Ben Stein's Diary: West Point Recognition
Stein, Benjamin J.
A R Y by Benjamin J. Stein West Point Recognition Tuesday W e've not much longer here to stay, I For in a month or two, I We'll bid farewell to cay-det grey, I And don the Army Blue. I know...
...Representatives of the various classes presented USMA with giant blow-ups of alumni donation checks...
...It must have been impossible fighting in that cold...
...They looked, in fact, like an ad for a military academy...
...He has not killed anyone, is far happier when playing than not, and far calmer, too...
...Then a long hike back to our car, past faculty houses all decorated with "Beat Navy...
...I cannot even imagine such bravery," I said...
...I think I was the only one in the room weeping, except possibly for a few widows...
...17 danced...
...Back to a smaller matter: Yes, video games are far from perfect...
...When we got out of our car and started to walk towards the parade grounds, cadet after cadet snapped off a crisp salute and many said, "Wow, I had no idea you were a grad...
...He plays on it, communicates with other online players and plays against them, and has his own community of fellow players and online enthusiasts...
...Still, he stood straight and tall and did a fine review as the corps came by, eyes right, standards lowered in respect...
...That's so kind...
...We would alternate being the girl...
...Thank you for standing up to the Communists in Korea, freezing and getting cut to pieces at Chosin and still holding on in the first battle of the Cold War...
...So the boy stays inside and reads and then plays video games from discs and online...
...He really has only one close friend, and that's his video game...
...On the other hand, I have not seen a single reliable study by any impartial group saying that video games do cause harm to children or lead them to violence...
...Weren't you terrified...
...Denman pointing out the headstones of friends and classmates...
...They wore neat white trousers and carried M-14's, standards, and flags...
...By the way, may I ask what in heaven's holy name has gotten into my fellow Republicans on this whole subject of culture and violence...
...We were well trained," he said, "and I was very busy trying to see, so I didn't really feel any way but that I wanted to get that thing on the ground...
...Thank you for digging up letters from our third grade teachers telling us how cute we were when we were eight...
...Amazing...
...We help each other stay warm...
...It was getting even more ridiculously cold...
...She was a marathon runner and as sweet as could be...
...Thank you fathers, it's your day today and every day...
...And we never were safe...
...You can't imagine how lonely," she said...
...That's the provideo-game evidence...
...But I was so proud and happy in my subterfuge that I, terrified even of loud noises, might be thought of as a USMA grad, that I secretly gloated...
...I couldn't see through the windscreen, and I had to slide back the canopy and waggle the plane from side to side so I could see out to land...
...An announcer gave the names of each of the companies as it marched by, and the name of the captain of each company...
...Vith to push the Germans back to Germany...
...No one was wearing huge jewelry...
...None of them seems to me to be made crazy by the games and in fact, they seem to me to be calmer, happier, and to have found a home and a community within the video-game world...
...He lived with his amazingly young-looking wife in Scottsdale, near a son who was a motivational speaker...
...Thank you for helping us get our summer jobs and helping us with the down payment on our first house...
...So he's alone a lot, especially at night...
...I asked him about his career...
...We were trying to keep them in the pocket and force them back to Germany...
...Thank you for marching against segregation and getting spit on and hosed down and put in jail so that all of your children of all colors could live with dignity if they chose to...
...I sat at the table with my father-in-law, his wonderful wife, Sue, and my wifie and son...
...Lo and Bastogne, and freezing, starving, and still fighting at St...
...They turned out smartly and then stood casually on the edge of the parade grounds while we family members sat in some very Spartan bleachers...
...But it was a fighting retreat by the Germans, and they fought very well...
...BENJAMIN J. STEIN is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Hollywood and Malibu...
...He was about 90, I would guess, or maybe a bit older...
...We walked past a magnificent overlook on the Hudson, and past many cadets who saw my Class of 1944 button and saluted...
...They marched magnificently to their positions...
...Seated next to me was a handsome fellow named "Mike" Malloy...
...Well, maybe a video game of Samson slaying ten thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, or the Romans crucifying thousands of renegade slaves or The Angel of Death killing the firstborn of Pharaoh's Egypt...
