SOLDIER MISSES TICKER-TAPE TRIP

For Patrick Young, a Cape Girardeau native selected to participate in Monday's ticker tape parade in New York honoring the Persian Gulf War veterans, the story sounds like a "good news/bad news joke."

The good news was that Young, a sergeant in the U.S. Army stationed at Tampa, Fla., was picked to represent his detachment in the parade. Then the bad news: on Thursday, the young officer was told that due to federal budget cutbacks, he will not be able to go to the Big Apple for the ticker tape treatment.

"I'm not going in the parade. I was disappointed to find out," Young said in a telephone interview at his Tampa home. "I was looking forward to it."

His outfit, the 513th Military Intelligence Unit, is based at Fort Monmouth, N.J., not far from New York. The U.S. Army decided to bus in some soldiers from the New Jersey fort rather than flying in representatives from the unit's detachments further away.

Every military unit that was involved in the war has representatives marching in the parade. The representatives were chosen for their individual performance while serving in the Persian Gulf.

Young, an image analyst, tracked enemy troop and equipment movements from aerial intelligence photos at the intelligence command center. The information was then forwarded to battlefield commanders for action.

Young was the first to find three mobile SCUD missile launchers in enemy territory. The three launchers were destroyed by U.S. bombers within a few hours of Young detecting them from the aerial photos.

He received the Army Commendations Award and will receive the Joint Service Commendations Award for his work.

Young is returning to Cape Girardeau later this month for a wedding in his family. He is the son of Tim and Carolyn Young of Cape Girardeau.

Young and the former Lynn Fallert of St. Louis have a daughter, Katie, 8 months old. He graduated from Central High School in 1983 and from Southeast Missouri State University in 1987.

Young said he occasionally bumps into a neighbor from down the street at his office: Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf.