Amerikai Magyar Hírlap, 2006 (18. évfolyam, 1-50. szám)

2006-07-28 / 29. szám

mu 0 m a7 Red Arm Bandits? Hungarian American John Nagy, U.S. Army, Receiving the Commendation Medal BAGHDAD — Editor’s note: U.S. Army Capt. Dan Sukman is serving a one-year deployment to Iraq. The following is a quote from his diary, as appeared on Fox Electronic News, July 5, 2006. The Budapest Sun, July 2006 An American tourist who suf­fered “a most unfortunate encoun­ter” with two BKV ticket inspec­tors in Deák tér Metro station has told The Budapest Sun they need to learn to “be ambassadors of good will, rather than the red arm banded bandits they’ve been referred to in some tourist literature.” The transport author­ity, BKV Zrt, has apolo­gized for the case, but maintains that its ticket inspectors did nothing wrong, and accurately followed the law. On the morning of May 20, Carol Lewis, of Wood­land Hills, California, and two others left their cruise ship, the River Duchess, to visit the sights in Budapest. They bought tickets for the tram and the underground on the ship, and were warned by the cruise staff to make sure the tickets were validated. At the Deák tér station, the group found an English speaking policeman and asked him which train they needed to take. It was shortly after that their problem began. “Unfortunately, we got on the wrong escalator. As soon as we realized our mistake, we planned to go back up,” explained Lewis. “As we hit the bottom of the escalator, (with our tickets in our hands) we came face to face with two rude, power-hungry, and mean-spirited Metro agents who stopped our leaving the platform and insisted on taking our tick­ets. “Neither of them spoke any English and we did not speak any Hungarian. With the help of two English speaking Hungarians, we discovered they were fining us Ft 2,500 for not having our tickets validated before going down to the platform. We tried to explain that we had made a mistake. We showed them our validated tram tickets-(they took these too) and told the agents we wanted to go back up the escalator, find the yellow line, and have our metro tickets validated,” Lewis contin­ued. Finally, one of the party left the others to find the policeman who had given them directions. “The policemen explained our predicament to the supervisor and tried to have her release us. Abso­lutely no! The kind policeman (Viktor was his name) explained that the Metro agent, is in charge in the underground and that the police are powerless. We would have to pay the fine on the spot before we could go anywhere. By now, disgusted with being harassed and realizing we risked being arrested if we left the sta­tion without paying the fine, we reluctantly agreed to what I believe is a bit of extortion. “Each of us paid $12. We did not have enough Hungarian money, but, again, Viktor, came to our aid by exchanging our US dollars for Hungarian money and convincing the agent to give us back our unused tickets. We were so upset and angered by the rude, unfair, and insensitive treatment by these two Metro agents, we had no interest in spending any more time sightseeing Budapest. We walked back to our ship. “I can’t help but feel that most of our problems were due to our being Americans.” BKV ZRT RESPONSE “WE regret that the American tourists had an unpleasant experi­ence while utilizing our service. We apologize for the incident. We try to provide extensive informa­tion about the services of the company in order to avoid such cases. On the back of the tickets the most important information concerning the use of the tickets is available. Detailed informa­tion is available in English and German at the entrance of every metro station. “According to the rules, crossing the line at the station is allowed only in possession of a validated ticket. If the passenger does not have a ticket, she or he is DUNA Travel 8530 Holloway Dr. #102 W. Hollywood, CA 90069 SPECIÁLIS ÁR LAX-BUD-LAX $566.-tól +TX. az ár szeptember 3-tól érvényes Információért hívják ZSUZSÁT TEL: (310) 652-5294 FAX: (310) 652-5287 1-888-532-0168 Július 28,2006 íj) subject to payment of a fine. This is what happened in the May 20 case. “The inspectors followed the rules according to the law, as their task was to check the tickets. We do not question the statement that the tourists were lost, but the inspectors could not verify the statement.” (NB: When we questioned BKV on that issue, pointing out that the police had verified the statement, Anikó Kiss, press officer at BKV Zrt, modified the statement slightly by saying “The inspectors are not entitled to check whether the statements of passengers are truth­ful or not. All they are entitled to do is to check the