tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890005401873315247.post3210359022008304260..comments2024-02-24T00:45:43.708-08:00Comments on The VU Centennial Class: Vietnam--Volume IIPathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01814112133335823517noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890005401873315247.post-14811622603533485302008-10-08T19:06:00.000-07:002008-10-08T19:06:00.000-07:00Pat,You've got to get a life man. You're living i...Pat,<BR/><BR/>You've got to get a life man. You're living in 1970 and 2008 at once.<BR/><BR/>Your Vietnam postings prompted the memory of the 10-15-1969 moratorium and the Kent State Shootings.<BR/><BR/>I posted way back when about the fact that all of us in Chemistry 101 had our midterm on October 15, 1969. Needless to say even yours truly, later to be the King of the Skip, was there in the Science Center with my trusty Blue Book.<BR/><BR/>After the test I came up and watched fascinated as the UPI machine (affectionally nicknamed Fred) spewed out reams of news from around the world. Every hour it came out with a "World News Update" a perfectly concise view of the world's news that made for a flawless "rip and read" newscast.<BR/><BR/>Naturally when your shift ended and my shift began, instead of the "World News Update" Fred disgorged "The World New Roundup". The difference was the "World News Roundup" was designed for stations that had a thirty minute evening news block, and by the time it was time to give my first newscast of the late afternoon shift (3:20), only one story (on the moratorium) had "cleared the wire." <BR/><BR/>For anybody listening that day at 3:20, that one story WAS the news, the ONLY news!<BR/><BR/>The date of the Kent State shootings, I remember coming up the stairs to find you looking positively ashen! Your sandwich from home and 10 cent 10 ounce Coke practically untouched. (That told me something was terribly wrong,) I remember you just pointing at the UPI machine and not saying a word. <BR/><BR/>At 2:20 when the news stinger went off, you pulled on your headset, turned on the mic, and told the campus what had happened just a few minutes before in Ohio. After the newscast, you spoke for the first time, telling me to tape and monitor ABC at the bottom of the hour to see with they had any actualities (real people telling the story first hand). Then and only then did you utter something about "that could have happened anywhere, even here!"<BR/><BR/>Then we turned back to our work, we were Freshmen, but we were newsmen, and we had less than 15 minutes to pull off the next 20-20 newscast. We did it for the rest of the afternoon and then turned it over to God. By the time I dropped you off at your house the news was over, but we felt there might be a special on TV that night.<BR/><BR/>Things were different back in 1970.<BR/><BR/>Steve Womack<BR/>Wrvu73@Cox.netUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07330241942203851434noreply@blogger.com