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Greetings 405 listener!
The 405 airs over KMMR Radio Station. At 5 Minutes past 4 PM. Normally each M-F week day of the year. Here on the website we'll get it posted for you within a few hours, normally.
Your neighbor and website maintainer,
D.J. Rasmussen
I want to again welcome you to the 04:05 coffee break. Get your cup of coffee, glass of iced tea, or bottled water, and let's see what's happening out there today. You know, today, I have a treat for you from a different Life magazine. This Life magazine dated 01/10/1964, The Old Soldier Looks Back, beginning a new series by general Douglas MacArthur. Interestingly, the article came out in Life Magazine in January 1964. Okay? January 1964, General Douglas MacArthur died in April of that same year. It is a great article, but it's much too long to read it all to you on the 4:05. But I have a wonderful excerpt from that first article and we'll hear it right after our Bible verse for today.
OK Solberg:Our Bible verse is Proverbs 30 10, Do not slander a servant to his master, lest he curse you and you be held guilty. Ah, yes, do not slander a servant to his master, or in fact, do not slander anyone. Okay? And I got to share that article about General MacArthur and that Bible verse plays right into it. Okay?
OK Solberg:And I quote, On June 13, Jimmy Murdoch's birthday that's not a quote. I'll quote start again. On 06/13/1899, I enrolled at the United States Military Academy. Life West Point is rigid, disciplined, and an atmosphere of culture and learning, but all is not drudgery in this world. I worked hard and I played hard.
OK Solberg:I won my A. I became first captain of the corps and was graduated with the highest scholastic record in twenty five years. This rating has also astonished me. There were a number of my classmates who were smarter than I. I studied neither longer nor harder than others, and can only account for such a result by having had, perhaps, a somewhat clearer perspective of events, a better realization that first things come first, or perhaps it was just luck.
OK Solberg:Guys, remember, General Douglas MacArthur is writing this, his own words, and I continue to quote. Those days were different, much different. Much of the discipline of new cadets was left in the hands of upperclassmen. Hazing was practiced with a worthy objective, but with methods that were violent and uncontrolled. Congress had become aroused over a hazing incident, which had occurred a year before I entered the academy. President McKinley ordered a special court of inquiry composed of general officers, which convened in December of nineteen hundred to investigate the alleged hazing and the extent to which the plebes were subjected to such treatment.
OK Solberg:The court initially concerned itself with this case, but more recent incidents were soon investigated also. I was summoned as the principal witness in a case in which I had been the so called victim. Under questioning, I explained fully all circumstances of the matter, but refused to divulge the names of the upperclassmen involved. My father had and mother had taught me these two immutable principles, never to lie and never to tattle. But here was a desperate situation for me.
OK Solberg:If the court insisted and ordered me to reveal the names and then I refused to obey the order, it would, in all likelihood, mean my dismissal and the end of all my hopes and dreams. Who would be so easy and expedient to yield, to tell, and who would blame me? It was my first great temptation, the age old problem of the human race, the clamor of the crowd on one side and of personal conscience on the other. My mother, who was at West Point at the time, sensed the struggle raging in my soul and penned me these words in her own hand during a recess of the court. Do you know that your soul is my soul such a part that you seem to be fiber and core of my heart?
OK Solberg:None other can pain me as you can, son. None other can please me or praise me as you. Remember, the world will be quick with its blame if shadow or shame ever darken your name. Like mother like son is saying so true, the world will judge largely of mother by you. By this, then your task, if task it shall be, to force this proud world to do homage to me, be sure it will say when it's verdict you've won, she reaps as she sowed.
OK Solberg:This man is her son. I knew then what to do. Although more than sixty years have come and gone since then, I can still feel the beads of sweat on my brow, still feel feel my knees giving way under me, still feel that dreadful nausea I felt once before when I faced my competitive examination at the city hall in Milwaukee. I did my best to fend off the question, to dodge the issue, but I was no match for the shrewd old heads who sat in judgment. And then the order came short, unequivocal.
OK Solberg:At the end, I grew weak and pleaded for mercy that my whole life's hope lay in being in an officer that always I had been with the colors, that my father then on the battle line, 10,000 miles away, was the commander, that I would suffer anything in way of punishment but not to strip me of my uniform, and then I could go on no longer. I heard the old soldier who presided over the court say, Court is recessed. Take him to his quarters. For hours, I waited for that dread step of the commander coming to put me into arrest, but it never came. The names were obtained through other means, and I never again was I to be in doubt about doing what I thought to be right.
OK Solberg:And there I end the quote. End of this episode. If you like to read the article in its entirety, just ask me. I have the whole life magazine. Gotta run, guys.
OK Solberg:So until next time, as you go out there, remember now, don't be bitter.