Opinion Friday, December 3,1993
Nebraskan
Editorial Board
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Jeremy Fitzpatrick.Editor, 472-1766
Kathv Steinauer Opinion Page Editor
Wendy Mott.Managing Editor
Todd Cooper.Sports Editor
Chris Hopfensperger.Copy Desk Chief
Kim Spurlock Sower Editor
Kiley Timperley.Senior Photographer
“It doesn’t make me happy, that’s for sure. It’s
an extra year that I’m going to have to apply for
loans. ”
— Amy Schroder,
a UNL sophomore who is planning to apply to the teachers
college’s elementary education program despite stricter entrance
requirements.
“I knew that we would win because I could see it
in my teammates’ eyes. All year we just keep over
coming obstacles. When it comes down to it, we
keep finding a way to win. ”
— Trev Alberts,
Comhusker defensive end who suffered a dislocated elbow during
the Nov. 29 win over Oklahoma.
“First, you need time to train yourself. It’s not a
fast-food service—you cannot drive through—and
so the training process is music as language. ”
— Yong-yan Hu,
Lincoln Orchestra's music director and conductor,
on his theories about learning music.
“How can I allow you permission when I have
turned away so many others?”
— Mother Teresa 's response to DN photographer Al Schaben
when he asked her permission to photograph her for JD&A, an
agency for social documentary photography.
Schaben was one of few photographers allowed to photograph
Mother Teresa's work
“We had the game won, and then we basically
gave it away. It was a great game, and we’ll have to
get used to it because I think we re going to have a
lot of games like that this season. ”
— Eric Piatkowski,
Nebraska guard,
after a 78-75 loss to Texas on Sunday night.
“Higher education is a bit of a farce. We re more
concerned with speech codes, pink triangles and
green spaces. ”
— Andrew Sigerson,
former ASUN president,
during a presentation to a Rotary Club meeting this week that
centered on getting social issues out of classrooms.
“I think that’s disgusting and something needs
to be done about it. I say that tongue-in-cheek,
mind you. ”
— Keith Benes,
ASUN president,
who wrote a bill poking fun at AP writes who continue to vote the
Nebraska football team low in the polls.
“Thirty years ago fate brought me here as an
unwilling player in the most unforgettable, tragic
drama of our time. ”
— Nellie Connally,
widow of former Texas Gov. John Connally,
at the unveiling of a national landmark in Dallas where President
Kennedy was assassinated Nov. 22, 1963.
"It was hard work on every part of your body. It
was probably fun maybe the first two hours, three
hours."
— Brandon Mann,
who participated in a kissing contest for 18 hours with his partner,
Andi Mollring.
The couple gave up and allowed Megan and Andrew Jobson to
win the trip to Cancun, Mexico.
SUIT editorials represent the official policy of the Fall 1993 Daily Nebraskan Policy is set by
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the opinion of the author The regents publish the Daily Nebraskan They establish the UNL
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History takes on human faces
Itook military history this se
mester. A lot of men I've known
served in the military. I hoped
to gain some insight about a force that
shaped their lives.
I went into the class without an
open mind, expecting a spit-and-pol
ish Marine who would cxtoll the glo
ries of the U.S. military. I got a work
ing-class draft-dodger in baggy
sweats, a cheesy theme T-shirt and
untied high-tops, delivering mania
cally enthusiastic lectures. This char
acter didn’t “teach,” he illustrated.
The illustration of military history
includes a lot ofordinary people, such
as my dad, Harley, my Uncle Don and
my friends, Aaron and Puff.
Harley was a tall, skinny kid from
the sandhills. He graduated from high
school in the spring of’40 and headed
to the West Coast with his friend, Gib.
They were 17. Harley wanted to learn
a trade to use in the Navy before he
joined, so he became a sheet metal
worker. The Navy made him a
radioman.
Harley’s brother-in-law, Don, was
a cowboy from southwestern Nebras
ka. He served on ships with names
like the U.S.S. Terrapin, the Dolphin
and the Chimera. Submarine sailors
were cut from a different cloth. They
went to sea for three months at a time;
82 men sharing a 310-by-27-foot
space. Don spent 36 months on and in
the Pacific Ocean. In 1944, his crew
rescued a Navy pilot who would be
come the 41 st president of the United
States.
Aaron was a small-town kid from
a poor family that couldn’t afford to
send him to college. That didn’t mat
ter to Aaron in the late ’60s. He was
suckled on John Wayne movies. Viet
nam would make a man out of him.
Years later, he would recall blowing
up water buffaloes that the VC used
for pack animals.
