SLPAD - 65

[Michael Bailey]

“…after awhile you forget about the rest of the spectrum
               and start believing that this is the only frequency that
counts or is real. While
               outside, all up and down the land, there are these wonderful
colors and x-rays and
               ultraviolets going on.”


            “Don’t you think Roach is on a closed circuit too?” Rizzo said.
“McNeese is not the
               world but Roach ain’t the spectrum either.”


            Levine shook his head. “You draftees are all alike,” he said.



Rizzo seems to have misconstrued Levine’s remark, doesn’t he?

Wasn’t Levine talking about the restrictions of military life, and implying
that McNeese was part of the outside world with all the “wonderful colors
and x-rays and ultraviolets” ??

That purport seems like an obvious reading - so I’m surprised to see Rizzo
responding as if Levine means to apply the “narrowband” critique to the
current tableau in the quad  -  and as if Levine has meant to posit the
military as less subject to those limitations!

So Rizzo “corrects” the impression of “oh, these poor students, they don’t
know what they’re missing”*

and sez words to the effect of “hey, Camp Roach ain’t any less
closed-circuit than this place, rilly, is it?”

-

*which Levine (imho) is almost certainly not offering - I think all the
context points to him intending something a lot more like, “gosh, we’re in
this little rut, & there’s this whole wide world out there with beautiful
co-Ed’s, case in point, right here & now, eh? Eh, comrade?”

-


This I think (ymmv) is Rizzo defending his worldview after his hollow laugh
on the previous page bespoke a certain pang of missing civilian life.

He turns it around - “yeah, these college kids have a narrow and deprived
world - but let’s not knock them too hard: I know it’s hard to believe, but
from a certain angle, our wonderful military life’s also got its
confinement.”

Whatever glue holds people in military service, that glue is a lot stronger
in Rizzo than in Levine.



Then this odd exchange:

Levine shook his head. “You draftees are all alike,” he said.

            “I know, I know. R.A. all the way. But all the way to what?”


It’s like they are reversing roles of how they really are: Levine “of the
bad attitude” mock-castigating Rizzo as a service-hating draftee, and Rizzo
acting as if he’s questioning his career choice (R.A. all the way - R.A.
being “regular Army” I think - but all the way to what?) although as a
noncommissioned officer, he’s much more committed than Levine.