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| An Honest Confession of an American Coward | |
| 2006-11-16 | |
The true things always ambush me on the road and take me by surprise when I am drifting down the light of placid days, careless about flanks and rearguard actions. I was not looking for a true thing to come upon me in the state of New Jersey. Nothing has ever happened to me in New Jersey. But came it did, and it came to stay. In the past four years I have been interviewing my teammates on the 1966-67 basketball team at the Citadel for a book I'm writing. For the most part, this has been like buying back a part of my past that I had mislaid or shut out of my life. At first I thought I was writing about being young and frisky and able to run up and down a court all day long, but lately I realized I came to this book because I needed to come to grips with being middle-aged and having ripened into a gray-haired man you could not trust to handle the ball on a fast break. When I visited my old teammate Al Kroboth's house in New Jersey, I spent the first hours quizzing him about his memories of games and practices and the screams of coaches that had echoed in field houses more than 30 years before. Al had been a splendid forward-center for the Citadel; at 6 feet 5 inches and carrying 220 pounds, he played with indefatigable energy and enthusiasm. For most of his senior year, he led the nation in field-goal percentage, with UCLA center Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabar) hot on his trail. Al was a battler and a brawler and a scrapper from the day he first stepped in as a Green Weenie as a sophomore to the day he graduated. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #11 Who can say it better than The Bard? We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day. |
| Posted by: Mark E. 2006-11-16 16:48 |
| #10 I have come to a conclusion about my country that I knew then in my bones but lacked the courage to act on: America is good enough to die for even I don't think our country was wrong to go there, it was very truely mismanaged from DC after we got there. What a great confession, i Don't really hold the 20 year olds accountable as much as I hold the politico's accountable for their lack of understanding of total war and some lost concept of managing a war. |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2006-11-16 13:08 |
| #9 Conroy gets my forgiveness when he goes to schools and gives speeches on making the right choice and the effect of making the right choice, and does an in-your-face to the communist teachers he stumbles across. |
| Posted by: wxjames 2006-11-16 12:32 |
| #8 Now if I could see this sort of confession from the rest of the left that is preparing to backstab the military and the nation again via a wanton acto fo cowardice in Iraq... |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2006-11-16 10:18 |
| #7 The prodigal son returns. . . "How many times must we forgive our neighbors Lord?" and Jesus replies; " I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven." Mat 18:22 |
| Posted by: GORT 2006-11-16 09:27 |
| #6 Amen, JFM. I applaud him for such introspection and repentance. A more respectable man on the "left" side of the fence we could not find right now. |
| Posted by: BA 2006-11-16 09:04 |
| #5 It was not merely about the treason to America but also about the terrible price paid by the Vietanmese and Cambodians after people like him managed to get America abandonning them. But at least this guy repents for his errors. That makes still more loathsome teh Kerrys, and Jand Fondas who made Cambodian genocide possible and are proud of it. |
| Posted by: JFM 2006-11-16 08:56 |
| #4 confession is good for the soul. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-11-16 08:39 |
| #3 Amazing, powerful . . . welcome back, Mr. Conroy. |
| Posted by: Mike 2006-11-16 06:33 |
#2 Pat Conroy also gave a great eulogy for his father, Col. Don Conroy, USMC:His Black Sheep squadron is the first to reach the Korean Theater [in 1950] and American ground troops had been getting torn up by North Korean regulars. Let me do it in his voice: And this about his mother: During the Cuban Missile Crisis, my mother took me out to the air station where we watched Dad's squadron scramble on the runway on their bases at Roosevelt Road and Guantanamo. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2006-11-16 04:51 |
| #1 At least Conroy has the guts to make such an honest self-appraisal. Many people go through their entire lives without spending a single moment enduring such candid introspection, not to mention publishing it for all to see. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-11-16 04:21 |