P-MAN X Update #07
- More protocol It's really late and we just got back from dinner with a short detour to fix a flat tire on the van, so 'scuse me if this is a little terse. We started this morning with another excellent visit with Vice President Chin. He was gracious and supportive as always, and offered whatever help he can provide to our efforts. He especially wants to be sure that whenever JPAC returns identified remains to a family, a personal letter from the Palauan government also is sent to the family, thanking them for their sacrifice and for their service in protecting the freedom of Palau and its people. We also had a nice visit with Mark Bezner, the Chargé d'Affaires at the American Embassy. He is also very supportive of our efforts, and appreciates our keeping the embassy in the information loop by copying them on our proposals and our preliminary and final reports upon completion of each year's mission. We had lunch at the Cliffside, a beautiful hotel (formerly the Sunrise) on Arakabesan, followed by a presentation to the governors of Koror, Aimeliik, Ngatpang, and Ngeremlengui states. They were also very supportive, but they requested individual letters from the Historical Preservation Office confirming that our investigations have been cleared at the national level. Since Rita (the National Archaeologist at HPO) is leaving tonight for Washington, we hustled over to her office and asked if she could generate those letters. It's a measure of both the value of our efforts in the eyes of the Palauans and the graciousness of our friend Rita that she dropped what she was doing and generated letters for six states. We dropped off the letters at the offices of Koror and Aimeliik here in Koror, and will stop by the other offices in the states on Babelthuap as our investigations take us into their states. This evening we went over to Sam's for some sunset sashimi and renewed our acquaintance with Dennis Whalen and his wife. Dennis is the commercial diver who did the bulk of the work on the Quintus Nelson crash site beside Malakal Island in 2004. A friend/boss of Flip Colmer flew in last night with his two sons. We had dinner this evening with them at Bandidos. On the way home, barely out of the parking lot, the left front tire on the van virtually fell off the wheel. We had had it "repaired" only a couple of hours earlier. Evidently not. It took longer to figure out how to lower the spare down to the ground from where it's stowed under the rear deck of the van than it did to change it after we liberated it from its hiding place. Tomorrow morning we'll meet three or four JPAC people at their hotel and take them up to the Police Hill area in Ngatpang to examine in much more detail the newly interesting area where we've all come to suspect the POW execution/burial sites may be. We've got our letter from HPO, so we're legal to do that! - Reid |