...Thank you for sending me to summer camp in the cool Poconos...
...Anyway, we rushed over to the parade ground just as Colonel Denman, my father-in-law, and his class were marching in wearing blazers and slacks and black cotton hats, and looking extremely distinguished...
...There was also a certain amount of bragging by the donors about the size of their gifts...
...Thank you for holding back the Japanese at Corregidor, for spotting the Japanese carriers off Midway and sinking them and turning the tide in the war, for slugging it out toe-to-toe with the Japanese at Okinawa, for fighting and dying when Kamikazes attacked, for fighting with the SS hand-to-hand at St...
...Thank you for letting your grandchildren turn your homes upside down and biting your lip and telling us how cute they are when they are eight...
...Tyranny always comes with the trumpet of protecting someone—but rarely has the trumpet given a more uncertain sound...
...Then the corps returned splendidly to their barracks—made of a solid, imposing stone...
...The finale came when the oldest graduate present, a Colonel Royal, class of 193o, emerged from his walker to review In a clear, distinguished voice with the good kind of Arkansas accent he read out their names...
...I think Benedict Arnold had some connection with it, but I might be mistaken...
...I see it a lot, too, because this boy plays a great deal in two-player games with my son...
...I motioned for her to come sit with us and she did...
...Thank you for showing me how a power drill works, and how to open a combination lock, and how to tie a Windsor knot, and where Brooks Brothers is...
...How do you sleep when you're so cold and the Germans are trying to kill you...
...How could I have been so lucky as to not have ever been in combat...
...But the day after he died I got a call from Colonel Morrison, who's the head of the class association and he told me he had heard 'Nick' died...
...When I am old and alone or my wife is old and alone, who would call from the Emmies and keep us company...
...But we're here not for the hotel, but to see the class of 1944, their wives and children and grandchildren, and to add our homage to that of a grateful nation...
...They vote with their feet and hands and wallets and eyeballs and lifetimes that they like and benefit from the play of video games...
...I sat with my father-in-law, who is, as usual, the handsomest fellow in the room, and his former roommate, and a man named Colonel Farris...
...But if I were in trouble, who at the Emmies ceremony would risk his life for me...
...We help each other stay alive...
...What I kept thinking that night was that the reunion of these superb heroes was being held out of sight of TV cameras, in a large but obscure hotel in Mahwah, New Jersey, with no one paying much attention...
...The boasting about money was so wildly wrong for a military academy I could hardly believe my eyes and ears...
...That Emmy is a grand statue and I love her, but the really noble trophy is even a small swatch of Army Blue...
...Thank you for not cursing aloud at us when we wore our hair down to our shoulders and sneered at you for being bour54 August 1999 The American Spectator geois while we took your money to go to graduate school...
...The food was nondescript, but the grads of 1994 looked great...
...By then I was deep in tears...
...USMA, if it's about anything different from other fine colleges, is not about bragging about money...
...It was such a big haul that we got a Presidential Unit Citation...
...I had on a large pin that said BEN STEINUSMA CLASS OF 1944...
...I danced many dances with my beautiful wifie...
...The Germans were trying to break out of the pocket and spread out to make life hard for us...
...With it, with the community of people who play it with him, he is part of a group...
...Wake up, GOP, you're supposed to be about freedom...
...The men who had passed in their final review were members of the Corps...
...Isn't that a long way from Okinawa...
...It wasn't like in a movie where all the men know each other...
...And what would they replace Final Fantasy or Pod Racer with...
...I'm not," I kept saying to them...
...How could I have been so lucky as to never have to face anyone trying to kill me...
...Bear in mind that psychology workers are as eager to earn money as anyone else...
...His mother is far from a homebody and often leaves him alone...
...People were demure and well behaved...
...In the distance, I could see an old stone fort high on a hill...
...The boy's Mom is not always around, and his Hollywood, California neighborhood is not completely safe...
...We have not forgotten and we see you in ourselves when we tell our sons to turn off the lights because they burn non-renewable resources and tell our daughters that the boy who sits next to them in school doesn't really mean it when he calls her stupid—and that we'll smack him if he does it again...