ticket. Therefore whether a policeman, or anyone else, sup­ports the statement of the passen­ger is irrelevant”) “It happens a number of times every day that people try to use public transport free, using the same arguments. Similar cases happen to people from the coun­tryside too, and they have to pay the fine as well. “We do not employ the inspectors to harass the passen­gers, but to check whether the passengers are entitled to use the service and whether they respect the rules. The inspectors must behave in a polite and civilized manner, in which we encourage and train them. The training includes conflict management. The inspector dealing with the American tourists on May 20 had participated in such training, and, according to the [BKV] inspec­tion of the case, there cannot be any objections- raised concerning her attitude toward the writer of the letter of complaint.” Gay Curriculum to Be Taught? You may know about a piece of legislation that is pending in Sacramento at this time. It’s SB 1437, the Homosexual Curriculum Education bill. If this bill passes, it would require that all school dis­tricts teach about the homosexual/ lesbian, transgender, etc. lifestyles and that this info be included in textbooks. It would be taught from kindergarten through 12th grade. I do not support this and ask that you would join me in calling Gov. Schwarzenegger about this bill. I just called the Governor’s office and it will take less than a minute of your time. Please call the Governor’s switchboard at 916-445-2841. A recording will ask if you want this message in English: Yes, press 1 Is this in regards to a legisla­tion bill? Yes, press 2 Is the Bill SB 1437 ? Yes, press 1 Are you in favor of this legis­lation? No, press 2 That’s all you have to do. The past couple of weeks have been rough on us; but as I mentioned in the last column, you can always find good news to write about. I want to focus this one on one of the soldiers who has been doing great things for his country over the past 10 months. I think it is the best sub­ject for a July 4 column, as the soldiers here are continuing the precedent set by those who came before us. Staff Sgt. John Nagy is our psychological operations NCO [non-commissioned officer] for our brigade. He came over to our unit shortly before the deployment. He hit the ground running and has not stopped since. This is not his first deployment over here and chances are that this won’t be his last. Like the other soldiers I have talked about in this column, he has a family at home, a wife and a newborn baby. On Saturday, July 1, SSG Nagy was awarded a commendation medal for his work. Nagy has been with the brigade for the duration of the deployment, but he did not earn the ARCOM [Army Commenda­tion Medal] here in Iraq. While flying home for his two-week mid-tour leave, another pas­senger on his flight became very ill. Nagy, although not a medic by trade, took charge of the situation, assessed the individual and per­formed immediate first aid and administered two IVs. Nagy then convinced the pilots of the aircraft to make an emer­gency landing in order to get the individual to a hospital as quickly as possible. Turns out, this was the absolute right decision as the patient wound up having a ruptured spleen. Nagy’s actions directly contributed to the saving of the passenger’s life. It would be easy to say that actions like this are uncommon; the reality is they occur every day over here. Actions like this have been common from the soldiers deployed over here. Hard work and sacrifice are traits shared by the soldiers assigned to South Baghdad. To date, more than 200 Purple Hearts have been awarded, 45 of them posthumous. The soldiers assigned to South Baghdad — despite any setbacks that occur — continue to put on the uniform and body armor day in and day out ready to accomplish the next mission. FOX NEWS (submitted by Victoria Miko) & PUPORKA JÓZSEF GYPSY BAND NORTH AMERICAN CONCERT TOUR ACK BV POPULAR OEM AND, fc, K.L1 í I KRIíS £jl J FROM BUDAPEST ALREADY HAD MUCH SUCCESS IN AMERICA & CANADA AND ASKED BY ALL WHO HEARD HER TO COME AGAIN. PUPORKA JÓZSEF & GYPSY BAND FROM THE LE MERIDIEN HOTEL IN BUDAPEST IS THE NEWEST GYPSY BAND TO TOUR AMERICA & CANADA PONORAT/, KNTKRTAJNMKNT I JIM 8 3*TM­ST PHOKNIX, AZ MM TKIZPAXi 480 706 0677 MOBIL; 4WWW44 WmtU; call m mu nut mm obmbw to wumm. Szeptember 16 és 17-én (szombaton és vasárnap) a Csárdásban Figyelem! A CSÁRDÁSBAN naponta friss mákos és diós BEJGLI kapható! Tie fáAadjjon otthon a áüIbaajlI - hiszen nálunk msjyJuxphcdfa késben! (fulwh nélkülit Ja kéAgliünk! (323) 962-6434 «'Ä**ka iS’ AMERIKAI ^agyar Hírlap

Next

/
  • Elrendezés
  • Igazítás
  • Forgatás
Oldalképek
Tartalom