Wednesday night of the second week of classes at the University was the first meeting this school year for the Committee to End the War. We brought up a resolution to get Will to make a speech at the university about his anti-war activities and his Field Board Hearing which was to be at Fort Clay in four weeks. The resolution passed unanimously. Clu called the TV stations and the big newspapers in the state capital about Will’s speech. They did front page stories. On Thursday night I made a resolution at our Organization Chapter meeting for us to co-sponsor Will’s speech. This resolution was passed unanimously. 
    Friday morning on the front page of the capital city paper State Representative Arcanza Hackett from Pronghorn, the larger town next to Fort Clay, denounced the University administration for allowing Will to speak. "They’re getting too liberal down there at the University," she said. "I’m going to attend this Private Will Orry’s speech with some other state legislators, and if we don’t like what we hear, we’ll have some reconsiderations to do when the time comes to vote for appropriations for the university." 
    The story was accompanied by a photograph of Representative Hackett. She looked remarkably like the Wicked Witch of the West in the movie of The Wizard of Oz. 
    Will’s speech was scheduled for Saturday, September 23. Friday morning, September 22, I was taking a stack of GUARDIANS over to sell in the University Student Union at the anti-war literature table. I had to make my way to the table through a crowd of hostile students who were yelling at Vince Falconer, a Committee member who was selling literature. Vince was about five foot six with a little tuft of red beard on the tip of his pointed chin that made him look like a leprechaun. He was twenty-three, but his face was wrinkled with premature aging from years of chronic illness. Doing a lot of work for the committee gave him new health and energy. 
    A woman with tears in her eyes was leaning over into Vince’s face, "My husband is in Vietnam!" she sobbed. "How can you stab him in the back like this?" 
    "I bet your Will Orry wasn’t even in Nam!" a tall husky man shouted. "I was there! I’ve got shrapnel wounds in my side!" and he pulled up his shirt to show a wide scar. "My buddy died in my arms. Have you even been there, huh?" he said, waiving his fist at Vince. 
    "No, but..." Vince started to say. 
    "Well if you weren’t there, you can’t say anything about it," the vet said, slamming his fist on the table. "You’re just full of shit." 
    I was thinking, where are the anti-war Vietnam vets when you need them? Finally I stood up and raised my hands to my head and said in my best speech-making voice, "Listen y’all! Will is coming Saturday night to the auditorium here in the union. The admission’s free. Come than and ask him whatever questions you want." 
    Just then it was getting time for the next class to start and most of the students hurried off. All of a sudden I heard "Ow!" from Vince. 
    Someone had thrown a penny at Vince hard. It hit him near the eye and clinked down on the table. There was a group of three students on the opposite side of the student union basement from us, throwing pennies at us. I got up and walked over towards them. A penny hit me on the shoulder. 
    "Hey, wait a minute, stop this!" I said, and one of them walked up and shoved me backwards. Just then a campus cop came up and ordered them to leave. I went back to the table with Vince, "Hey, thanks for the help!" he said. 
    I dragged into Clu’s house that night pretty beat. Clu was not at home. The phone rang. I picked it up and said, "Clu Proctor’s residence, can I help you?" 
    "Hey Dale, it’s you!" a voice said on the other end of the line. It was Ben Markovitz, Will’s attorney. I hadn’t heard from him in a month and a half. What a lift! 
    "Wow, Ben this is fantastic!" I whooped. 
    "Say, thanks for taking care of that matter we talked about in Pronghorn," Ben said - he meant helping Stan escape from the army. 
    "I’m here in Pronghorn now," Ben went on. "I’m driving Will up to the university myself to make sure the army doesn’t try to stop him from speaking. If they do, I’ll bring charges against them for everything including violation of the Magna Charta. I’m staying with Jim Ed and Lou - I don’t want to go through another riot. You’ve got some great friends here!" 
    "I know," I said softly. 
    That Friday was the first football game of the year. The people I was close to avoided the campus area on football days. The streets were jammed with cars and all the sidewalks were packed with middle-aged people from around the state, many of them getting drunker and drunker and ready to hassle anybody they thought was a hippie protester. I was out in front of Clu’s holding a big piece of cardboard with "only $1!" written on it, trying to attract some cars to full Clu’s front yard. Even though Clu got some money from home, there were times she ran pretty low. Whatever we felt about the football crowds, parking places meant extra money for her. Five people parked their cars in her yard. I even sold a GUARDIAN to one who looked friendly. 
    That night the auditorium at the Student Union was packed to capacity, including the balcony. The whole state had heard about Will Orry, Vietnam vet who turned against the war and somehow or other caused a wild mob scene at a motel in Pronghorn. And Clu the Communist who was arrested down there agitating! And Dale what’s-his-name who must have been up to no good! 