...His father, who was a close friend, died in an accident about three years ago...
...Aren't Republicans supposed to want a smaller role for the federal government...
...I was in Europe during the Battle of the Bulge, or as some called it, the Battle of the Ardennes...
...Well, back to my room for a nap, and then down to the big dinner dance of the Class of 1944...
...Thank you, fathers...
...They had a lot of artillery, and they made it all count...
...There was a fine small band playing Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller tunes...
...I really have absolutely no claim to that kind of distinction or honor...
...One day we had quite an adventure," he told me...
...Vith at the northern end of the pocket the Germans had made...
...I was impressed at how well the men and women of the Class of 194444 But if I were in trouble, who at the Emmies ceremony would risk his life for me...
...Thank you for living in miserable solitude without your families in arctic bases and in equatorial heat for no money, guarding us while we played at swimming pools and pretended we were tough because we smoked weeds that were not good for us...
...Saturday W hen I hear talk about how evil video games are and how they hurt young people and ruin their lives, I often think of a young man I know who lives in a modest home in North Idaho...
...But some did and we got them, too...
...There were speeches of welcome, and then a few off-key notes...
...But tactically, it was hell...
...The first event was a barbecue...
...Well, they were on a training mission," said Colonel Farris...
...I wasn't at Bastogne...
...When the men got killed, I didn't even know their names...
...Then a tour of the West Point cemetery, with Col...
...From out of the portals of the main building at West Point came the corps of cadets, dressed very smartly in gray jackets and hats, some plumed more than others...
...But trying to say they are Satan's toy, or that they are violence motivators, is pure pseudo-science...
...As you can imagine, my eyes were overflowing with tears at this kind of story, but I managed to say, "That's incredibly moving...
...That's standard for this class...
...They will and can produce a report taking either side of the video-game debate for a fee...
...Father's Day D ear Fathers: Thank you for keeping Mom company while she changed our diapers...
...Thank you for telling us that recessions do not go on forever and neither does inflation, and we won't always live from paycheck to paycheck...
...When my wife and I got married, he gave me, among many other things, a record of Army songs like "Army Blue" and "Benny Havens, Oh...
...Good Lord, I thought to myself...
...How on earth would we avoid an Ayatollah's America if we had a law making it a federal crime to show videos with violence to young people...
...Saying that they amuse, divert, and even psychologically bind up the wounds of the lonely youth ofAmerica has powerful evidence of commerce and emotion behind it...
...We're staying at the Mahwah Crossroads Sheraton, which is a far cry from the world's classiest hotel, New York's Essex House, which put us up during the Emmies...
...It's very trying," he said...
...What Democrat has ever proposed an expansion of government powers even close to as large...
...This is America the way it was when it all worked right...
...You must be very lonely," I said...
...The Germans were always doing that, shelling behind our lines just to keep us off balance...
...I know that song well...
...Young people love them: To take them away for no reason at all is just mean and foolish...
...Then, off for a heart-rending moment: the reading of the roll of absent friends from the class of 1944 in the Old Chapel...
...They cost a lot and the new machines are always coming out and I have to buy them anyway...
...We got word that the Japanese had built some airfields near Seoul, Korea, or Kanjung, as the Japanese called it...
...Amazing...
...The sermon was by a chaplain who was not from the class, but who spoke well because briefly...
...We caught a whole squadron of Japanese planes in mid-air...
...The anti-videogame evidence is...well, let us say, the opinions and prejudices of people who do not play and do not enjoy video games—utterly unconnected to any real-world evidence with scientific backing...
...He seemed to be there alone, and indeed he was, since he was a widower...
...Why didn't you parachute out...
...I hope I'm spelling this right...
...Thank you for coming home and not hating us...
...A chill breeze kept whipping off the river over all of us...
...To use them to try to establish a cultural dictatorship and abolish the Constitution is terrifying...
...John Eisenhower, Ike's son, was there and I tried to tell him I was a friend and admirer of Julie and David Eisenhower, but he was deep in conversation with someone else...
