From that Sizzling UTEP Book Store Non-seller Known as....

The Allegedly Mother-Fixated Bright Boys of the Summer of Nineteen Sixty-six!

A Chilling Tale of Mass Delusion, as we begin to read, but no! More like as we begin to actually live...:...

The Curse of those Two Green Doo Wah Diddy Ribbons

From all parts of America they came, these fine young men whose testosterone and blood alcohol levels had long since achieved a rough and ready parity over the course of several years in their pursuit of higher education.

Suffice to say, when on June 1, 1966, some 300 of us Marine recruits, whether voluntary enlistees or involuntary draftees, were released from the tender clutches of the Receiving Barracks NCOs at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, California, to the equally tender clutches of the regular Marine Corps drill instructors, things begin to happen.

Fast!

But that wasn't such a big deal. Because, you see, the four 75-man platoons making up the four-platoon series of which mine, Ten Twenty-five, was anchor, had one awesome, exuberant, bunchola of Bright Boys.

They freely admittedly to coming from such exotic places as the Southwest Conference, the Big Ten, the Awesome Eleven, and the Dyn-o-mite Twelve. Or from the whoever. They made up twenty to thirty percent of four entire recruit platoons.

And, truth to tell, they were like 100% lily white.

But leaving this all aside, take it from me, o.k.? 'Cause it's like I'm struggling to tell you all something.

These Bright Boys who were so quick to tell anybody who cared to listen -- or even if they didn't -- that they'd come from all these exotic places were likewise quick to let us know that they weren't about to stop with just getting by here in basic. So here's what -- well -- almost happened.

And it would be the United States Marine Corps itself that would reap the benefit of such an influx of talent; these Joe College Men, these Bright Boys of the Summer of Sixty-six, were an awesome breed of cat.

True, those hard-bitten Marine sergeants wearing the undress blues trousers and long-sleeved tropical worsted shirts of the Receiving Barracks NCOs could and often did express in no uncertain sneering and ribald terms their hostile opinion that said Bright Boys actually did little more than run the entire all-American intellectual gamut from "Ugh, me know you," aka the psychology and sociology majors, to the "Just put me in Phys Ed" types, aka the jocks.

But that's understandable. Those same Receiving Barracks NCOs were merely little men, written smaller still, who just naturally hated anybody ready to look down his nose at them while fearlessly flaunting his own genuine intellectual and moral superiority.

And to give these Bright Boys credit, man! They weren't the least bit bashful about letting you know how far above the common herd they'd climbed!

Because, you see, they knew, every last one of them, that if only the Marine Corps would "Just quit f ..... 'n all us College Men around and turn us loose," they'd waste no time in showing that same backwards, out of date, reactionary Marine Corps just what four entire recruit platoons dominated by all-American college-trained intellectuals could do.

And so far as the other 70 to 80 percent of us in these same four platoons went, just who the f ... k did we think we were anyhow? "Just you all keep out of the f...'n way 'cause we college jocks are here to stay." This they would chant with many a menacing stare at the rest of us.

END PART ONE!