PRESORTED STD

U.S. POSTAGE PAID

PERMIT NO. 178

SALEM, OR

MAY 15, 2010

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Grand Ronde

hosting ATNI

conference

By Dean RhodesSmoke Signals editor

Photo by Michelle Alaimo

Tribal Elder Marilyn Portwood views her cousin Carroll Grenia's exhibit at Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum

in McMinnville recently. Grenia enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942 and was designated for the Army Air Corpsand trained as a B -17 pilot. He flew 35 missions during World War II without being hit. Grenia was a GrandRonde Tribal member who walked on in 2002.

cupVon]Tribal member andAir Force veteran Carroll Grenia lives on at museum

By Ron KartenSmoke Signals staff writer

emorial Day might be agood time to have a lookat a permanent exhibit

at McMinnville'sEvergreen Avia-tion Museum in McMinnville that

salutes a late Tribal member.

The exhibit, which honors AirForce Capt, Carroll Grenia, wasinstalled in mid - January.

Grenia served as a B -17 pi-lot based in England duringWorld War II as part of the 410thSquadron, 3rd Division and

the 94th Bomb

Group of the8th Air Force.

He led his ,

men through35 missions

without beinghit, enjoyed a Jiblong career inthe Air Force, Tribal member

retired in the Carroll Grenia

1960s at the

rank of lieutenant colonel and

walked on in 2002.

After Grenia passed away, his

wife, Trudy, wanted his remem-brances from the war displayed.Through the hospice chaplain atColonial Gardens where Trudylives, word got to EvergreenAviation Museum curator Stu

Bailey.This was a great story for us

to tell," said Bailey.The story included Grenia's

jacket and flight suit, photo-graphs and his carrying bag. His

See GRENIA

continued on page 8

Tribal Honor Guard preps for Memorial DayGrand Ronde event will feature Schrader speech, ceremonial meal

By Ron KartenSmoke Signals staff writer

0n Memorial Day — Monday, May 31 thisyear — the Grand Ronde Honor Guard will

make the local rounds with services, salutesand remembrances in honor of those who made the

ultimate sacrifice for Tribe and country, those whoserved and those who supported them at home.

Starting at 8:30 a.m. at the Tribal Cemeteryon Grand Ronde Road, the Grand Ronde HonorGuard, including veterans Tribal Elder Gene La-Bonte, Christian Tinney (Lower Eastern Cherokee),Wayne Chulik (Tlinget), Norris Merrill and Tribal

See MEMORIAL DAY

continued on page 11

pace at the 254 -room SpiritMountain Lodge will be at apremium between Sunday,

May 16, and Thursday, May 20,as the Grand Ronde Tribe hosts

the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest

Indians' Mid -Year Conference.

ATNI Executive Director Cleora

Hill -Scott (Crow) said about 400representatives from 57 NorthwestTribal governments in Oregon, Ida-ho, Washington, southeast Alaska,northern California and western

Montana will be attending.The conference starts 11 a.m.

Sunday, May 16, with a Commit-tee ChairNolunteer meeting andregistration occurring between 4and 6 p.m.

General sessions start at 8 a.m.

Monday, May 17, with the postingof colors by the Grand Ronde HonorGuard and welcome speeches byGrand Ronde Tribal Chairwoman

Cheryle A. Kennedy and OregonRep. Kurt Schrader via video.

Tribal Canoe Family membersand Royalty also will participate inthe opening and closing ceremoniesand will present special pins toveterans in the audience.

Tribal member and Tribal Lands

Manager Jan Michael LookingWolf Reibach, 2009 Artist of theYear at the Native American Music

Awards, will perform at the wel-coming ceremony on Monday.

The conference will feature gen-eral sessions in the morning, lunch-es sponsored by the Grand RondeTribe and Spirit Mountain Casino,and then committee meetings inthe afternoons.

ATNI has 20 committees that

range in expertise from Culture &Elders to Economic Development toEducation, Gaming and Health.

This year, our theme is UnitedSince 1953 Strengthening OurSovereignty'," Hill -Scott said. "Thegeneral sessions will be keying inon initiatives of Northwest Tribes

and the current administration.

We are in the second phase ofstrategic planning. Tribal leaderswill have open discussions in themorning and we will break intocommittees in the afternoons. This

prepares us for the National Con-gress of American Indians."

See ATNI

continued on page 7

MAY 15, 2010 SMOKE SIGNALS

Grenia flew 35 missionsGRENIA continued

from front page

original flight jacket had some ofthe risque art taken from the nose -art on his plane, "Yo is My Ideal."

That jacket, the story goes, wasburned by his mother. Anotherjacket without the artwork sur-vives, however, and is includedin the exhibit along with otherartifacts of his incredible service

record.