...He's i and he's a fine young fellow, although often surrounded by young people who are not quite as fine...
...I knew he had to be from my husband's class at West Point because that's the only place they ever called him 'Nick.' He said I was a member of the class, too, and he wanted me to come to every occasion...
...The Emmies had been on national TV and we stayed in the palatial Essex House, and were driven everywhere in limousines—and all for doing safe, warm, well-paid work...
...Then, back home to our hotel, with yours truly deep in thought...
...I think even Tommy senses the gravitas of the room...
...Thank you for building the interstate highways and the Washington Beltway and the suburbs and Sligo Creek Park and the Kennedy Center...
...Bad luck," Colonel Denman said, and never has the phrase been said more truly...
...It was amazingly cold considering it was late May...
...I got there after the Germans had been stopped and turned back...
...I wandered from table to table looking at the men and their families...
...That was the problem...
...My father-in-law's class and 1939 were far more diffident, which I appreciated...
...To make a long story short, Colonel Farris went into the Army Air Corps when he left West Point in the summer of 1944...
...Then they awaited orders to march according to various speeds and drills, and then to music from famous marches...
...Thank you for inventing penicillin and the Salk vaccine and the Sabin vaccine and heart transplants and angioplasty and air-conditioning and color TV...
...Without that game, he would be miserably lonely, desperate, and sad...
...In fact, I see a great many young people playing...
...Thank you for driving me to my first date in eighth grade and reminding me to walk my date to the door and tell her I had a nice time...
...Or perhaps other videos allowed by the government's Department of Fun, approved by the House of Representatives and the Children's Defense Fund...
...It was standard," he said, and then he started to talk about his daughter in New England, who was obviously very important to him...
...Trim, fit, enthusiastic, alert, well-dressed...
...That was enough to know...
...He went on to liberate Gunstkirchenlager concentration camp, and he gleams with greatness in my eyes...
...Thank you for explaining to us how to do our taxes and warning us not to get in over our heads with credit cards...
...Most of them or at least some of them didn't even have ammunition for their guns...
...A woman in late middle age sat near us looking sad and lonely...
...He was sent to a small island called, if I have the spelling right, leshima, right next to Okinawa, where there was a fine airfield for use in attacking the Empire of Japan...
...We help each other walk...
...Strategically, the Germans were beaten...
...And then, with great relief, families and grads went into the immense mess hall for a lavish lunch...
...As I have said before, my father-in-law saw violent sustained combat in Europe and in Vietnam...
...What could we ever do to repay our debt to them...
...We drove from W Mahwah to West Point along windy, confusing roads, got lost once, and then came to West Point...
...I lost two men who had just joined my unit from a German shell that landed about a quarter mile behind the lines...
...My wife had on a similar pin...
...What madness came over the GOP in Congress to think they would serve freedom and the Constitution by taking a totally unproved allegation—that video games, movies, music, and TV cause youth violence—and use it to end freedom of expression in America...
...the corps...
...Then, in a deeply affecting montage, about twelve of the class stood up and read the list of those from their companies who had entered immortality...
...He died in October...
...Colonel Denman, my brave father-in-law, was choking up as he walked to the lectern, but in a clear, distinguished voice with the good kind of Arkansas accent (you know the bad kind already) he read the list of his friends who had died...
...He has a community of fellow players, develops skills that are well regarded within his group, and emerges calmer and happier from playing than he felt before, as far as I can see...
...The Old Chapel was marked on the ancient plaster walls with plaques and inscriptions of grads who had fought and died in various battles, including one who died in an Indian skirmish in the Dakotas as recently as 189o...
...There were no homilies about any of the men, no distinctions mentioned other than an occasional "he was my roommate...
...What possible larger expansion of government power could there be than making the government in Washington the gatekeeper, the prosecutor with felony imprisonment powers, over the culture...
...Some of the captains and flag bearers were women cadets, who also marched smartly...
...And then you flew back...
...So I got talked in by radio and then landed and got out and kissed the ground...
...No," she said...
