4
Friday, December 4. 1970
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment
COLUMN
RICHARD LOUV
A year and a half ago I received a letter from a student, who told me he wrote about himself. I knew who had died in Vietnam. I printed it inside a column for the Hutchinson News because it seemed to make some sense.
Two years ago, President Nixon promised to get us out of Vietnam.
American involvement in World War I lasted one year.
American involvement in World War II lasted four years.
Korea lasted three years.
The Student Mobe Committee has an office now. Right down the hall from the KU-Y and the Student Senate, it has, become an institution. It was a year ago that, I carried Tom's name on a little piece of paper and sent it to the White House in front of the White House in the cold with Tom's candle, and said his name. It was a very long line. A bell ringed kent and the names kept dropping into the room and told us to be patient, because it was a very long line.
My brother is getting taller than I. And I wonder what part he will play in the line.
★★
It was one of the summer days when the winter returned to haunt the wheat. The train had cut through the rain and hall toward Lawrence. Some of it still stood, down, though most of it still stood, bent in the wind.
Jeff, a friend, was in Lawrence, and I got wet finding him. He was sitting in the corner of the Union, alone, writing, looking up now and then past the three or four summer session students. Jeff and me talked about how he graduated, had been accepted into the Peace Corps. They wanted to go to Chile to teach, but because no defermentes were given for that kind of thing, Jeff was forced to make a decision that cost him his life or perhaps his will to live it. We talked about what he should do, his decision, and how things once had been.
Jef had a friend, a host friend named Tom. Tom loved Jeff and Linda. He drew the picture in the room. Jef and Tom shared it.
When I was gifted to Linda, his friends grabbed him up, tore off his clothes, and dumped him in her arms.
The Kennedys—the loved the Kennedys, and
Tam once lettered the words of the "The Impossible Dream" on posterboard. It was their favorite song, and it was a great part of the fun they huddled together under an umbrella like a tiny rain with the rain running off the umbrella, making bars
Saying hello to the sun was fun. Running through grass. Falling down in snow.
"Tom loved Jeff and Linda. He drew their picture in the Spring and died in the Fall. There is an end of innocence . . ."
they wanted to be that way. "Ask not what your course, you ask, 'What's it?' Model UN, Green Jeans, Fraternity parties with Greek letters stamped on rumps. Cold winds, classes. Staying up late to save the week."
Tom loved Jeff and Linda. He drew their picture in the spring and died in the fall. There is an end of
I present Jeff's letter to a record of a war that may be ending. And I present as a prayer.
"it's bad enough to have a loved one die naturally; what compounds death's misery more is when that person did not have to die, when his death could have been prevented.
"I had a friend who was pure joy to me. We had each other for five beautiful years until that sen-
The COMP Strikes Again
It's closing in fast. By that, I don't mean the FBI's narcotics bureau, the Internal Revenue Service or even a simple dragnet. I mean that tri-annual terror that used the horror, that ghtily was intellectual egotism—the Western Civ COMP.
The symptoms of the COMP's coming are obvious. It is preceded by the appearance of scores of quailing students and will be followed late Saturday afternoon by the disappearance of an equal number of drained humanoids losing themselves in some intoxicating stuff (or other) or cowering in darkened rooms and mumbling Machiavellian phrases and Thoreauesque prose.
The COMP is one of those few obstacles. A student is confronted with 40 or more of the learned thinkers of history and geography, and given two semesters of weekly
There are courses at any university that are difficult. There are exams that are roadblocks. But there are very few exceptions. There are tests tuebch and exams are, often in juxtaposition.
After two and a half years of successful defense against taking the COMP, I am forced to bow. But before I apply pen to bluebook (we're even obliged to pay for our weapons of destruction this year) it be said that my final blow was landed.
"discussion" classes. He then is expected to link, chronologically and ideologically, those philosophers and tie their thoughts to the problems and peculiarities of philosophy; not so that the student gets anything of lasting value (other than an ulcer) from it.
If the idea worked, a student should supposedly be able to review his "discussion" notes, glance over the "selected" readings and put together a coherent essay or two. As it is, the surreptitious Western college notes have been standard text for the midnight oil burns for weeks and bleary-eyed students run around saying, "What the hell did Piec say?" to anybody who will listen. Not that I have anything against Piec; he expounded on the dignity of man. But I see nothing dignified about walking into a classroom on Saturday afternoon with road map notebooks and pens; who inherently knows what's good. One of those 18th-Century characters failed me.
Although this diatribe will be to no avail as far as escaping the clutches of the COMP, I have a final request. When you see an irascible, haggard student on the beach and in mind. She swam through Plato and discovered More's Utopia had cockroaches.
Cass Peterson Assistant Editor
A Night with the Senate
Bv TED ILIFF
An unending stream of absurdities filled Dyche Auditorium Wednesday night as the Student Senate once again proved how ineffective and petty it is.
The major topic of discussion was the allocation of student fees to University organizations. The proposals from the finance and auditing committee had been presented to the senators four weeks before the meeting, but they all acted and talked as if they had never seen the proposal.
Amendments, amendments to amendments, objections to amendments, substitute amendments and friendly amendments flew around in a mindful mrage of parliamentary tactics. And in all the confusion, very little was done.
When the third quorum call of the evening revealed that most of the had gone home, student body president Bill Ebert was obviously enraged.
