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At the onset of World War II, the territory of Alaska was seen as too big, too remote, and too sparsely populated to defend. That is, until it was attacked by Japanese forces.

In response, a few thousand residents came together to form the Alaska Territorial Guard. Once the war was over, the guard disbanded, and those who served went back to their daily lives.

But they were never formally released from duty. Decades later, these guardsmen are now finally getting their discharge papers.

When Dennis Egan opened up some official looking mail before heading into work last week, he wasn’t expecting to find his late father’s discharge papers.

“It was this formal U.S. government, and I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God, I’ve been summoned to jury duty,'” Egan says. “So, I open this box, and there it is. And I just broke down, in fact, I didn’t even come in.”

Egan, a state senator who represents Juneau, knew that his dad Bill was part of the Alaska Territorial Guard. Before serving as delegate to the constitutional convention and then as the state’s first governor, Bill Egan had flown planes during World War II. He even earned a medal for making it through a kamikaze attack. Dennis figured his dad had been released from service when the war ended, and that the papers had just been lost back in 1964.

“I didn’t have a clue,” he says. “I thought all this was just destroyed in the earthquake in their home in Valdez.”

Bill Egan isn’t the only member of the territorial guard not to have his discharge papers. He’s one of 6,000. After the war, the guardsmen were thanked for their help with the war effort, but there was no formal paperwork documenting that their service had come to an end.

“They were busy,” Dennis Egan says. “They weren’t worried about – they were trying to protect us. They weren’t too worried about fancy medals and crap back then. And things were just overlooked.”

Back in 2000, Congress passed a bill to rectify that. It requires the Secretary of Defense to issue discharges to everyone who had served in the Territorial Guard. Those papers let living guardsmen apply for benefits available to every other veteran of World War II, and they also carry a lot of emotional significance for family members of guardsmen who have already passed.

Verdie Bowen directs the Alaska Office of Veterans Affairs, and he’s in charge of the effort. With so much time since the war, it’s been tough tracking down every member of the guard. He says that often, relatives of deceased guardsmen don’t even realize their family members served.

That hit home at one ceremony he was involved in last year.

“What caught me off guard was the crew chief, who was on the Black Hawk helicopter that is currently serving the Alaska National Guard, stood there and did not realize that his grandfather had served in the Alaska Territorial Guard,” Bowen says. “He didn’t know we were presenting that medal to his grandfather when we flew in.”

Brown says the Territorial Guard was critical to the war effort, and that there’s no reason to treat them differently from veterans in other states. They came from a hundred different communities, stretching from Ketchikan to Barrow, and they served without pay. They picked up downed pilots, they reported on the movements of Japanese ships, and shot down fire balloons.

Dennis Egan wishes he knew more about that history and his father’s time in the Territorial Guard. Bill died in 1984, and he didn’t really talk much about the war when he was alive. That’s part of why it was only this year that Dennis learned his dad had never been discharged.

He says that even though it’s been so long since the war and so long since his father passed, he’s glad to have these papers now and thankful for the connection.

“I had an enormous sense of relief. An enormous sense of closure,” Egan says.

Hundreds of Juneau residents flocked to the downtown waterfront Saturday to celebrate two major components of Southeast Alaska’s economy – the Alaska Marine Highway System and the fishing industry.

Alaska Marine Highway ferries haven’t been a regular sight in downtown Juneau for about 30 years. But early Saturday morning, the Malaspina quietly sailed into a rainy Gastineau Channel, and tied up at a downtown dock more likely these days to be hosting a cruise ship.

The unusual trip into the heart of the Capital City was part of the Malaspina’s 50th Anniversary Golden Voyage.

Former Mayor Bruce Botelho was the first passenger to disembark. He recalled being on one of the first Malaspina sailings out of downtown Juneau when he was just 15 years old.

“We got to do a special sailing to Auke Bay as part of an Explorer Scouts color guard,” Botelho said. “And of course, the Malaspina in the years since was the way we connected for sports events, it’s the way we did debate tournaments. It really proved itself to be the marine highway.”

Irene Cadiente was one of the few Juneau residents waiting to greet the Malaspina when it arrived at 6 a.m. Her late husband, Andres, was the vessel’s first cook.

“When the ship landed here, they hired him from the Baranof Hotel and he worked on there until he retired,” said Cadiente. “In fact, he wrote a cookbook and it has a picture of the Malaspina on there.”

Cadiente says she and their children would often join her husband on trips up and down the Inside Passage.

“At the time they had a dining room in there, and they had waiters, and my son – the oldest one – also worked on there, and he was a waiter,” she said. “So, it has a lot of memories for us and we’re happy to see it here.”

