Semi-Military Correspondent

Today the New York Times presented the world with a wholly deplorable article by Lucian Truscott IV basically comparing the resignation rate of West Point officers now with that of the Vietnam Era. The entire article is an exercise in reading Truscott's recent resume in order to prove his point. I read it twice and the New York Times should leave military writing to those who can actually boast of being in the military, rather than Lucian. For a better perspective on this, here's an article I found at West Point's Association of Graduates web site:

"No one better personifies the changes at West Point than Lucian Truscott IV, enfant terrible of the Class of 1969. His first novel, Dress Gray, in which a maverick cadet, Ry Slaight, takes on a villainous commandant in trying to discover the murderer of a gay cadet, was banned at West Point; 20 years later, he does book signings here. Truscott is the son of a West Pointer, grandson of the man who commanded the Allied landing at Anzio, and a descendant of Thomas Jefferson. (He'll be buried with his family at Monticello.) He was a refractory cadet who accumulated demerits the way kids collect baseball cards. His writing career began as a sophomore, with a letter to the Village Voice that read, "Abbie Hoffman's an idiot" He graduated 658th in his class and was drummed out of the Army after one year."

To put his class rank in perspective, my father graduated in 1968 33rd in his class. That makes him pretty smart. Oh and he served with the 173d Airborne in Vietnam, somewhere closer to Cambodia than John F. Kerry ever served.