Page 2/ r The Battalion/Tuesday, March 10, 1987
Opinion
The time of year when A&M finds it difficult to compel
I ’ m doomed .
I’ve caught it. The
affliction I’ve been
dreading since the
first week of
school has thrust
itself u pon my
mind and body
without mercy.
I’ve contracted the
illness that affects
college students in
epidemic propor-
But on the first warm day of the year,
the virus becomes active and takes total
control of the victim’s mind and body.
Paula
Vogrin
tions every year. Doctors cannot help
the victims, and modern medicine
knows no cure.
The symptoms are easily recogniza
ble. If you have Spring Fever, you’ll
know it. You’ll be filled with an uncon
trollable urge to be outside. You’ll want
to feel the sun baking your body, bronz
ing your skin. You’ll have an urge to get
active, to do something physical — it
doesn’t matter whether it’s jogging, bi
cycling, or flying a kite —just so you’re
doing it outside.
I’m talking, of course, about Suntan-
nicus Necessarius, better known as
Spring Fever.
The Spring Fever virus can flourish
only in warm temperatures with plenty
of sunshine. It lies dormant over the
winter except for occasional instances
when it causes visions of beaches, pools,
frisbee, and lots of sunshine to fill the
heads of unsuspecting college students.
Spring Fever will completely reverse
your priorities. Laying out by the pool
and going to Duddley’s to drink a
pitcher or three take the place of going
to class, studying for that fast-ap
proaching exam, and doing projects
earlier than the night before they are
due. You will become completely apa
thetic about the academic aspects of
higher education.
Your attention span will be cut pain
fully short. If you can force yourself to
'Platoon 7 brings war home
Lon Oakley and
I left the movie
theater agreeing
that “Platoon” is as
real as a movie
Chet
Nunley Jr.
Guest Columnist
curately portray the everyday life of the
grunt in Vietnam.
It is a draining experience for some
one who has been there.
about the grunts in Vietnam is going to
get.
Lon is a professional soldier. So was I
for 20 years. What is depicted in “Pla
toon” is not the way we would have liked
the war to be.
But it is the way it was.
The reality of Vietnam was some
thing that many who served there — es
pecially the 1.0 percent who fought in
the bush as “grunts” — tried to kill and
bury when they came back the “the
world.” Something else that died in
Vietnam, for many, was innocence.
Innocence was killed by brutal reality.
That’s the overall theme of this
movie, I suppose. That larger-than-life
truth is played out against a dead accu
rate background.
Most attempts to deal with the Viet
nam experience in movie format have
been patently fake.
In “Platoon,” I saw reality resur
rected.
After the movie, Lon said, “There are
probably 3,000 to 5,000 guys here at
Fort Hood wearing a combat patch,
many of them grunts, who will have the
same opinion that you and I had — that
finally ... finally, finally, finally ... from
our perspective, here is a believable,
this-is-how-it-was movie about Viet-
Lon had never really talked to anyone
about his experiences, but the movie
serves as kind of a catharsis, and after
we left the theater, he needed to talk.
“All those things that you and I talked
about. The things that you want to put
back at the fartherest, darkest part of
your mind come to life again on the
screen,” Lon said.
“The scenes of dead U.S. servicemen
being loaded into helicopters. It’s gro
tesque; it’s not a pretty sight, but it’s real.
You see all of that in the movie, and
you turn to each other ... and you’re al
ive ... and you look at each other and
you say ‘I’m so thankful to God that I
survived.’
I went to see the film recently with
Lon, an Army officer friend who was a
19-year-old infantry sergeant in the
25th Infantry Division in 1969.
“Platoon” is about the soldiers of that
division. It takes place the year before
Lon got there.
The opening scene of the movie de
picts the arrival of FNGs (new guys) on
an airplane, walking out into the blast
furnace heat and grit of the country.
The fresh faces, brand new jungle fa
tigues and baseball caps of the FNGs in
instant contrast with the weary faces,
hollow stares and weather-beaten fa
tigues of the bush rats, was all very, very
familiar, very real, Lon said.
“Those who were not there are not
really going to understand a lot of what
happens on the screen . . . but maybe,
just maybe, in some small way they can
see the nightmare that those of us who
were there had to deal with — and then,
and even today,” he says.
