... but not these men; they made their desperation shout!
-John Wilkes Booth, "Assassins" (Musical)
I'm sure I'll never shoot the President of the United States (for a variety of reasons ranging from not being temperamentally equipped to be an assassin to not being a very good shot). I'm sure I'll never be visited by the ghost of John Wilkes Booth. I'm sure I won't have catchy musical numbers backed by a chorus that appears from nowhere, though that last one I regret somewhat. :-}
I saw "Assassins" twice while I was at C-MU; once in freshman year performed by Scotch & Soda, once my senior year performed by the Drama department. Aside from "Into the Woods" (which is a member of the conspiracy against me), Assassins is the only play I've seen live from more than one group. I've seen more versions of "Oklahoma!" than you can shake a stick at (been in one of them, for that matter). But "Assassins", while I don't especially like it... speaks to me. Again, no, I don't intend to assassinate anyone. But the desperation, the desire to have my life mean something - THAT, I understand.
What do any of our lives mean? Children, friends, our deeds, our words; what is it we're supposed to pass on to history?
I've been spending a lot of time researching Tables of Organization and Equipment (TO&E's) for the US Army in WWII. For what is possibly the most studied and documented war in history, and for the millions of men who served in the US armed forces during it, there is a surprising lack of detailed information. Part of that is the chaotic nature of the subject, and part of it is the understandable lack of interest by veterans in the theoretical TO&E of their unit. A man can be proud that he served in 2nd Platoon, A Company, 9th Infantry Regiment, when they did this or that deed of valor on a day that everyone has heard of. They often include notes on who was actually with them at the time (from which one can derive the TO&E that existed in practice). Understandably, they seldom copy down the War Department publication listing how many rifles the platoon was issued.
How much quiet desperation is lost in "2/A/9IR: 1O, 40E, 3BAR, 1SR, 36R, 1C"?
Am I just one more R in the tally?
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