Wall

In the fall of 1972, Baltimore natives Jack Bergman, Ralph Robinson and Ricky Rucker served together aboard the USS Newport News. As they traveled through the Gulf of Tonkin, their ship's second gun turret malfunctioned. Hundreds of pounds of gunpowder ignited, killing 20 crew members and injuring dozens more. Neither Mr. Bergman, Mr. Robinson, nor Mr. Rucker had reached his 21st birthday before they were burned to death that October morning. They became Baltimore's 395th, 396th and 397th sons to die in Vietnam.

A 35-year-old Westminster workman was injured fatally yesterday when a section of a decorative granite-block wall collapsed on him in Lutherville as he was digging a ditch beside it so the wall could be moved.A MedEvac helicopter flew the victim, Geoff MacLellan, of the 1200 block of Fairway Drive, to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead.The accident occurred about 9:30 a.m. at the entrance to Selsed House, the former Marburg estate, in the 1100 block of W. Seminary Ave.Authorities said Mr. MacLellan was digging a ditch beside the semi-circular wall so cables could be passed beneath it to a crane which would then hoist it onto a truck.

A 35-year-old workman was injured fatally yesterday when a section of a decorative granite-block wall collapsed on him in Lutherville as he was digging a ditch beside it so that the wall could be moved.A MedEvac helicopter flew the victim, Geoff MacLellan of the 1200 block of Fairway Drive, Westminster, to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead.The accident occurred about 9:30 a.m. at the entrance to Selsed House, the former Marburg estate, in the 1100 block of W. Seminary Ave.Authorities said Mr. MacLellan was digging a ditch beside the semicircular wall so that cables could be passed beneath it to a crane which would then hoist the wall onto a truck.

MASON, Mich. - Few presidential speeches have made a mark on history, but on June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin and called on Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" dividing Germany. Now it's time for President Bush to make a similar call to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who insists on continuing with the construction of another Berlin-type wall between Israel and the West Bank. The so-called security fence is designed to keep the Palestinians and Israelis separate so as to increase security for Israel.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- There's a nasty scab running down Raphael Wall's nose. Is it a badge of honor for the Maryland cornerback, something that would do a football macho man proud?"

It'll never replace Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia in the ice cream marketing Hall of Fame, but workers at a Glen Burnie Friendly's restaurant hope to turn the birth of three stray kittens into a public relations bonanza.The kittens, about 8 weeks old, were found behind a hollow wall in the ladies' restroom at Friendly's in Marley Station.A customer heard their cries Sunday. A manager called the Fire Department and mall security to punch holes in the wall. An "out of order" sign was hung on the door.

There are no wallflowers among the hippest cover-ups today. Walls are taking on patterns that are big, bold, color-crazy and modern, although sometimes rooted in traditional design. Some trend-spotters say this signals a return to more lavish, over-the-top and possibly even cluttered interiors. It may be a reaction to of-the-moment minimalism that seems to pervade design magazines and retail catalogs. What's different about this renewed craving to put up paper, something we haven't seen a rush to do since the 1980s, is that even some diehard modernists dig it. The pattern may be startling.

Raphael Wall and Ricky Rowe, the leaders of Wilde Lake High School'sstate championship football team last fall, have been selected to play in this summer's sixth annual Big 33 football game.The game pits the top 33 high school seniors from Maryland against the top 33 from Pennsylvania. It will be played July 27 in Hershey, Pa."They (Wall and Rowe) were locks," said Wilde Lake coach Doug DuVall, who is the head coach of the Maryland team."Any kid who was offered scholarships by schools like Tennessee and Notre Dame is a lock."

UMM QASR, Iraq -- As Berlin Walls go, the 20-foot-high dirt berm around Iraq's southern port of Umm Qasr -- the first wall to fall in the liberation of Iraq -- isn't much to look at, but it's a fitting symbol for this war. It is a sand wall, easily breached by American power, exposing a rotten dictatorship with little popular support on the other side. This area is full of regimes protected by such sand walls. But unlike the Berlin Wall, whose fall unleashed a flowering of freedom all across Eastern Europe, the fall of the sand wall alone will not do that.

WASHINGTON -- We came here to look for traces of Rodger Snyder on a wall. He went to Vietnam long ago, and lost his life there, and now he is one of 58,299 names carved on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The nation honors its war dead this week. Now we call them heroes. But in the same hour, the leaders in the White House plan for new combat, and nobody knows what to call the thing that may be coming. The Wall is 20 years old this week. Over the past few days, including Veterans Day yesterday, thousands gathered at the black granite memorial here to remember, and to recite out loud the names of the dead, and to wonder what might have become of their lives.