The subliminal messages that per
meate the movie, from burning drums
of feces behind the outhouse in base
camp to the ever-present questions
about the number of days left to go “in
country” exchanged by the soldiers, ac-
“Even today, sitting in my office,
when I hear a helicopter take off from
the pad behind the building, the very
first thought that comes to mind is a
memory of lying wounded in a pick-up
zone in Vietnam and I knew that whop,
whop, whop of the helicopter was for
me. I was going home.”
The movie brings out all these mem
ories . . . and it can be emotionally bruis
ing if you let it.
It tells the story of the people who
fought the war: a lot of minorities, peo
ple who were using the military as a step
up out of poverty, a lot of people like
young ‘Chris’ who were college stu
dents, doing something they thought
was patriotic because their dad had
done it or (for) whatever else.
“I always knew how many days I had
left in Vietnam from the day I got
there,” Lon said. “I kept a small calen
der in my billfold. Kept it waterproofed.
Each day, I hacked off a day on that cal
endar.
I knew that I was going to get my ulti
mate reward when the calendar was
completed. And that reward was my
life.”
Because several members of the
The Battalion editorial board will
be attending the Columbia Schol
astic Press Association Conference
in New York City from March 11-
14, some of the columns this week
will not appear on their regular
days. r-
If you are a Vietnam veteran, espe
cially of the infantry, go see the movie.
But don’t go alone. See it with an
other veteran if possible.
You may leave the theater — as we
did — a little bit numb. But you will
have someone with whom to share — as
we did — an old thought:
“Why did I live? Why didn’t they?”
Chet Nunley Jr. writes for the Killeen
Daily Herald.
The Battalion
(USPS 045 360)
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Loren Steffy, Editor
Marybeth Rohsner, Managing Editor
Mike Sullivan, Opinion Page Editor
Jens Koepke, City Editor
Jeanne Isenberg, Sue Krenek, News Editors
Homer Jacobs, Sports Editor
Tom Ownbey, Photo Editor
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attend class, concentrating on the pro
fessor’s lecture is like having a root canal
with no anesthesia. The sounds coming
out of the professor’s mouth will sound
like those made by the schoolteacher in
the Charlie Brown cartoon specials —
Wah, Wah-Wah, Wah-Wah, Wah, Wah.
Your eyes will be glued to the clock and
you’ll watch the seconds dragging by
like so many thousands of years. If, by
chance, you’re able to muster enough
concentration to take notes during class,
the pages you write on will inevitably be
filled with doodles and drawings of the
sun, palm trees, the beach and anything
else associated with warm weather. You
might as well skip class if you’re going to
be this worthless.
climb the monkey bars, have a picnic,
feed the ducks, play frisbee, toss the
softball or kick the soccer ball.
Your metabolism will change. Your
desire for heavy, caloric, meat-and-po-
tatoes dishes will diminish. Hibachis will
come out of winter hibernation in the
storage closet and the aroma of ham
burgers, steak and barbecue will waft
through apartment complexes every
where. Concern about the expanded
waistline you acquired over the winter
will lead you to eat less. Healthy, light
foods like salads, fruits and vegetables
will be the major elements of your
meals.
Your body will not allow you to stay
indoors. The physical draw of the pool
will be more than you can stand. You
will put on your suit and migrate to the
pool with the rest of the victims.
No one is safe. If the pool doesn’t af
fect you, the nearest park will. You’ll
want to swing, ride the merry-go-round,
Your needs for liquid refreshment
will increase. You’ll have a craving for
beer at all hours of the day. A pitcher a
day will feed the Spring Fever fire and
you will be lost in a world of sun, sport
and spirits. These new extended drink
ing habits will not help you lose your
love handles, though.
There is a ray hope for the victims of
Spring Fever. During spring break.
those afflicted can do everything
have wanted to do since the onslaiM
of the illness and not feel muh\
Nothing but a week of total abajHLy
will cause Spring Fever to gointoaiii
porary remission. After spring brr.Hj
will be possible to attend class and?M 1 ! u
for your exams 1) because you haveJP., 1 ”
ten Spring Fever temporarily ow^p V
your system and 2) because you j^-M
seen the effects of the sickness on*
midterm grades. But the reniissionj
only be temporary. Toward theiM
of April, Spring Fever will returni
unbridled furor. It will he harden!
before to take school seriously
summer or graduation is right aroj
the corner.
