University of North Carolina Chapel Hill - Yackety Yack Yearbook (Chapel Hill, NC)

Page 10 text:

V. HIS YEAR at Carolina has been different — the glamour of college life faded as hard work hit us with a bang. Study schedules were speeded up, the War College made its appearance, and the rah-rah days on the Carolina campus as we had known them before, were gone for the duration. The war got tough, draft boards got tougher, and the end of each quarter saw more of the fellows with whom we ' ve studied and played leave for more serious business. But even as our war program gained momentum an d the Tar Heel blue and white became red, white and blue, there were enough of us imbued with the fun-loving spirit to keep Carolina fairly much the five-ring circus that it had always been. Those of us who saw little chance of staying in school long enough to earn our diplomas vacilated between buck- ling down for a last try, or cramming enough fun into our days R Year Rt Chapel

Page 9 text:

It represented a bond with the fellow from across the street or from the room down the hall who was fighting on the sands of Buna Beach or at the approaches to Tunis and Bizerte. And we sacrificed. Gone was the Chapel Hour or Bull Period, the mid-morning respite that had been a Carolina tradition for generations. No longer did sun, coke and chatter warm light-hearted students as they basked on the steps of South building. And we did more than sacrifice. We shared and cooperated. We moved in with the three fellows across the hall when the University needed the room that we had held for years. We took phys. ed. in the morning, in the early afternoon — at any time convenient to the Pre-Flight School. We cut our Saturday night dating down to a minimum to give the boys in khaki down in our old quadrangles a chance. We stood in line downtown when the Navy took over our dining hall. We studied in dimly classrooms when a shortage of labor forced us to close the library e We played mural games at night in order to facilitate the Navy program And we spent our week-ends in Chapel Hill when treks to Durham, Raleigh, W. C. and points homeward were r ) s ' impracticable bee of overcrowded transportation facilities. v|i ,x0 Then there was the rush toward graduatui W ' onicd seniors crei many an anxious brow over Central Record ' s ues, sdj ' sp era t el y that another quarter coidd be shorn from th MalJciir- ' Ji sc Draft boards were uncompromising ; Army and Na ) Bserve Socials woidd wait for no graduation; and many saw what wai once ciA ecure diploma slip sickeningly beyond their grasp when they were a ' Hfta arms i?fif a few mo7tths too soon. The victory train wouldn ' t m tJtn tmie and it ' was off to the wars with a grin and a hope that we ' d bcS soou Much of the spirit of old was gone. Students } rjJ0 and worried. Parties were fewer because party boys found they hl0 ass to get out before they were caught in the draft. There was a nWTdynamic tension that took the place of the old, easy goin ' Hey! How are you? concept. It swept a hundred traditions before it, established a thousand precedents. But it was a tonic; good for us; good for the University and good for the nation. Carolina was not content to hide its share of the nation ' s responsibil- ity behind academic robes. It shifted its gears to a faster speed and for a while many of the cogs clashed and a few were broken. But the challenge was met and conquered. Where once was careless laughter, the chilling grin of determination was fixed. The University went to war.

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and nights to last us for the long fight we had ahead. The race was a close one and we had to work and play harder and faster. And so the tempo of life at Carolina hit a new high. Many memories of our last year will later come back to us — the endless gloomy Mon- day mornings after a week-end that was too big, the long fall when we waited for a vic- tory over Duke, the hours of phys- ical education and the obstacle course, the futility of trying to study in the Library at night, the booths at Marley ' s and Harry ' s, Professor Smith ' s 1:30 lab, the hours we spent in registration lines, conferences with our deans, the urgent letters from the draft board back home, the last fare- wells as we dragged our suitcase toward the bus station. Hill But no matter how or when we left, some day each of us would find the way back to Chapel Hill.