A brief moment's escape from all the racism accusations

[DFW]

Courtesy of Adrian Cronauer (yes, really!):

A US Navy cruiser anchored in Mississippi for a week's shore leave.

The first evening, the ship's Captain received the following note from

the wife of a very wealthy and influential plantation owner:



"Dear Captain, Thursday will be my daughter Melinda's Debutante Ball.

I would like you to send four well-mannered, handsome, unmarried

officers in their formal dress uniforms to attend the dance."



"They should arrive promptly at 8:00 PM prepared for an evening of

polite Southern conversation. They should be excellent dancers, as

they will be the escorts of lovely refined young ladies. One last

point: *"No Jews please."*



Sending a written message by his own yeoman, the captain replied:

"Madam, thank you for your invitation. In order to present the widest

possible knowledge base for polite conversation, I am sending four of

my best and most prized officers."



"One is a lieutenant commander, and a graduate of Annapolis with an

additional Master’s degree from MIT in fluid technologies and ship

design."



"The second is a Lieutenant, one of our helicopter pilots, and a

graduate of Northwestern University in Chicago , with a BS in

Aeronautical Engineering. His Master’s Degree and PhD. In Aeronautical

and Mechanical Engineering are from Texas Tech University and he is

also an astronaut candidate."



"The third officer is also a lieutenant, with degrees in both computer

systems and information technology from SMU and he is awaiting

notification on his Doctoral Dissertation from Cal Tech."



"Finally, the fourth officer, also a lieutenant commander, is our

ship's doctor, with an undergraduate degree from the University of

Georgia and his medical degree is from the University of North

Carolina . We are very proud of him, as he is also a senior fellow in

Trauma Surgery at Bethesda ."



Upon receiving this letter, Melinda's mother was quite excited and

looked forward to Thursday with pleasure. Her daughter would be

escorted by four handsome naval officers without peer (and the other

women in her social circle would be insanely jealous).



At precisely 8:00 PM on Thursday, Melinda's mother heard a polite rap

at the door which she opened to find, in full dress uniform, four very

handsome, smiling Black officers.



Her mouth fell open, but pulling herself together, she stammered,

"There must be some mistake."

"No, Madam," said the first officer.

"Captain Goldberg never makes mistakes."

[Rhiannon12866]

1. LOL! Kudos to the Captain!

[DFW]

2. More like kudos to Adrian for passing this on to me!

Adrian is from Pennsylvania originally, but during his "Good Morning Vietnam" days, he ran into enough of us Southerners, I'm sure.

[Rhiannon12866]

3. Well, it's certainly relevant, now more than ever

More's the pity.

[DFW]

4. You got that right.

Adrian in in his mid 70s now, of course. He's nothing like the Robin Williams portrayal of him in "Good Morning Vietnam," either, but he still does have a wicked sense of humor.

[Rhiannon12866]

5. Sounds like a very cool person to know...

But then you have always known the coolest people.

[DFW]

6. Adrian is one of the people I respect most in this world

He ended up his military career no longer doing radio, but was with the Pentagon's office looking for long lost MIAs in Vietnam and Cambodia, and trying to bring closure to their families after all these decades.

He stopped everything at age 50 and went for a law degree just because he wanted to broaden his spectrum of views on life. Last time we had lunch, we got lost talking about ancient Egyptian civilization (don't ask me how we got onto that, I forget), and we had to cut it short because he was almost an hour overdue back at his office.

He is well-spoken, intelligent beyond any limit you might presume, and one HELL of a nice guy. In spite of this, he remains a life-long Republican, although in the Eisenhower vein, not that of today's crazies. As you will have noticed, he never went into politics. If it hadn't been for "Good Morning Vietnam," no one would ever have heard of him.

I do know some cool people, but not all of them are household names. I know one guy who was born in Transylvania, the grandson of Russian Jews fleeing the pogroms of Czar Nikolai II. His native language is Hungarian, but he went to school speaking Romanian, since the Hungarian minority was being suppressed in Transylvania at the time. When the Romanian government killed his uncle and beat his father half to death (he died a year later), his family made its way to Germany, where they were given German passports. He studied medicine in England and Belgium, settling in Brussels, got his M.D., found it too boring , and does something else entirely. In the meantime, he learned Dutch, Hebrew, Spanish and Aramaic, along with the French, Yiddish, Romanian, German and English he already knew, along with his native Hungarian. He is Jewish, but knows the Christian Bible and the Koran inside out. He regularly rereads the Talmud (in the original Hebrew and Aramaic), saying there are always new things to be gotten from it every time he reads it. You will never hear his name anywhere, and he couldn't care less. Put him and Adrian in a room somewhere for a month and record the conversations, and you'd probably have material for a four year university doctorate level course in philosophy.