So we might as well face it, AbS
waimth and sunshine remain ini
forecast for next week, this UnittjS
doesn't stand a chance until aftersm§|
break. Gotta go! The sun is "'
the pool is callin’ my name!
Paula Vogrin is a senior jour
major and a columnist for The Btt
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Mail Call
Have no pity
think very nasty thoughts of you.
EDITOR:
I would like to address Paula Vogrin’s idea of fairness.
In her editorial, she feels sorry for the athletes at Southern
Methodist University who were innocent bystanders, and
are now forced to go elsewhere if they wish to play football
football again. She fee fair to those players.
Perhaps the University Police Department could cart
this monstrosity off, sell it for scrap, and use the funds to
repair the potholes in the Commons lot.
This truck ain’t running on Hwy. 6 either way.
Jim Orr ’89
Gary Engstrom ’87
Tell me, is it fair to allow a football player into a
university with an SAT score of 500 or so and give him a
full scholarship instead of a prospective student with an
SAT score of 1100?
Forced generosity
EDITOR.
Hundreds (possibly thousands) of gifted students are
turned away from top public universities so these great
athletes can play football on scholarships. Vogrin, please
do not feel sorry for those “innocent” players. First of all,
I’m sure they all knew exactly what was going on around
them. Secondly, I’m sure that they will all be well taken
care of. •
And the potential student who will shy away from
SMU because of a lack of a football team? Really, do you
honestly believe that a prospective student would shy away
from any university, simply for something to do on a
Saturday afternoon? These students you refer to can
afford to go elsewhere for love of a football team.
I am normally a very quiet, well-mannered graduate
student who stays relatively far from the screaming masses
and uproar of the Texas A&M students whose problems
and complaints always seem to creep near “world” status.
However. I will, in my own reserved manner, respond to
the matters raised by The Battalion’s March 2 editorial
concerning the recent “Miss TAMU Beauty Pageant.'
WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?
The NCAA decided to make an example of the SMU
Athletic Department. It would be ignorant to assume that
this is the only school in which these practices are in use.
So, Vogrin, please do not pity someone who has been
given a free ride through college. Pity those “innocent”
students who are forced to go elsewhere because there was
no room for them.
I thought I was at this University, as a paying student
of course, to heighten my intellectual status by means of
superior faculty and excellent educational programs.
Wrongo, Mary Lou! I now realize that the faculty and
programs to which I have clung so tightly simply pale in
comparison to something of much higher status, of muclt
higher intellectual value, of much higher cost.
Ahem ... Please excuse me for rendering such an
outburst. I commend Miss Fritz for her outstanding
scholarship as well as for being a very attractive member^
A&M’s student body. She obviously is well-deserving,
of what?
Matt Flanagen ’90
Editor’s note: The NCAA requires college athletes to score
at least a 700 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test.
Nice car. Dude
EDITOR:
I say yes to the $ 1,000 academic scholarship — but in
times of severe economic distress in which this and other
Texas universities are definitely involved, could we pleas*
take another look at the rest of the pageant winner’s
prizes? Give me a break, but I did not realize the full
educational values inherent in a $ 1,000 wardrobe, a
diamond pendant and a membership to one of Bryan-
College Station’s finest tanning spas!
This letter is to the owner of that pseudo-vehicle
parked in the Commons red lot. Anybody who has ever
tried to park in that vast wasteland knows what we’re
talking about. It’s that rusted out piece of metal that used
to be a white pick-up truck.
I hope the pageant officials, contestants, and onlooker*
appreciated the monetary donation in the form of “service
fees” for which many of us (students, I mean) should feel
proudly responsible!
We realize that there is a valid parking sticker on it.
However, for the last semester and a half, it has taken up
the same two spaces without ever moving. It can’t move, as
it has two flat tires. Quite recently, the hood has been left
open and the engine disassembled. Even that “modern
art” on campus is more appealing. Every time one of us
has to spend fifteen minutes looking for a parking spot we
I know, I know . . . Highwa ' runs both ways.
Leslie A. Sogandares, graduate student
Letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words in length. The editorialStcftt
serves the right to edit letters for style and length, hut will make every effort'-
maintain the author’s intent. Each letter must be signed and must include thift
sification, address and telephone number of the writer.