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Page 18 text:
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V I Commencement 1944. A joint ceremony held with the Army and Navy. After the ceremony, all but a dozen or so members of the class left, two years and nine months after their arrival in Cambridge. The history of our Class does not end here. This somewhat gloomy story of life in an Ivory Tower during war, 18 represents the experiences of no more than one-fourth of the members of the Class. Here is a record of life in the armed forces as experienced by most of us, and the reactions of one Harvard man to it: 'Hut toop threep foh! Pick up the step. Hut . . . hut . . . hut . . . hut hut ho. Pick it up, settle the step, left, left, left right left . . . hut toop threep foh! Whassarnatta, didn' Harvard teach ya yer right from yer left? Hut toop threep foh, laut, dammit, bat. At first, quite a few of us wondered whether or not we did know our right from our left. As members of the Class of 1945, we had never paid particular attention to this subtle distinction between two equally useful feet, nor had we harshly discriminated against the right by always stepping off with the left. Things were different now. Yes, very different. Most of us, whether by land or by sea, were far removed from the red brick buildings and the white towers of the college: our quarters now were barracks, fo'c'sles, pup tents, often the open air. Gone was our sherry- loving biddy, we made our own bunks, slung our own ham- mocks, dug our own foxholes, and only stared incredulously at the rookie who inquired for 'clean sheetsf Only memories were the House dining halls and their meat menus, now it was 'Chowl Chowl' sounding over the ravenous clanking of a thousand mess kits. Extinct and almost forgotten were tweed coat, grey flannels and club tie, on every side, as far as the eye could see, everyone was stylishly garbed in the G.I. ensemble, olive drab coat and pants to match. The life was far, far different from anything any of us had ever experienced, there were many changes and many new things. 'C'est la guerre,' we philosophized, and shrugged our shoulders while trying to feel nonchalant about it all. The shrug did not come off very well, due to a slight matter of a 60-pound light pack, but we said 'C'est la guerre, anyway, and looked wise about it Qas wise as anyone can look in G.I. shoesj, after all, we were still men of Harvard. Strangely enough, there was a good deal to that 'men of Harvard' phrase, more than we had perhaps ever realized. It was an almost subconscious, indehnable feeling, something that made us square our shoulders when, out on parade, the band by chance played 'Our Director., We came to be proud of the name of Harvard, even though we were not graduates and had never received our degrees, we were twice as proud as any graduate. Q We suddenly began to appreciate the advantage and the value of a higher education, we learned what President Conant meant when he said, lEducation is what is left after you have forgotten all you have learnedf Few of us remem- bered the date of the Hartford Convention or what an atavar is in the Hindu religion, but the habits of study and concen- tration, the intellectual acquisitiveness, the ambition to outdistance stagnation and the co-ordinated mental and physi- cal means of accomplishing this-all these we brought with us from Harvard, to put to use in the service of our country.
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Page 17 text:
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struction. Some liked it, some did not, the girls did. The clubs had to close their restaurants, the Hasty Pudding became an Off1cer's Club, and the Signet Society was turned Red Cross. The Advorate was inactive, and the Service Newt, the wartime Crimson, was an editorialless semi- weekly, full of publicity handouts from the Chaplains' School, and columns devoted to the love life of the Ensigns in the Yard. The Lampoon put out only a few issues, and the Dram- atic Club was silent. Only the Postwar Council and the Crim- son Network remained anything like their former selves. The pattern of our college life during the summer and after was therefore made up mainly of work and reminiscences. '45ers grew closer together as Harvard became a small college, and mourned the loss of the good old days together. Radcliffe took a major role in social life. Few events of importance penetrated the summer heat. Onjuly 24th, Gunder Hagg broke the American record for the mile at Soldiers Field in 41055, which was exciting for the track fan, but meant little to the majority. Down at Fort Bragg, a softball team of '45 ROTC men, going through basic training, met and defeated a similar crew of Yalies twice, over to the Harvard's last wartime sports victories over the Blue. At the end of August, student palates refused to accept any more powdered eggs, and a revolt spread through the civilian Houses. Many said they hadnlt seen a piece of red meat in weeks. Whether because of the food or in spite of it, a riot broke out as a mob marched on Radcliffe to protect the girls from some thieves who had been operating in Cabot Hall. Unfortunately the demonstration was held under the window of the local police chief, and the whole idea died a quick death. Winston Churchill, cigar and all, provided the event of the summer as he unexpectedly dropped in to pick up an honorary degree. There was, all this time, considerable student agitation for a Yale football game, informal team or no informal team, but in the face of Dean's Office and ODT opposition, the movement made little headway. As the summer waned and the accustomed coffee began to replace milk and iced-tea at Hayes-Bick, student life revived a bit. The Advocate announced its resurrection with the usual Punch. A long overdue Russian issue was the sole fruit of this abortive Renaissance, and the Bow Street- journal bowed out for the duration. The HDC woke up and started producing again, and the Lazmpoon elected Bob Ward president as Mac Osborne left college. The football team, informal and largely unskilled labor, coached by Henry Lamar, defeated an overconiident Camp Edwards team and lost to Worcester Polytechnic Institute Qsicj. Only 859 civilian students, mostly freshmen, returned for the winter semester in November, but those '45ers who were left welcomed back our Mil Sci delegation, which lived in Winthrop until january. The football team, strengthened by Paul Perkins and his younger brother, Rod, beat Edwards again, lost a close one to Tufts, and saved the University from being torn apart brick by brick, by tying Boston College, 6 to 6. Dick Mechem tried to start a hockey team, but the H.A.A. turned thumbs down, and Dean Hennessy was not enough to save the basketball team from weekly shellackings, including one by Yale, as the cold, wet, and now lonesome Cambridge winter settled down upon us. Taking advantage of the presence of several uniformed editors on leave in Cambridge, a special issue of the Crimson was sent to 13,000 alumni on December 7th, bringing back a touch of a very remote past to Harvard men in the armed forces. Our thinning ranks were cut in half when the hrst 95 members of our class to graduate, left the University without ceremony in February. The winter seemed slower and more tedious than ever, and Harvard began to be a place to get out of as soon as possible. On the other hand a few classmates came back from the Army, including Third Marshal Mike Keene, and small signs of a return to normalcy were pathetic- ally welcomed. Symbolically, the Yard, which had been turned into a dust bowl by thousands of Navy feet, was reseeded, and by Commencement time was green again. The Dramatic Club, produced Syngeis Playboy Of The Western World, with Radcliffe in the best 'mfr gmtiaz affix, tradition. In May, as injanuary, theses and divisionals began to make their appearance as topics of conversation. Onjune 29th, 62 degrees were awarded to members of the class at a real pre-war style Commencement shared with the military. Actually it seemed to have been held mainly for the publicity value of the 5000 certificates being awarded to members of the Army and Navy studying at Harvard. Renaissance! The Yard is reseeded.
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