Day landing was to take place on a three-mile desert runway at Edwards Air Force Base in Califor- nia at 2:40 EST. The runway was lit by six of the world ' s brightest floodlights, each providing 800 miUion candle power. They also employed flashing strobe lights, a string of green lights, white nmway lights, and a special kind of light that appears red if the shuttle is too low as it glides in toward a landing and white if it is too high. The landing was as flawless as was the entire flight. The only defects were a propellant leak in two of Challenger ' s steering thrusters and the forced replacement of 27 heat shields. The success of the night landing opened new opportunities to NASA. It means a great deal to us to have this night landing capability for the future, Lt. Gen. James Abraham- son, NASA associate administrator Space shuttle Challenger blasts off at night on the shuttle ' s eighth mission into space. in charge of space flight said. What that offers us is an improved capabili- ty at Kennedy Space Center. The climatology there is always much bet- ter at night than at day. Darkness Falls Early at Perry Meridian On August 23, at approximately 12:15 pm, the lights went out at PMHS leaving the school in complete darkness. Within fifteen minutes, the entire student body was taken to the football field where they would be away from traffic and still have access to the school. Because of the extreme heat out- side, some students became ill, and within an hour, everyone was moved into the gym. After a while, the heat of the gymnasium began to effect students, and they were moved to the hallways inside the building. Between 2:00 pm and 2:10 pm students were released to the buses. Sometime after 3:00, all the lights came back on. It had been discovered that because of high air conditioner use in the neighborhood, a fuse on an outside light pole had blown causing the blackout. Preparations were made in case another blackout oc- curred, and it did. On August 25 at approximately 1:40 pm, a second blackout oc- curred. This time, students were not moved. The administration knew the exact source of the problem. With the help of the Indianapolis Power and Light Company, the second blown fuse was replaced, and the hghts came on at approximately 2:25. Assistant principal, Mr. Ron Bolyard, stated that students should learn from this experience. He em- phasized that students should behave responsibly during an emergency. He added that they should act in a mature manner if this, or something similar, were ever to happen again. Many students were startled by the blackouts, but saw them as no more than an exciting change of pace. The blackouts left one question lingering in everyone ' s mind, Where were you when the lights went out? HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 45

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Hudnut Wins Third Term On November 8, William H. Hud- nut was elected to his third term as mayor of Indianapolis. Hudnut received an overwhelming sixty-seven percent of the vote. Unofficially, the vote tally was: Hudnut (R) received 134,550 votes; John J. Sullivan (D) received 64,240 votes; Webster L. Smith (L) received 1,034 votes; and William G. Warrick (S) received 612 votes. This landslide was a near repeat of Hudnut ' s 1979 record victory against Democrat Paul F. Cantwell. In that election, the now 51-year-old Presbyterian minister won by 83,000 votes and received seventy-four per- cent of the total vote cotmt. Hudnut ' s platform mainly con- sisted of continuing the programs which he had already established in his first two terms. His plans were to renovate much of the downtown area, develop Indianapolis as an amateur sports center, continue his fight against crime and unemployment, and acquire a professional football team. Stiicide Bomber Destroys US Marine Headquarters in Beirut Twisted metal, broken glass, blood-stained clothing, and other debris were all that remained of an American Marine head-quarters in Beirut, Lebanon after a truck loaded with 2,000 to 2,500 pounds of dynamite burst into the lobby of the 4-story building and exploded. The attack by the suicide bomber on the Marines came at 6:20 am on Sunday, October 23 (11:20 p m EST Saturday). Most of the Marines were still asleep in the bunks when the at- tack occurred preventing them to have time to escape. This came just minutes after another vehicle carrying TNT intentionally crashed into a French paratroop barracks less than two miles away in the Ramel el-Baida section of Beirut. The two bombings were the most devestating acts of protest against the multi-national force since its beginning in Beirut last fall. The force was established at the Lebanese government ' s requests to help keep peace in the capital. It took rescue workers more than a week to sift through the wreckage of the Marine headquarters building. Each day local news reported an in- crease in the number of dead and wounded Marines. The final count reported 241 Americans dead, and 75 wotmded. The French reported losses of 56 dead and still more wotmded. The Bombing at the Marine command post at Beirut airport caused the largest number of casualties suf- fered by American forces since the Vietnam War. Following the attack, rumors were rampant about who was responsible. One Lebanese government source A mournful U.S. flag flies over the rubble, debris, and destruction after the bombing in Beirut. reported that the names of 11 suspects were turned over to the Marines and FBI, although no formal arrests were made. Senior US of- ficials linked Syria and Iran to the slaughter despite denials made by both countries. President Reagan placed blame on the Soviet Union. Not only has Moscow assisted and encouraged the violence in both countries (Lebanon and Grenada), but it provides direct support through a network of sur- rogates and terrorists, stated Mr. Reagan in a televised address to the nation. Mr. Reagan went on to say that these latest developments would not drive the US forces out. He emphasized that fact by saying, We will not yield to international ter- rorism because we know that if we do the civilized world will suffer, our values wiU be fair game for all those who seek to destroy aU that we stand for. Presidental spokesman, Larry Speakes, suggested the possibility of shifting the Marines ' position and strengthening the security forces in order to reduce the vulnerability of our forces in Lebanon. Speakers added, the mission of the United States and the multina- tional force have not changed. There is no change in our commitment. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 47