By 8 a.m. about 250 Juneau residents lined up to tour the Malaspina, including the bridge and other areas usually off limits to passengers. Another 400 people boarded by 10 a.m. for a special day cruise to Tracy Arm.

On her way to the popular wildlife viewing fjord, the ferry participated in Juneau’s annual Blessing of the Fleet, honoring the Capital City’s commercial fishing boats. Pastor Phil Campbell of Northern Light United Church did the blessing.

“Bless now the ferry Malaspina on this celebratory voyage,” Campbell said. “Bless the crew and passengers and bless our great state that has made the marine highway a reality.”

Seven names were added to the Alaska Commercial Fishermen’s Memorial as part of this year’s ceremony: Charlie Clements, John Winther, Jr., Tom and Dorothy Osborne, brothers Casey and Kelly Newman, and Eric McDowell, who founded the research firm McDowell Group.

McDowell passed away last year at the age of 69 of complications from a staph infection. He joins his son Mark in being honored on the memorial. His other son Chris skippered his father’s boat, the Whisper, during the Blessing ceremony.

“It’s really a nice touch,” Chris McDowell said of having his father’s name added to the memorial. “He loved fishing and did it right up until the end of his life. So, got the boat blessed and got tied up and got up here in time for the reading of the names. So, it’s worked out pretty nicely.”

McDowell says it’s fitting that the Malaspina participated in this year’s Blessing. Over the years, the McDowell Group made a name for itself researching the economic impact of both the commercial fishing industry and the state ferry system.

“My dad was born in Southeast and spent his whole life here,” McDowell said. “It’s kind of part and parcel of being a Southeast resident. Half a century of ferry service and for my dad a little over half a century of fishing – there was kind of a nice parallel there.”

After its Tracy Arm cruise the Malaspina was scheduled to return to downtown Juneau to drop off passengers, then head to the Auke Bay Ferry Terminal. On Sunday she had events planned in Haines and Skagway.

The Obama administration filed an appeal Wednesday of a U.S. district court ruling that ordered it to end all age restrictions on the Plan B emergency contraceptive pill.

 

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Obama Administration Appeals Judge’s Order On Plan B

At 20-something, Josh Sundquist has already written a memoir.  It’s a national best seller with a title that implies some struggles:  Just Don’t Fall.

“We all have some sort of problem, some thing, some disability if you will. I happen to be missing one leg,” he said. “What are you missing?”

Sundquist lost his left leg to cancer when he was 9-years old.  He’s fallen a number of times since then,  but knows how to get up.

“I think we have a choice about the way we want to look at things,” he told an audience of  hundreds of Juneau middle and high school students and Hoonah High School at the Pillars of America luncheon, hosted by area Rotary Clubs.

His choice is to overcome his disability.  In fact, he said it’s because he’s an amputee that he’s gotten to do many things he never would have imagined when he had two legs.

“That’s not to say that  I wouldn’t prefer to have two legs, but that is to say now that I do have one leg, I’m happy to try to look for the good things that come out of this,” he said.

Sundquist uses forearm crutches to get around, but most of the time during his talk they hung from his arms as he stood perfectly balanced on his right leg.  Some of his speech sounded like a comedy routine as he regaled the audience with stories about living with his disability.

He says laughter has helped him deal with many of the issues that come up.

“I would suggest that if I can laugh about having one leg then maybe there are some daily annoyances, some problems in your life that you can laugh about as well,” he said.

Sundquist had a number of somber stories, too, like when he first tried hitting a baseball on one leg.  He was 10-years old.

Each time, he’d strike, lose the bat and fall down.  He was allowed to keep swinging, but on the ninth pitch, the little boy was in tears.

“I would not let my friends see me cry.  So I picked up my crutches again and started to march off the field,” he said.  “And this time my dad called out to me from behind the chain link fence.  He said, ‘You almost had that last one.’”

If the proverbial pin had dropped as he told the story it would have been heard in the silence of the room.

“My dad was my hero and I knew if he were up to bat, he would keep swinging.  So I went back over, took another swing, another strike, another and another. And finally on the 13^th pitch I felt the ball bounce off the bat.  I watched it roll up the infield. By the time it reached the short stop’s glove, my friend and designated runner named Tim was already on first base.”

When Sundquist was 16 years old, he started ski racing with the objective of making the U.S. Paralympic Ski Team.

It was at the training center in Colorado that he met Juneau’s Paralympian Joe Tompkins. He called him “Big Joe.”

“When you’re starting out in a new endeavor like that, whether it’s a goal, or some adversity you’re trying to overcome, there’s nothing more powerful than having a hero that you can look up to, somebody who’s has already traveled that path that you are pursuing,” he said.

