Skoonj

I kind of liked Red Dawn. It was really a political film by Milius. Green Berets was probably John Wayne's third worst film. The end sequence shows a sunset on the beach along the coast of Viet Nam. The sun was dipping low on the horizon. Just think about that a minute. Worst was something about the Mongols, a film which he hated. His westerns, including The Searchers, Fort Apache, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon were some of the best films ever made of any genre. Wayne was very pro-Indian, by the way, and it showed. The second half of FMJ was lousy. A particularly good film that didn't get much recognition was The Beast. There are some memorable lines that came out of that one, especially from Sgt. Tank Boy. Does anyone know what that night sensor system was they put around the tank? When they shot up all the deer? A Canadian film about an earlier era can be considered a war film in a sense. It was the priests versus the Indians in very early Canada. Black Robe was a terrific film, but it got little recognition. A Howard Hughes film, Hell's Angels, has been acclaimed for ages. I finally got to see it on TV a couple of weeks ago. You actually hear some swearing by the actors, which was surprising considering when it came out. Crimson Tide was bad. ------------------ Skoonj Excelsior, Fathead! --Jean Shepherd, circa 1956

Does anyone else here think Three Kings is a sort of remake of Kelley's Heroes? ------------------ Skoonj Excelsior, Fathead! --Jean Shepherd, circa 1956

I almost hate to give a conflicting view, but I will. There are many well considered messages of advice, and you can accept them all. I served eight years as an officer on active duty in the US Air Force. After that I did 15 years as an officer in the Air National Guard. I left active duty as a captain, and finished in the Guard as a lieutenant colonel. I was a scope dope at a radar site in the Ryukyu Islands (Miyako Jima), went to navigator school (had an eye problem that kept me from pilot school), became an F-4 weapon systens officer, and later an instructor navigator in C-141s. In the ANG I was an F-4 WSO for 10 years, and then public affairs officer for three. After all this experience you might expect sage advice on choosing a path through the military puzzle. All I can say is that if I were to start out again today, knowing what I do now, I would not join the Air Force or any other service. The pay is low, the hours are long, whether you learn useful skills for civilian life is an accident, you have to take crap from above as long as you stay. What's more, society has changed. Military duty now is not a requirement as it was in 1970 when I joined. My draft number was 189, and it was likely I would have been drafted. I stayed in school so when I joined I could be an officer. You do not have the pressure of a draft. Not only is military service not required, it is a drag on your civilian career. You lose from civilian advancement every year you stay in the military. Today you don't even have bosses and co-workers who will respect your service to your country. They will have contempt for you wasting your time in the service when you could have been networking in business, building a career. I suggest you go directly to college, then get into the business world. Today military service is for the clueless who don't realize how it effects their civilian prospects, for careerists, and for the self centered who want to do it because they feel it would be a fun fling before getting on with your life. Have I struck some raw nerves here? Probably, but at my age I don't mind serving as flame bait. And by the way, I didn't say I don't respect those who serve. I do. But that is not something generally shared by the civilian population. That includes those who rise to the top. Need I mention Bill Clinton? ------------------ Skoonj Excelsior, Fathead! --Jean Shepherd, circa 1956