He retired with the DistinguishedFlying Cross, the Air Force Medalwith four Oak Leaf Clusters, andtwo Presidential Unit citations,one for his group's historic bomb-ing of the aircraft assembly plantat Brunswick, Germany, and theother for participating in the Eng-land- Africa shuttle bombing ofMesserschmitt aircraft assemblyplants at Regensburg, Germany,in August 1943.

He (Grenia) was very modestabout what he did in the service,"said Tribal Elder Marilyn Port -wood, Carroll's cousin. "He didn'ttalk about it."

The exhibit was only up a fewdays when Trudy made a trip fromthe Colonial Gardens rest home in

Woodburn to see how it had come

out.

She was bright and lively thatday," said curator Bailey. She hap-pily told passers -by at the Ever-green Air Museum, "If you want toknow anything about him (Grenia),I can tell you."

Grenia's sister, Tribal Elder Jo-sephine Towers, remembers herbrother as an excellent student in

country school so small that, fortime, the entire class consisted of

the two of them.

In 1930," Towers wrote in ane -mail, " Carroll's parents movedto Washougal so that he and hissister would not have to ride a

long distance on a bus to go to highschool. Carroll was a good stu-dent and excelled in mathematics.

Nearing graduation time he spent

Photos by Michelle Alaimo

Tribal member Carroll Grenia flew 35 missions in a B -17 similar to this one at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum

in McMinnville. There is a permanent exhibit at the museum on Grenia.

his study hall time helping threeclassmates with their math so theycould graduate. At Washougal HighSchool, Carroll played trombone inthe school band and also played ina dance band.

Oh, I could give you more. Howabout us catching a big bull snakeand taking it home in a tub? Whenour dad got home, he made us takeit back where we got it and turn itloose."

And then, Towers followed upwith this letter from Carroll that

was written from Ardmore Air

Force Base in Ardmore, Okla., onApril 7, 1944, where Carroll was inthe infirmary with a sore throat:I'm going to get a list of names

of my crew, serial numbers, andwives' and mothers' names. We

don't expect anything to happento any of us, but in case it does, I

B -17 airplane is similar to the one Grenia flew.

want you to write to them. We havea crew that's good enough that bar-ring unforeseen accidents, we'll beOK. You can tell them we're the

best crew on the field. I know they'llall agree. We get along better thanthe others."

This letter, she told Portwood,made her so proud of her brother!"

Carroll and Trudy were marriedwhen he was still in the service.

In the Plexiglas- encased exhibit,a certificate calls Grenia "LuckyBastard," referring to his flawlessflight record. Photographs of Gre-nia and his crew in front of a B -17

and the flight jacket are among theitems in the exhibit.

Just behind the casing is an ac-cessible B -17, the type that Greniapiloted during the war.

Trudy told Towers that climbinginto the B -17 at the museum "made

her realize how big it isand all of the respon-sibility that went intoflying it."

But when museum

docent Cliff Behrend

described the seven or

so men who flew these

planes for what wereusually 8- to 10 -hourbombing runs, they didnot look so big.

They were all veryyoung," Behrend said,flying 8 to 10 hours at atime in pretty miserableconditions. On top ofthat, the life expectancyof a tail gunner in afight was 27 seconds."

The B -17s flew at 187

mph and faced Germanfighter planes flying at360 mph, Behrend said.The life span of the planewas five to seven mis-

sions, so Grenia and hiscrews would have sur-

vived seven bombers.

As high as these planes flew,the crew would be working in 50degrees below zero temperatureswith the windows open.

The skin of the plane was sothin," Behrend said, "they used tocall them flying beer cans.

There was no place to hide."The ammo belts for the machine

guns spread out nine yards, andwhen a gunner had gone throughthe whole belt, he would say thatthey used "the whole nine yards."

Grenia volunteered for the Armysoon after the December 1941 at-

tack on Pearl Harbor, accordingto the Tribe's 1995 -96 Annual

Report.I lucked out," the report quotes

Grenia as saying. "I had hoped tobecome an engine mechanic. My ap-titude tests got me into pilot cadetschool, and I received my wings inlate 1943."

The memories of Grenia are

part of a larger B -17 exhibit at themuseum, but the Grenia exhibit isnot the only part of the museum'spermanent exhibit with ties to theTribe.

Down the way is a model airplaneexhibit featuring American JuniorAircraft, a company making allkinds of balsawood flying machinereplicas. The company was ownedby Jim and Dora (Yakama) Walker,parents of Portwood and her sis-ters, Valerie Alexander and JoanAnderson.

Oh Boy — It takes off by itself,"the advertisement said of these

rubber band - driven flying machinesthat were popular in the 1950s.There was the AJ -74 Fighter from1954, the American Junior Hornetand the AJ Bomber (the Martin B-10) all in the exhibit.

Along with the Walker girls, Car-roll Grenia and Josephine Towerstraced their ancestry back to ChiefTumulth and his daughter, IndianMary.

Tribal member Carroll Grenia was the pilot of a B -17 during World War II. This cockpit of a