...I saw that he had died only days before the end of the war in Europe...
...This is the America of Gary Cooper, of The Best Years of Our Lives...
...It's about fighting and suffering for your country and for your pride...
...I asked...
...Seven hours back, and we had to do it fast because we didn't have enough fuel to hang around the target for long...
...My psychoanalyst, a major league M.D., the dean of analysts in L.A., says that he has never seen a single case of a child being ruined by a video game (shades of Gentleman Jimmy Walker saying no girl was ruined by a book...
...We shot down thirty-seven of them in about fifteen minutes...
...He won his first Silver Star for running through German machine-gun and sniper fire to radio in artillery strikes on dug-in German infantry shooting up his company when he was 22 years old...
...He was a great guy," he said when he came to one young man's grave with a death date from World War II...
...Frankly, I was a little upset that they thought I was twenty-two years older than I am...
...Or we might look at it in what might be called the method of "revealed preference": Tens of millions of young and not so young Americans enthusiastically play video games...
...I think also of another friend of my son's, a boy, also 4, whose Dad simply abandonedthe family, including the little boy, for a younger woman...
...They gave us extra fuel tanks," he said, "and we flew seven hours to Seoul...
...His observation is the same as mine—that by and large children live alienated lives and that video games and the online world benefit them and give them community: that video games are a net national psychological plus for children...
...My father-in-law is and we're here visiting him...
...No one was bragging...
...Thank you for telling me to turn off the lights andreminding me that we don't own PEPCO...
...How could we as AmerThe American Spectator • August 1999 53 icans have been so lucky as to have such magnificent men as the Class of 1994 fighting for us...
...Wednesday hat a day...
...I soon took it off...
...Colonel Farris shrugged and smiled...
...The men of the Corps are made of sterner stuff...
...We were escorted to our table by an extremely beautiful woman cadet who was about to get married to another cadet who had graduated a year earlier...
...He's listening, respectful, actually taking it all in with wonder...
...The ones I talk to without any money being on the table, though, uniformly say the games are a plus...
...It's all on my mind because my wife, Tommy, and I are on our way in a huge GMC Yukon to Mahwah, New Jersey, to join the class of 1944 for their 55th reunion...
...0j4 The American Spectator • August 1999 55...
...It's about Duty, Honor, Country...
...There were also men there from the class of 1939, the class of 1949, the 52 August 1999 • The American Spectator class of 1954, and maybe a few fellows from the class of 1929...
...Just incredible," I said...
...I stood there humming, "Army Blue, Army Blue, hurrah for the Army Blue," and then the service ended with the playing of taps from the rear of the chapel...
...We had dance classes at USMA," Colonel Denman said...
...Thank you for bravely going to Vietnam and living with daily terror in jungles and in hilltops like Khe Sanh and seeing your friends blown up in the ladrang Valley while your children at home called you Fascists...
...He had a lot of friends...
...And if the nation were in trouble, who would save it, men like me or men like the men of the Class of 1944...
...He's too young to drive and his home is far outside town...
...My wife, son, and I got very lost trying to find it, but a tour bus of 1944 grads saw us and stopped and took us to the site...
...How I loved those stolen few moments with my Class of 1944 pin, getting fraudulent salutes as if I had been a part of that gilded band of brothers...
...My husband was in the class of 1944," she said...
...But I guess alumni gifts are always welcome...
...My father-in-law was in the West Point Class of 1944...
...Wow," I said...
...We made it...
...Everybody liked him," he said when he came to another stone...
...Some of the new men got killed before we knew their names at all...
...They all greeted us as if they had known us for fifty years and made sure we got off the bus at the right spot so as not to get hit by traffic...
...When I was on my way back, something went wrong with a gasket, and oil started spewing out all over the cockpit and all over my face...
...There was a great deal more drilling, all of it done extremely well...
...Because I was so covered with oil that I figured that my chute would be soaked with oil, too, and I would just sink...
...and I listened to them...
...They take time way from homework and parents...
...I was in a town called St...
...Tommy grew restless and started to fidget...
Vol. 32 • August 1999 • No. 8
