Newspaper Page Text
ROTC
There’s a lot more to the ROTC
program at Griffin High School
than drilling and holding inspec
tions. These are just two parts of
a program.
So explained Maj. Gus Pelt,
director of the Griffin High unit,
when he discussed the program.
"Presently we are teaching
21 different subjects ranging
weapons safety and range fir
ing,” the director explained.
Classroom instruction is a ma
jor part of the military program.
Griffin High has completed its
third year in the ROTC field.
Getting such a program is no
small undertaking, the major
explained.
"I was present at a meeting
at Ft. McPherson shortly after
arriving here and found that Gr
iffin High School was picked for
a unit ahead of 140 other schools.
Some of these schools had appli
cations in for as much as seven
years ahead of Griffin. Some
still have not received a unit."
ROTC is going through some
pretty bad times now at s om e
colleges and universities and
Maj. Pelt said the discontent has
spilled over into some high sc
hools. Not so at Griffin High. He
said that community and school
support of the program here is
one of the highest marks on the
federal inspection
While some programs are tin
ker fire, he explained there
continues to be ..
for them. So far only three sc
hools have dropped the program
but literally hundreds of schools
th-o'J' T hout the country are eag
erly awaiting the opportunity to
an ROTC unit, the major
said. In fact, ther eare 42 new
GOTO u"its starting in the ’69-70
s.-bool vear in the seven s tat e
Third Army area with headquar
ters at Ft. McPherson.
There’s a saying at the Grif
fin High military department
that “somebody up there likes
us,” Maj. Pelt continued.
When th° unit 0
Army officials about something
it needs, the request is being fill
ed almost beto.e w.w - —-•« J
conversation ends, he said.
"We decided in early March
that we’re large enough to sup
port our own military band. I
sat down and prepared a letter
requesting my budget for the
coming school year be increas
ed by an additional SIO,OOO to ob
tain the instruments for the
band. In less than 60 days the
increase had been approved,
bids had been let, studied and
approved and we actually had
the requested instruments on
hand. We don’t know who is go
ing to play these Instruments but
' ' * • 3 • • - • * ■*
gpiffim
NEWS
MAGAZINE
Griffin, Go., 30223, Saf. and Sun., July 12-13, 1969
It’s Not All Drilling
• r • ©»cw inc.
at least we have them on hand.”
He continued:
“In our curriculum we have a
block of instruction on one of the
largest weapons presently em
ployed by the military but we
were unable to teach it because
of the unavailability of the wea
pon. We phoned Fort McPherson
and told them we "needed a 106
mm cannon to teach but were
unable to get one. It wasn’t 48
hours later that a Georgia High
way Express truck backed up to
the Military Department and
unloaded a 106 mm gun with all
its accessories.
"The weapon is 12 feet 1 on g
and weighs 560 pounds. Our
arms storage area is.eight feet
wide and 10 feet long. We d id
manage to find a place for it
and continue our instructions.
"We only hope now that they
don’t put a 60-ton tank in our
curriculum,” Maj. Pelt smiled.
Discipline has not been a big
problem in the program, Maj.
Pelt said.
Parents of students have co
operated.
He explained:
"Last week I had one parent
approach me and ask what we
are going to do about the haircut
problem. Now we don’t consider
this our problem but that of the
parents, themselves.” The par
ent went so far as to say that i f
his son needed a haircut, we had
his permission to get a bowl and
a pair of clippers and cut it
ourselves.
“Now this kind of thing wi 11
never do. In fact, we never out
our hands on a student. W° have
found that the hardest thing for
a student to do is give un some
of his free time after school. So
each day a student comes in
needing a haircut, receives two
demerits. . . Each demerit re
quires a half hour of hard work
in the Military Department af
ter school.”
A cadet with a haircut pro
blem or any other personal dis
cipline problem pretty soon sha
pes up under these conditions,
Maj. Pelt said.
The military director said that
the ROTC program was not ne
cessarily training young men for
careers in the Armed Forces. He
said the skills and training ac
quired in the program would
help students in any walk of
life.
If they Just happen to like the
military life, then their training
will put them a few Jumps ah
ead of the other fellow, the 25-
year-Army veteran said.
rj #CV¥ | NC
Never Too Late!
SUNBURY, PA. (UPI)
— Mrs. Elsie K. Friedel
obtained her fishing
license here recently — at
the age of 82.
A widow, Mrs. Friedel
lives with Mrs. Gladis
Maurer, a clerk in the
Northumberland County
Court House. Mrs. Friedel
said that Mrs. Maurer, an
avid fisherman for years,
induced her to take up the
sport.
Childish?
The PTA magazine
relates this one: Child
wrote a note to God and
asked for SIOO. Letter got
to postmaster in the
nation’s capital. He sent
$5. Boy replied: “Dear
God, thanks for the
money. But next time,
don’t send it through
Washington. They took 95
per cent.”
BOOKS
Robert Kennedy, A Memoir,
by Jack Newfield.
(E.P. Dutton, $6.95)
What was Robert Kennedy
really like? That question,
which loomed so large in the
brief, unique political career of
the murdered senator, has a
poignancy now, but many of us
still wonder.
Newfield, a magazine writer,
Kennedy friend and columnist
for a Greenwich Village news
paper, lias excellent credentials
for revealing part of the answer.
Ilis descriptive analysis of
Kennedy’s public and semi-pub
lic self in the four years until
1968 seems to explain many
shadowy aspects of this com
plex, contradictory man.
More than that, he details
the metamorphosis of Hobby,
the moralistic Puritan, to
Kennedy, the sensitive hero of
America’s younger generation.
He observes that Kennedy, in
his rejection of the Vietnam
war and in his obsession with
the violent domestic crisis,
moved “beyond liberalism” to
become a bemused but unre
lenting apostle of the “new poli
tics” of the mid-19605.
N< :wfield, admitting he can
not be neutral about RFK, des
cribed the senator as “quite like
ly the last mainstream politi
cian of his generation” who
could bridge the gap between
white and black America.
Alimony ’Cheats'
Get the Jug
CAIRO (UPI) — More than
67,000 Egyptians face
imprisonment for failure to pay
alimony, according to the
Ministry of Justice.
The ministry said a majority
of divorced women here ask for
imprisonment of their former
husbands who fail to pay
alimony decided by the courts.
In addition to the 67,000
males who already face
imprisonment on charges
brought by irate former wives,
the ministry said 43,000 other
women were deciding whether
to follow this course.
Still Hungry in America, text
by Robert Coles and photo
graphs hy Al Clayton.
(NAI,-World, $6.95)
If anyone doubts the value
of-- or reason behind - the
current furor over congressional
investigations into hunger in the
United States, here’s a sobering
book.
Robert Coles, a staff psychia
trist at Harvard University’s
Health Services section, has
worked with poor and hungry
in the rural South. Al Clayton
comes from a small copper min
ing town in Tennessee. Poverty
and its tragic effects - squalor,
disease, twisted youngsters and
living tragedy, among others -
are nothing new to them.
I hey’ve blended their talents
for a hard-hitting book that
documents the situation in many
sections of the country. They
concentrated on the South and
Appalachia, but the poor and
hunger run coast to coast, bor
der to border, in ibis prosper
ous nation.
It’s not a long book -- 128
pages -- but it gets its point
across. About as subtly as a
punch in the teeth. Rut this
is not a subject for subtlety.
Clayton’s photographs por
tray the tragic coruntion, which
is underscored by the resigna
tion even on the faces of the
children. Coles’ narrative makes
it even more emphatic.