After reading the BG News story about the absence of demonstrations, I thought about the lack of student empathy at the University, about how the ’60s and protest are synonymous in meaning.
I missed out on that, being a member of Uncle Sam’s Traveling Circus on a 37 -month Asian tour. But taking a stand then was not limited to students here at home, for even in the military the idea of free speech was very evident.
The last year I was in the service, my unit was constructing a base on a hunk of sand in the middle of the Indian Ocean. We were the first battalion to land on this last piece of the British Empire that had previously been a cocoa nut plantation and home to a people who lived a life of no stress in a tropical paradise.
Leave it to Uncle Sam to screw up paradise by sending a bunch of bearded Seabee misfits who looked more like guerilla followers of Che Gueverra than members of the U.S. military. We were constructing a major communication station, the last link in the worldwide network. The work was challenging in that it had to be done according to code and not with the “wham, bam, thank you ma’am” methods used in Southeast Asia.
To say we were remote based was an understatement. It was a 10 to 12 hour ride on a C-130 to civilization. Two flights a week kept us connected to the world. Our mail and other things came in on these flights. Late in our deployment, our connection to the world was lost. The war had stepped up and the 130s were busy supporting our brothers up in jungle land with the first casualty being our mail.
In these days of instantaneous communication around the world, a letter seems trivial, but back in snail mail’s heyday a letter was a connection to the world of normalcy. After six weeks with no mail, morale in the battalion was lower than GM’s stock price. A war between India and Pakistan broke out and had an immediate impact on us, as the Indian Air Force sank a supply ship bound for our sand speck. The Indians did not have a grudge against us, but they did not appreciate the load of arms and ammunition destined for their arch enemy, Pakistan.
Our meals took a dive as we ate dehydrated meat, powdered eggs and Kool-Aid three times a day. The thought of a flight from the world became a topic of hope throughout the battalion. Hope became reality and all of us looked forward to two things — fresh milk and mail from home. Then the truth came out — milk, but no mail on the plane. The night the story came out, our liaison officer, a butter bar in Bangkok living the good life, decided some Commander’s rattan furniture for his hooch was more important than our mail.
The proverbial stuff hit the fan and like lightning, word spread through the battalion, no mail, no work. The next morning after chow, everyone went to their company area, but did not get on the trucks to go out to the worksites. Our officers and NCOs talked to us about the mail problem, but we did not move as most of us were short-timers. Finally, the Battalion CO came to our area, apologized, told us he understood why we were upset and promised us the person responsible would soon be joining us in paradise.
So when I think of the lack of student empathy, maybe being on a Godforsaken sand speck at the edge of Earth would shake students out of their apathy. But this generation does not have to do anything they don’t want too, and that says volumes.
Respond to Pat at [email protected]
