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And That's The Way It Was
Sam Aurelius Milam III I was in college from the summer of 1964 until the summer of 1971. In June of 1969, I married my first wife. As we began to establish our lives as married people, we developed the practice of eating supper during the news. Listening to The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite became one of our important rituals. We routinely ate supper at that time of the day and we routinely watched Walter Cronkite during supper. I don't think that we missed many broadcasts during those early years of our marriage. I still remember our growing skepticism at his daily reports of the casualty figures from the Vietnam War. It usually went something like "5000 North Vietnamese casualties reported today, and 10 American casualties". Even today, I can hear his measured and serious voice giving those unlikely figures. Like many people at that time, we trusted Walter Cronkite but we doubted the statistics. Walter Cronkite took his job seriously. He wasn't a "personality". He was a reporter and a journalist. He knew how to use the English language correctly and effectively. He gave calm, reasoned, and straightforward presentations of the news. His trademark closing statement at the end of his program was, "and that's the way it is," followed by the date. He was just as serious about that closing statement as he was about the rest of his program. Only twice during the years that I watched The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite did I ever see him smile on camera. It was during his trademark closing statement that I observed one of those rare smiles. Oddly enough, the story that motivated the smile came out of the Vietnam War. It happened one evening when Walter Cronkite reported the story of a draftee who'd served the first half of his tour of duty in Vietnam and then had gone home on leave. When the draftee arrived at home, he announced to his family that he wasn't going to go back. The draftee had a twin who, fearing that his brother would be imprisoned for desertion, volunteered to go back in his place, and that's what happened. The twin reported for duty and served the entire second half of his brother's tour of duty in Vietnam. The substitution wasn't discovered until the twin was being discharged. At some point during that process, somebody realized that the man being discharged wasn't the same man as the one who'd been drafted. One thing led to another and the twin ended up talking to a reporter. During the interview, somebody asked the twin how he'd managed to serve in Vietnam for so long, without any prior training, and without doing anything that would reveal the substitution. Walter Cronkite quoted the twin's reply, exactly. The twin said, "It was easy. I just ended every sentence with sir, saluted when everybody else did, and acted stupid the rest of the time." It was the final story of the program that day and Walter Cronkite went directly from the quote to his trademark closing statement. I suppose that the temptation was too much, even for Walter Cronkite. With an unaccustomed emphasis on the word that's while saying "and that's the way it is", and ever so slightly, Walter Cronkite smiled. The Most Important Question
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Acknowledgments My thanks to the following: SantaClara Bob; Lady Jan the Voluptuous; Lord Jeffrey the Studious; my mother; and Dewey and Betty, of Gainesville, Georgia. — editor
Children's Books Not Recommended by the National Library Association Original Source Unknown. Forwarded by Don G.
Reasons for Men to be Cheerful Original Source Unknown. Forwarded by Don G.
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