In anticipation of the finale of the series on my high school I have decided to organize the Xavier High School material up till this point. Not all of it is part of the series but it must all fit together. My hope is that my son William will actually become THE great American novelist. In that event study of my work will become a sub-discipline of William Reilly studies and I want to make things convenient for future scholars. So here is the Xavier corpus up till now.
How I Accidentally Impersonated A Veteran – This is a story about a period in my mid-twenties and a very inspiring fellow that I met. The Xavier piece is that the arcane knowledge I picked up in high school made me seem like an actual veteran.
Memorial Day Reading – Donald Cook – Xavier Graduate With Greatest Military Distinction – Pretty self-explanatory. An odd side note is that cadet rank is a not necessarily a sign of future military merit.
Review Of “Ways And Means For Managing Up” By F Willam Smullen – “Bill” Smullen was the Senior Army Instructor at Xavier during our junior and senior year. Then Major Smullen, if not the best teacher at Xavier, no small feat, was definitely a contender.
How Real Is Junior ROTC? View Of A Son Of Xavier Who Kept Marching On To Cold War Victory – Guest post from Scott O’Connell. Scott had an Army career in both tanks and counter-intelligence. I found his comments on our cadet experience surprising.
The Series – 1970 – The Xavier Class Lamented By Antonin Scalia
Part I – Becoming Part Of The Regiment – It is 1966 when I start marching and opposition to the Vietnam War is not yet in the mainstream.
Part II – Time For Sergeants – I focus on the members of the Military Science Department other than the SAI, who actually were above average teachers including a story about somebody literally shooting himself in the foot.
Part III – The Final Revenge Of Corporal Burns – My eternal disappointment at never having a Sam Browne and saber.
Part IV – No Diamonds On Our Shoulders – My reference group proves themselves marvels of military mediocrity.
Part V – We Didn’t Start The Fire – A brief piece by classmate David Posteraro showing how anti-war sentiment was beginning to leak into the school.
Interlude – Being Gay In The Sixties In Antonin Scalia’s High School – A longer piece by Dave Posteraro with a fairly self explanatory title.
Part VI – Left Face – 1968 – Need I say more?
Part VII – The Epilogue Class (1971) Gathers – John Frank, whose upcoming play The Institute has me quite excited relates about his 45th reunion, which was a year after mine. Go figure.
Interlude – Sons Of Xavier Keep Dancing – Pure personal memoir.
Daniel Berrigan And Those In The Silent Generation That Did Not Shut Up – Tangential to the Xavier stuff, but somehow related.
Science Fiction Author Reflects On His Xavier Days – My classmate John Sundman who was disappointed with himself for graduating as a corporal having set his sights on private weighs in.
The Xavier Regiment Back To The Future – A bit of peek at John Frank’s upcoming play and an update on the Regiment today.
Eight Is Enough?
I think the series needs one more piece and for that I would like to have more classmates who can tell me about PAX. Other guest posts would also be greatly welcome, It would give you an opportunity to reach scores of people
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Peter J Reilly CPA has not developed a consistent tag line for his posts. This failure of branding might account for low readership.
Relative to P.A.X. (Positive Action for Xavier) It came together rather spontaneously at the Junior (or Senior) retreat in Monroe, N.Y. Having spent three years or more at a military school in the middle of an unpopular war, and surrounded by social upheaval, civil rights marches, a music and literary revolution and a general examining of what it means to be a human being in a changing society, we got into heavy discussions during the retreat about what we were doing in a military school. We discussed pacifism, our daily lives at Xavier and the fact that we felt hypocritical being anti-war and being in a military school. I remember Fr. Jack Dondero as being a guiding persona, but we had many discussions about how we could make Xavier reflect the changing world, and how we could bring about some changes in the school to reflect this. One of the outcomes was to suggest that Xavier begin moving to make the military optional, and to involve the school more in social causes,… in addition to changing the atmosphere at the school to be less “regimented” and more open and brotherly. I remember being a part of a group in senior year that wanted to resign our commissions (officers of the regiment) to reflect our commitment to peace, and our principles. Father Heavey , whom we expected to be furious about the whole thing actually turned out to be rather conciliatory. But asked us to reconsider the commission resignations , as it would jeopardize alumni giving, especially if combined with a reduction of the military role at the school. We acquiesced and continued. The P.A.X. thing was never meant to be exclusionary, but I guess some saw it that way. But in reality we hadn’t thought everything through as to how to diffuse it into the rest of the student body. In the end only a few years later (2 or 3?) the military became optional and guys could wear maroon blazers with the school crest instead of a military uniform. My brother three years behind me was able to take advantage of tat change . That is the crux of what I remember.
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