For the last fifty years folks have been pouring into the Ozarks, thick as gobblers on a turkey drive: Pick-up truck patriots with their jumbo flags and nanny-state meddlers with their rainbow flags and golf-clubbing dandies with their coiffed hair and pink shirts, demi-men whose trophy wives drink daiquiris at the club house and talk quietly about the welcome relief of erectile disfunction. These people give me a pain in the ass. These attenuated excuses for the human animal seem to think they've dragged in clouds of glory with their money, their politics, and their la-de-dah cultural pretensions. It's not enough for them that they like their phony existence; they want everybody else to like it, too. But I digress.
I submit this introductory screed because I have a story to tell you, a story I believe Mr. Randolph would approve since he was a high school dropout himself and a roustabout and a socialist sympathizer with the "marginalized" (as the "Hell, no" folks are called today). This story tends to piss people off, but I think if they would just listen to what actually transpired, they might be more understanding. Aunt Prim told me I was going to hell when she heard what happened, but she told me that her whole life.
Anyhow, here's my story.
I mentioned that I dropped out of high school, but what I didn't say was that I dropped out in April of my senior year, right before graduation. There I was, a young man with bad skin and an erection lasting more than four hours, who stood at the threshold of all his tomorrows, when—in the words of the high school counselor—"I threw it all away."
Back in those days, every Sunday after lunch, my Pap and I would watch The World Tomorrow with Garner Ted Armstrong. Old Garner Ted would show pictures of hippies getting stoned and hippies without their clothes (with black tabs covering the exciting parts, of course) and hippies protesting the war in Vietnam. Garner Ted prophesied that the decline of Western civilization as evidenced by hippies would trigger the Second Coming (here we go with that again). And generally speaking, my Pap would "tsk, tsk" the hippies and "amen" the Second Coming, though I noticed he looked with an unexpected avidity at the naked hippie girls, which made me feel a little discomfited.
But here's the interesting part: Once when Garner Ted showed a clip of a peace march, Pap turned to me and said, "Son, those kids have got a point there. Look, I did my part in WWII, so I understand service to your country, but I'll be dad-blamed if I see the point in us fightin' over in some Godforsaken jungle. I don't like hippies: I don't like their hair, and I don't like their beads. But they're right on this one." I was shocked. Pap had never deviated from Republican Doctrine, ever. I knew he was worried about me getting drafted and all, but he was going even deeper than that. Then he said, "The hippies are right about Martin King and the black people, too. Listen to me, boy: I may not like hippies, but that don't mean they're wrong. Hear what a man—or a woman—says, watch what they do, and work out the truth of it for yourself."
That's the background to my story, so I was primed and ready for what happened next. Because in April, Mr. McMasters, the principal of East Norton High School, brought in a snazzy recruiter from the United States Army to talk to us boys about the glories of fighting the Communists in the Vietnam War. McMasters even let the whole school out of class to hear what the recruiter had to say. It was called an assembly. That recruiter must have been six foot four, and he was decked out in his finest army costume. Before he walked up to the microphone, he put his hat on his chair, and we saw he had a perfect tabletop of blond hair. Pretty cool. This fellow proceeded to tell us there were dominoes in the jungle and something called the 17th parallel and other precious things that must be preserved. He said the Viet Cong were bloodthirsty atheists, and maybe he was right. He said all this was worth us getting killed over, and it was there he and I parted company.
So, when he asked, are there any questions, I stood up and said, "Sergeant, excuse me, please. How did it come about that you aren't a patriot?"
This set him back a bit, and at first, he was more bewildered than pissed off. He was probably thinking, "Just how much of a warmonger do you have to be to satisfy these people out here?" But here is what he said: "What do you mean? My whole life has been spent in the patriotic service of my country."
"No, sir. That cannot be," I said. "Because if you were patriotic, you'd care more for the safety and well-being of us American boys than you do about the government of South Vietnam. From what you said, you're more concerned about killing 'them' than you are about protecting 'us'. Why?"
There was a huge in-suck of air from all the other kids, and the gym was weirdly silent. A nervous titter followed. A few of the long-hairs hollered out, "Yeah!" while the short-hairs yelled, "Effin' commie!" For his part, Principal McMasters sat looking straight ahead like a mannequin in a storefront window, and the Sergeant was starting to puff up.
I was still standing, so the Sarge pointed at me and said, "This war is about fighting a belief system that threatens everything we hold dear!"
"So, what we're fighting is a 'belief system'?" I asked. "Shouldn't we fight bad ideas with good ideas? Have you tried talking to these people?"
"I don't know who you think you are, but these people cannot be reasoned with. They are Communist murderers who think nothing of killing innocent men, women, and children to spread their godless ideology!"
I said, "Well, first of all, I'm a free-thinking American who was brought up to believe I have as much a right to speak as anybody else, and that includes you.
"Now, about the Viet Cong—they sound terrible, for sure. But if I have to get shot every time somebody somewhere in the world is murderous and mean, I'll be spending the rest of my life getting shot. I mean, if the Viet Cong were getting off a steamboat in St. Louis, I'd be right there with my thirty-aught-six like everybody else. But I can't see a good reason to go halfway around the world to muck about in somebody else's affairs and get killed for doing it.
"And as for these people being godless—I mean, if that's your concern, shouldn't we be trying to preach the Gospel to them? Shouldn't we be trying to love them? Furthermore, right here in East Norton High School, the Supreme Court has forbidden us from praying in the classroom or reading the Bible out loud. So, I ask you, who's more godless: them or us?"
Now the Sarge was furious: "I'm telling you about love of country and honor! Have you no sense of honor?"
And I said, "Maybe honor is like paper money, something the government spreads around because it doesn't cost them anything." It got real quiet then.
That recruiter beetened up from his collar to the roots of his yellow hair, and he thundered: "Why you good-for-nothing little shit! You don't know a damn thing about it, standing up there and questioning your country at the same time boys your age are dying for your freedom! You should thank God you have the privilege to die in this war!"
"Really?" I said. "So, tell me what you think about this." You can guess what happened then. I turned around and peeled my britches down, and Captain Crackshot of the Vertical Division saluted the recruiter with a toot. Let me tell you, that broke Mr. McMasters out of his trance, and he leapt up shouting, "Guards, arrest that boy!"
Of course, there were no guards, but I saw Coach Phillips, a douchebag if there ever was one, and the shop teacher, Mr. Garland, coming for me, so I buckled my britches and skedaddled out of there. Next day, I formally dropped out of high school. It's true that I was somewhat abashed at the thought of going back, but more than that was my sudden realization that the authorities in East Norton High School had never really wanted me to think for myself. To them I was just another kid trimmed and dressed for a sacrifice nobody bothered to tell me about.