Attack on 'The Times'

G. GEORGE OSTROM / For the Hungry Horse News

"Earl Cooley knew that the very thought of leaping from airplanes into raging forest fires kept others awake at nights. But not him."

Does The New York Times tend to sensationalize in its articles? Looks like! Just got a clipping from Hungry Horse News fan in Plymouth, Mich., Marcella Brown. She thought I would be interested because it concerns a Times' obit regarding the recent death of 98-year-old Earl Cooley, "the first smokejumper," who made that initial leap on July 12, 1940. I'll deal with that matter in a moment.

The New York Times may or may not be the largest newspaper in the world, but it probably has the widest reputation. It has been historically controversial for an ultraliberal "big city" attitude towards things political and had its own share of scandals. Like most surviving big dailies, it is dealing with financial woes. For years it was also setting records for the most typographical errors per page. The paper was once so large it took a wheelbarrow to haul, especially on Sunday. Regardless of criticisms, it has been a major force in the media world for many years because … it covers one heck of a lot of news.

I personally don't consider The New York Times "all bad" because in the past it did reprint a couple of Hungry Horse columns. Most recent mention in this weekly was last year when I reviewed a feature it did on the North Fork of the Flathead, "The Wildest Valley in the Lower Forty Eight." The Times is fun to pick on, because of size and self-righteousness … sorta like the New York Yankees; however, unfactual reporting on serious things can be harmful, thus fair game for examination.

So, we are back to the Earl Cooley obit. The U.S. Forest Service Smokejumpers are often mentioned in my writings because they obviously carry on an exciting, important, and unusual business. Did two columns last year on past adventures there because that was an intense part of my life for quite a few years. Experience led to memorable personal events such as friendship with Danny On, a demonstration jump for President Eisenhower, serious injuries which fortuitously led to meeting First Wife Iris, and two years in Washington, D.C., during Kennedy Administration working on the Wilderness Bill.

Perhaps smokejumpers are a little different, BUT we never deliberately went "… leaping from airplanes into raging forest." Nobody's that different. Great pains are taken in picking safest "jump spots' available. Drift chutes are used to determine wind direction and jumpers have been dropped up to a mile or more from the fire to avoid putting them in rock piles … or flames.

The N.Y. Times article quotes the 1940s regional forester, Evan Kelly, as saying, "The best information I can get from fliers (pilots' is that all parachute jumpers are more or less crazy." I never knew Evan Kelly but I'd bet he was either having a little fun off the record, or was quoted greatly out of context. After all, his office had to approve the beginning smokejumper operations and he would likely have been demoted for approving any official program that required key personnel to actually be " … more or less crazy."

Sixty-nine years have proven the smokejumpers' fine safety record and saved hundreds of millions in firefighting costs. Unnumbered former jumpers have gone on to notable achievements in medicine, science, business, aviation, you name it. So there New York Times!

The article on my late friend, Earl Cooley, also makes a statement about conscientious objectors who filled smokejumper jobs during World War II rather than serve in the military. It says the "Objectors were so unpopular that Montanans would spit on them." I knew and still know some of those men, and they were naturally not regarded with much respect during the war; however, if there were instances where people spit on them, I'm sure those were very isolated. A few even came to a big reunion in Missoula. Most ex-jumpers there had served in the military, but we did not spit on them.

Don't know why I picked this subject for a column this week. Usually do a year-end review, but, got that handy clipping form Marcella and took easy way out. Will do better next week. Meanwhile, I want to wish everyone a "Happy New Year."

G. George Ostrom is a Kalispell resident and a national award-winning Hungry Horse News columnist.