Sundquist made the team and in 2006 competed in the Paralympics in Turino, Italy.  He described himself as a determined, but not decorated racer like Tompkins.

Joe Tompkins was in the audience for Sundquist’s speech.  Like the younger man, he has a story to tell about his paralysis.  After the speech, he said his advice to the audience would have been similar:

“One more swing, never give up.  There’s going to be trials and tribulations that you’re going to go through the rest of your life, and if you’re that young you just don’t ever give up,” Tompkins said.

As Sundquist closed out his speech, he put it this way:

“Keep swinging,” he said. “Those would be the last two words that I would leave with you this afternoon:  To keep swinging.”

 

 

 

The nation’s first online sexual health curriculum aimed at American Indians and Alaska Natives is in the final stages of development in Anchorage.

Sex education begins when parents provide age-appropriate information to their children about their bodies but ages 11 to 14 is a good time to talk with kids about dealing with peer pressure about sex, drugs, and alcohol. That’s according to an HIV/Sexually transmitted disease, or STD program manager, Connie Jessen.

Jessen, with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, is testing “Natives: It’s Your Game,” the nation’s first computer-based sexual health curriculum targeting Alaska Native and American Indian middle school students:

“In middle school is when there’s quite a few students that are already become sexually active and sometimes when you look at high school students, they’re so much older and already had a lot of these experiences that puts them at risk for these various health outcomes, that it’s important to do it earlier so they have the skills before they actually need them.”

Jessen says the Consortium is in the third year of a 3-year project with the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board, Indian Health Council of Arizona, and the University of Texas to develop the program. She says “Natives: It’s Your Game” uses games and music, and encourages creativity, while teaching students about abstinence, sexual health, and good decision-making.

“It also addresses healthy relationships, healthy friendships, sexual behaviors, HIV-STD prevention, alcohol and drug abuse, Internet safety, and a whole host of different topics.”

The Consortium is putting together groups of middle-school students to see how well the program works. Some will go through a science-based course on sexual and behavioral health. The other group will take part in the “It’s Your Game” curriculum. Both will be tested to find out how much they learned. For more information online, go to www.iknowmine.org/iyg

 

A new turboprop aircraft will make it easier for a medical transport service to land in some Southeast Alaska communities.

Beginning Wednesday, Airlift Northwest will operate a Turbo Commander as well as the Learjet between Juneau and rural communities.  The turboprop will allow the medical service to fly into Gustavas, Skagway, Haines, Hoonah, Kake, and Prince of Wales Island.

Juneau Director of Operations and pilot Greg Clausen said the new plane is easier to land on these small towns’ shorter runways.

“This will stop shorter, take off shorter, operates better on one engine if you have an emergency, and (is) just a fantastic platform, performance wise, for the pilot,” Clausen said. “Visibility from the cockpit is outstanding, and from the back is outstanding. So going into these non IFR – visual airports – is very important for terrain and other aircraft.”

Airlift Northwest is a non-profit company that’s part of University of Washington Medicine.  For more than 30 years, it has flown injured or critically ill patients from Southeast Alaska to Seattle or Anchorage.

Clausen says the Turbo Commander will bring patients back to Juneau, where they will board the Learjet for the flight south or north.

The new plane is similarly equipped to the Learjet, providing the same critical care in the air, said Juneau-based flight nurse Amy Center.

“We have a ventilator capacity.  This is where our patient is and then the two nurses would sit next to them,”  Center said, pointing out the specialized equipment on board. “We also have a back seat, so capable of  taking a family member with us, and  in back is the monitor and then above, IV pumps and any other equipment we would use.   So anything you would see in a critical care, (is) here in our aircraft.”

Airlift Northwest is one of two medical transport services operating out of Juneau.  Guardian Flight now shares a hangar with Airlift at the Juneau airport, but this summer Airlift Northwest will build its own facility next door.

The Turbo Commander was recently open to the public, and Juneau Assembly member Loren Jones stopped by.

He recalled when his son – age 9 at the time – got hurt on a school playground and had to be medevac’d to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.  It was 1982.

“We medevac’d out on a 737 cargo combo and I bought nine seats on the airplane – the nurse, myself, the stretcher with my son,” he said.  “So people had to give up their seats and I had to buy all the airplane seats on the one way, plus the ambulance rides.  He’s fine but it was a pretty traumatic experience.  These kinds of jets look a little bit nicer than the back of a 737.”

 A medevac to Seattle is about $50,000. Many health insurance plans, including federal Medicare and Medicaid, cover some of the cost.  Medevac services also provide insurance  of their own as well as charity care.