Ebert's statement was probably the most sensible thing ever heard at a senate meeting. It seems the organization is in terrible straits. Business matters are bogged down in procedural hassles; senators show up for a white and then leave just when implemen- tion is complete. It comes to working for the students at KU, many senators apparently don't give a damn.
He told the sprinkling of senators that he was sick of their playing games and that it would do any good, he would gladly submit a motion to abolish the body.
KU students had better take a close look at the function and attitudes of the Student Senate. Enemies of student power can unfortunately point to the Senate for evidence to support their claims that students can't govern themselves. And the way the Senate looks these days, may be they're right.
'No, I'm not from th' inner city. I go full time right here.'
LETTERS
Yearbook Called 'Trash'
To the Editor:
Let me congratulate the persons responsible for putting out the worst yearbook yet. I am pleased to say that I can say this trash represents KU.
I can hardly believe this yearbook is representative of the society. I can't understand the language and unaided-for clams against the society of which we are a part. My money would have been spent thrown out the window.
The binder for this excellence in journalism is really out of sight; no expenses spared folks—cardboard! Not only is the binder a cardboard, but it features a face and a superimposed fetus.
be all crewcuts, white socks,
suede shoes and letter jackets,
but I do expect it to be relevant
and represent our people and our
university. This edition of the
yearbook does not.
This is an excellent example of why my parents and many of their friends in "conservative" western Kansas have stopped
I do not expect our yearbook to
making contributions to the alumni fund.
I am embarrassed to call this my yearbook. In fact, I refuse to be so blissful with it. You are not is not a hell of a lot better, you can expect another letter, you can expect a new book.
Steve McComas Concordia junior
Sincerity Tested On Right to Vote Issue
Citizens between 18 and 21 years old have for years resented laws withholding from them the
Griff & the Unicorn
To the editor:
By Sokoloff
right to vote. Now that these laws have been changed, the country waits to see the sincerity of the youth who protested this discrimination.
"Copyright 1970, University Daily Kansan"
To register one must be 18 years of age, a resident of Kansas for six months and a resident of his precinct for 30 days. This means that a student at the University of Kansas can register to vote here in Lawrence. Register at the City Clerk's office, room 416 First National Bank Office Tower, 910 Mass. street. Be sure to keep the yellow slip of paper given to you. The process is simple and requires only three minutes of your time.
Dan Conyers Florence junior
seless war took his life. He had faults, as an us or to him, but he also had so much to offer our world. He loved. That is what I want to say about him. He loved—not only me but everything. He knew how to turn bad times into good times, he taught me to build up where I might have torn down. He liked to play, to laugh, to explore. He had, as Shakespeare wrote, to laugh and be great. He hearted him. He and I had dreams, great plans as to what he would make of the future. But now he's gone, and somehow still I can't believe it really happened.
"He got confused a few years back. He wanted to quit college for a while, and realizing that he would be drafted if he did so, decided to enlist and get his military service out of the way. Both of us at that time still believed the old clothes about war and peace. So, as far as he was in his thinking at that time, I didn't want him. I let him go-1 didn’t want to fail him by bouncing him in the corner of my selfish wish to have him near.
★★★
"I'll never forget my father's words. Son, I've got to remember it. He couldn't even cry. I was drunk, I really thought the room had started spinning. I imagined bullets piercing through the flesh of my best friend, his heart."
"It must have been a horrible decision—whether to fight and kill or be killed. It must have been his ultimate decision—how I wish I could have been there to comfort him in those final hours."
"I don't really know, but somehow I have the feeling that he was killed because he himself refused to kill, because he who wouldn't hurt a fly in Vietnam. The priest in his sermon at the funeral talked of his life of giving—and in that he was right. So, I believe, he couldn't have betrayed his life of giving by taking another's life. As the priest said, even if he, he just gave himself away" for one last time.
"Where am I now? That is a good question. Now, the draft wants me. They want me to dirty my hands by contributing to the insanity of that war, and in so doing to bear part of the responsibility for Tom's death. This I cannot do, but in being unable to do it, I have to go back—so far what to do as an alternative. This country's war phobia has so poisoned our system that there are really no good alternatives. CO demerferences are
"Now, the draft wants me. They want me to dirty my hands by contributing to the insanity of that war, and in so doing to bear part of the responsibility for Tom's death."
"What kind of a country is this that pins medals on those who return from Vietnam after taking the war, or on those who are not allowed to them? I thought we were supposed to be a Christian country which believed 'Thou shalt not kill.'"
almost an impossibility. My board doesn't even give me the chance to say I will be in country would be to evade the issue and sell out, and going to jail would probably destroy me. This is the dilemma which I, and thousands of others are facing.
★★
"Throughout my dilemma with the draft, I am constantly aware of my dead best friend. If there is such thing as life after death, if spirits can come to me in person and be present before he was before, asking me to be no more than what I am, that I follow the dictates of my conscience, and that I let no man or institution force me into unwilling submissions. If the death of Tom is to mean that the destruction of human life is a failure that the destruction of human life is the most horrible, insane, and cruel part of man's behavior. Why should I, after being heartbroken and bitter because of his death, have another's life in return? How true and faithful would that make me to the memory of our wonderful friendship? No, I will not betray my friend, my girlfriend, my sister, or my family, live with this part of me which makes me who I am.
"I hope this will help you. Thanks for asking me to write. It gave me a chance to express some things. Please write and stop in when you're in Lawrence again.
Go forth in peace, (Jeff)''
Tom drew their picture in the Spring. He was an artist.
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