home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
TIME: Almanac 1990
/
1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
/
time
/
041789
/
04178900.042
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1990-09-17
|
4KB
|
69 lines
NATION, Page 27The Exile of Sharon RogersAfter escaping a terrorist bomb, she is barred from her school
Americans long viewed terrorist violence as something that
happened to other people, over there. Then, last December, Pan Am
Flight 103 exploded in the sky over Scotland, killing 259 people,
including many U.S. citizens. Two months later, bookstores across
the country received bomb threats for selling Salman Rushdie's The
Satanic Verses. And last month Sharon Rogers, a 50-year-old
schoolteacher, narrowly escaped being blown up on a San Diego
street as she drove to work.
Sharon Rogers happens to be married to U.S. Navy Captain Will
Rogers III, commander of the U.S.S. Vincennes, the guided-missile
cruiser that mistakenly shot down an Iranian passenger jet last
July, killing all 290 passengers and crew members. Eight months
later, his wife was driving to her job as a fourth-grade teacher
at the elite La Jolla Country Day School. As she paused for a red
light, Rogers heard a bang in her Toyota van; she leaped out,
unharmed, just before the vehicle burst into flames. Investigators
believe a terrorist pipe bomb was placed in the van in retaliation
for the downing of the Iranian airliner.
Since then Rogers has become an exile of sorts in her
community. While she is free to come and go as she pleases from her
temporary home at a San Diego naval base, she is under the constant
eye of four bodyguards from the Naval Investigative Service. She
is also reportedly wired for sound so that the security officers
can listen in on all her conversations.
Worst of all, Rogers was made to feel like an outcast at the
school where she taught for twelve years. On March 13 headmaster
Timothy Burns told Rogers that she could not return immediately and
that he did not know what "we are going to do about this." The next
day the school received a bomb threat, which turned out to be a
hoax. Then, when Rogers did not receive her contract renewal on the
same day as other faculty members, she fired off an angry letter
to the parents of her students, saying she did not pose a risk to
the children's safety. She was later barred from the campus but
continues to collect her paychecks and to assist a substitute
teacher with lesson plans. Many San Diegans, angered by the way
Rogers was treated, accused the school of gross ingratitude and
cowardice. Others argued that Rogers should stay away for the
safety of the students. Said Jean Andrews, a political consultant
and the mother of one of Rogers' former pupils: "I don't think
children's bodies are the appropriate weapons to be used on a
frontline offensive against terrorist attacks."
Responding to the criticism, headmaster Burns said last week
that the school's handling of Rogers "may have been . . . in
retrospective, not the best." Rogers was offered a new contract for
the next school year, but she has yet to accept the deal, partly
because it makes her return to the campus contingent on a
"substantial" determination by the Naval Investigative Service, the
FBI and the San Diego police that she does not pose a security
threat. "Does Sharon feel betrayed? I think she does," says a
friend. "Twelve years of her life she's given to that school."
Meanwhile, private security guards prowl the halls of La Jolla
Country Day. Students have been instructed how to evacuate the
building during a bomb threat, and a psychologist has counseled
Rogers' pupils. Officials held a "terrorism awareness" briefing for
faculty members. And 21 fourth-graders anxiously await the return
of their beloved Mrs. Rogers. "What Americans need to understand
is that the way to deal with terrorism is not to isolate the victim
but to stand together," observes San Diego Congressman Bill Lowery,
Rogers' most vocal supporter. "(The terrorists') weapon is fear.
Most Americans realize that, and I hope the parents and the
administration at La Jolla Country Day realize it."