Puff was also from a small town,
and his family didn’t have a lot of
money. His father was a hay man. The
boys in the family were tossing hay
bales soon after they learned to walk.
They all became champion wrestlers.
Aaron was a small-town kid
from a poor family that
couldn’t afford to send him to
college. That didn’t matter to
Aaron in the late ’60s. He was
suckled on John Wayne mov
ies. Vietnam would make a
man out of him.
A few weeks after Puff had brought
the Class C state wrestling trophy
back to his high school, he was jump
ing out of an army helicopter on the
other side of the planet. He landed in
a jungle, surrounded by hostile forc
es, armed with a jammed rifle.
Harley left the Navy on the day
after Christmas in 1945. During the
years I lived in his house, I learned
very little about my dad. He and his
friend Gib, my Uncle Don, my Uncle
Bill and my cousin Roland were all in
the Navy during World War II. They
talked about it every time they were
together. They talked about going to
dances in Los Angeles or hitch-hiking
back to Nebraska. The laughed about
the time Uncle Don stole a Grey
hound Bus to get back to Santa Bar
bara before he was A WO L.
They never spoke of fear, and they
never talked about killing. Uncle Don
spent a lot of time alone in the desert.
My dad yelled a lot. Once, I told my
father that I wouldn’tbe coming home
anymore. I’d heard enough yelling.
He showed up on my doorstep, cap in
hand. He said he was sorry for every
thing, it was just that he had seen so
many people die.
1 met Aaron while I was working
for a farm corporation out in western
Nebraska. One night when we were
coming in from the Held, I saw a
something in the barpit. We backed
up and found an injured doe. It was
bleeding internally. We loaded it into
the back of Aaron’s truck and took it
to my house. He sent me to get my
husband’s gun, which was always in
the closet, except for that night. That i
night,I couldn’t find the damned shot
gun. Aaron got a hammer from his
toolbox. 1 watched as he hesitated,
then swiftly hammered the doe’s skull.
Aaron slumped over, tied to another
ghost.
Puff returned to his family’s hay
business after a year in the country.
He brought an addiction to alcohol
with him. Puff was a happy drunk, the
way a lot of grieving, kind-hearted
people are when they abuse alcohol.
He nearly shed tears when he heard
that my husband and I were getting
divorced.
Puff loved people, but it wasn’t
enough to save him. Part of his life
had ended when he landed in that
jungle in Southeast Asia. The rest of
it ended last year when he lost control
of his truck on a quiet stretch of gravel
road.
Dad and Uncle Don and Aaron and
Puff arc in the back of my mind during
my history lectures. 1 can learn about
the presidents and the generals that
issued orders from carpeted rooms. I
can read about the politics that ruled
their minds. I can sec diagrams of
ships and guns, and I can look up
casualty figures, but what will stay
with me the longest is what I’ll never
know. I can never know the night
mares of these men that I’ve loved,
and I will never know the men they
might have been if war had not altered
their lives.
McAdams ii a sophomore news-editorial
major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
Illegitimacy
Sam Kepficld seemsquitedisturbed
by the problem of single motherhood,
but unfortunately and as usual, he
offers only a banal and ineffectual
solution (DN, Dec. 1). His experience
tells him further stigmatization and
forced marriage will clean up this
messy situation. The hoards of “ag
gressive, irresponsible young men
roaming the streets, hyped on drugs
and packing MAC-10s” will settle
down and become responsible,
breadwinning fathers. He seems to
think single mothers all intend to get
pregnant and refuse marriage because
welfare is a more attractive option. It
bolsters their self-esteem, he writes.
What planet are you from, Sam?
The most frightening aspect of the
column is the explicit racism, howev
er. The point of this writing seems to
be that since more single mothers are
white, the problem is more valid,
more threatening. As if it were a black
plague, he worries that it is “creeping
into” white areas and with it, “the
attendant social pathologies." It could
happen in the suburbs, he cries, run
for your lives!
The social ills he writes of are
caused by poverty, discrimination and
ignorance. You can’t legislate mar
riage, Sam, but you can make fathers
financially responsible for their chil
drcn. You can’t force people to stop
having sex, but you can offer more
education and better access to birth
control. You probably can’t eradicate
drugs and gangs from the United
States, but you can work toward better
schooling and more job opportunities
for poor, disenfranchised youth.
So accidental pregnancy used to be
fairly simple to deal with. It isn’t now.
As a student of history, Sam Kepficld
should know that society is dynamic
and no amount of nostalgia will make
the world simpler.
Victoria Kovar
senior
English
