New World Disorder

Chapter Fourteen

Thursday, April 29, 2010

"Surely you are not trying to argue that Vietnam was a good thing!" Mr. Daly almost shouted.

"No, I'm not saying that." Pope had to reign in his temper. The rest of the film class was watching the two combatants with almost as much interest as they had watched the combat scene in the clip from Platoon the instructor had just shown. "I'm saying that not every American soldier in the war was inherently evil. Sometimes it was a case of good men mired in a bad situation."

"How can you say that? Haven't you ever heard of the My Lai Massacre?" The teacher was stalking in the front of the room, gesticulating with both hands, his long greying braid whipping as he turned sharply. "Over 200 women and children raped and killed. That is evil!"

"Yes it was. But that was one group of soldiers, not all of whom participated, and some of whom tried to stop the others. More to the point," Pope continued on overriding Mr. Daly's immediate response. "Blaming every American solider for the evil actions of a few is as wrong as blaming all Germans for the Holocaust or all Muslims for 9/11."

"What?"

The confusion on the teacher's face made Pope review his words. Crap, 9/11 never happened here. What did ... "I mean blaming all Muslims for the sinking of the QE II."

"You really don't get it. Vietnam or New Axum, war is inherently evil!" Daley was now leaning over Pope's desk, spittle sprayed from his mouth.

"But ..."

"One more word, Mr. Bry, and you are OUT of here." Noses almost touching, the teacher yelled into the student's face. "Do I make myself clear!"

Grinding his teeth, Pope just nodded. He said nothing else for the remainder of the period. Inside he was stewing. Who does he think he is? What does this guy know about war? I bet he's never served a day in his life. Or read anything that did not already agree with his neo-peacenik dogma. He calls himself a teacher! Teaching is about helping the students think critically, not regurgitating pablum offered by the all-knowing instructor. If I were my real age he wouldn't discount me like that. I hate high-school!

This became the theme for the afternoon. In Design class Ms. Girard informed the students of the start a new design cycle project.

"The challenge will be to design a real product that solves a real world problem. But your product has to be built from 100% recycled materials. To make matters more challenging, this one will be done 'under the gun', so to speak. You will have three weeks to go through the entire design process." Groans filled the air. "I know that's not much time, so to make things easier this will be a group project. You will have four outer students to share the load."

This elicited a second, louder chorus of groans. No one liked working in groups. Pope decided that, in order to be fair to the other students, he was going to make a conscious effort not to fall into leader mode and take over the planning and assigning of tasks. He was eminently qualified for that role and had lead many, many teams. Which meant that he would not learn anything from doing it again. Leave it to one of the kids. They need the practice.

Unfortunately that did not work out very well. Either they were all sitting silent waiting for someone else to do something or they were all trying to take charge and assign tasks to other people, making sure they had nothing to do but supervise. By the end of class, nothing had been agreed upon and Pope had a headache worse than when Amok hit him. I hate high-school!

After class he was at his locker getting ready to go train for the afternoon. I really need to blast something. His frustrated musings were interrupted by a familiar voice.