Posted on 11/14/2006 1:31:33 PM PST by pabianice
It's never too late.
Here's one Vietnam vet that welcomes you to the fold.
ping
F(*% him. Let him tell it to his grandchildren.
No one should pass by without reading this!
I appreciate you!
Well, that's pretty amazing.
Now, as then, it will be the bureaucrats that will pull defeat from the jaws of VICTORY.
Stick to cooking, Conroy.
He'll never get a book published again.
Or, to put it another way:
"There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you WON'T have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, "Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana."
I agree, I am sick of decrepit old bastards, like me, regretting that they didn't have the balls to serve, and now they want to be a hero. I served, my friends served, my cousins and fellow corner cowboy's are heroes.
I imagine there of lots of folks like me who just plain got lucky. When I was 18 my lottery number was 356. I suppose if it had been lower I would have been drafted and gotten to see SE Asia with some of my classmates. While I was a student in Boulder, Colorado I remember seeing guys pack their bags the day we drew numbers and go to Canada (the really low numbers). I remember thinking I wasn't sure what I would have done. Years later, while in Med School and looking for a way to pay for it I took an Army Scholarship and so I did my time as an officer in the '90s. But all those years ago in Boulder, I did protest, I got gassed, I read the Ellsberg Papers.
From this perspective, it is a shame we gave up on a fight we were winning and millions suffered because of our nations lack of resolve in war. I have been on both sides, as I suspect a good number of us have.
After reading "The Great Santini" years ago,I still remember thinking that Pat Conroy was a great writer but he had nothing to say worth reading.Some things don't change.I hope some day the cowardly '60s types will just be quiet.
Some very mixed feelings about Pat Conroy.
First, I am a member of The Citadel Class of 1970. Served in Vietnam, and still a deployable Reservist by God's grace.
Conroy was a senior private when I reported in the fall of 1966. He helped us lowly plebes get through Knob year by advising us to take it all with a grain of salt.
Heard no more of Conroy until his novels started coming out. Then there was "The Lords of Discipline", an ill disguised calumny upon The Citadel much like Calder Willinghams' "End as a Man", though much more cleverly worded. Recalling my years as a cadet, this work was pure fiction.
Then in 1995: the lawyers' initial attempt to gender-integrate the Corps of Cadets using the tragically tubby Shannon Faulkner. Cadets' resistance so enraged Conroy that he spat and fumed like Gloria Steinem. I wondered then why he didn't just turn his Citadel ring.
But then in 1998 came the Lewinsky affair, and Conroy actually conceded in an editorial column that society has need for lawgiving institutions of values such as The Citadel. Semi-welcome home, Pat.
But in 2002 Conroy marked the passing of his Marine father by publically trashing the man's memory, gloating that the old man could no longer threaten to whip him. Real class act, our Pat.
"Confessions of an American Coward" accomplishes little. Conroy bares his soul, praises those he once reviled (I was unaware of Pat's antiwar activities until now), and demands forgiveness by virtue of his brilliant prose.
Lt. Col. T.N. Courvoisie, '38 (rest his grand soul) said it best:
"Conroy, you couldn't lead a squad across a street!"
Excellent. Thanks.
Well, I'm the only person I know that was blown off by a recruiter. It was 1981, I was fresh out of college and I was considering being an officer. He wanted me to be a private. A year earlier and I would have been gold.
I like Conroy's cookbook. It's one of the best books I have read. But his dad ruined him for everything but drama.
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