     I was back stage with Clu and two carloads from Pronghorn. Ben the attorney had brought up Will and his girlfriend Jan and two other G.I.’s - Pete Yoder, who had done thirty days hard labor in August for insulting his lieutenant at Will’s first court-martial and a tall black G.I. named Ronnie Lee Brown who (unlike Pete) had been in Vietnam. Jim Ed and his girlfriend Lou drove up with the three members of The Red Clay Runners motorcycle club who had rescued Will from the mob at the motel. Two of them, Tex and River Rat were both already out of the army. One of them, Hank the Coyote, was still in. 
    From outside the stage door we could hear the loud murmuring of the crowd, some of it more or less friendly, some of it very hostile, but most of it sounded to me just curious more than anything else. 
    Clu took a deep breath and stepped out on the stage dainty, graceful steps, but still a strong firm stride like she was just about to begin dancing a ballet. She tapped the microphone and got a "sprongg!" of feedback. Then she adjusted it a little and said, "Tonight for the Committee to End the War and the Student Freedom Organization I would like to introduce..." 
    "Excuse me!" a tall thin young man called out from the audience. He stood up and I could see he was in a suit and tie. He wore glasses and he had a little nest of light brown curls on top of his head. "My name is Edgar Graves," he said. "I’m in the law school here. Until two months ago I was in the army, in Military Intelligence in the capital city of this state. I can assure you that we constantly monitored the activities of Private Will Orry and the Committee to End the War. Now, before you introduce Private Orry, I would like to introduce the two Military Intelligence agents who worked so hard with me keeping track of his movements. They’re in the audience now. I think the taxpayers deserve to know what the officials they pay for are doing, so stand up and take a bow, Major Willard Hughes and Captain Dominic Marulo!" and he pointed them out. 
 Major Hughes (a red-faced man in a madras shirt and Bermuda shorts) and Captain Marulo (who was wearing a suit and kept ducking his head) stood up, but instead of bowing, they made their way out down the row of seats and then ran out of the auditorium carrying a tape recorder to laughter and applause. 
    Clu smiled and nodded in Edgar Graves’ direction. "Thank you Mr. Graves," she said, with the refined tone of a lawn party. "And now I’d like to introduce Private Will Orry, who has come here from Fort Clay to tell us about the Field Board Hearing he is facing for his anti-war activities." 
    With great dignity Will walked out on the stage in his shapeless old BLACK HILL FOREVER! T-shirt. 
    There were a lot of cheers from the Committee and Organization people in the crowd and their friends, but there were a lot of boos from the other people. I could look through the stage door and see state Representative Arcanza Hackett sitting in the front row. Beside her were three middle-aged men in badly rumpled suits, using their hands as megaphones to trumpet their boos. They stood out so clearly from the student crowd, I was sure they were the other State Legislators Representative Hackett said she would bring. Like many others on that football day, the three were drunk on their butts. If we had been nervous backstage, Representative Hackett looked equally nervous about the demeanor of her companions, who were wallowing around in their chairs, apparently looking for every possible angle to boo from. Representative Hackett’s lips were drawn down as tight and hard as you can draw a pair of lips. 
    "I’d like to have the G.I.’s here on stage who stood with me," Will said. 
    "They kept me going through all of this." 
 Pete and Ronnie Lee and the three Red Clay Runners walked out on stage to more cheers and boos. 
    "Thanks, brothers," Will said. "This morning I was ordered to report to a colonel in Military Intelligence. He had a sign on his wall that said, ‘My job is so secret, I don’t know what it is.’ I saluted and stood there at attention and he asked me to sit down. And he handed me a document. He told me ‘The army doesn’t want to go through with the Field Board Hearing. We just want you out of army. Now if you sign this paper, you’ll get out without an undesirable discharge like you would get from the Field Board Hearing. But the document says that you understand that there will be a permanent note on your records that you have subversive associations and you understand that any where you go in the future to get a job, they will see by that note on your discharge that you’re a national security risk,’ I wadded the paper up and threw it in the waste basket." 
    There were more cheers from the committee and the Organization and a scattering of boos. Elsewhere, one of the three male state legislators, a man who was both tall and fat, got to his feet and wagged his finger at Will. 
    "Tell me how you can do it!" he shouted, "how can you go against the uniform, which I wore with pride!" He was weaving from side to side. 
 Another state legislator stood up, shorter and even drunker. "Will Orry, you’re crazy!" he screamed. "Why are you coming here trying to start a riot?" 
    "I never tried to start a riot," Will said. "But this is the second time people have acted like they wanted to start a riot to stop me from saying something." 
    "Aw, shit, you don’t know anything! the third state legislator said, too drunk to get out of his chair. He just waved his hand through the air in an expression of disgust as if he would like to wipe Will and the other G.I.’s off the stage. Representative Hackett gripped the arms of her chair tightly. 
    There were no cheers or boos from the crowd, just a deep current of murmurs of utter amazement at the behavior of the State Legislators. 
    "All I can say," Will went on, his voice sounding a little strained after all the waves of hostile energy that had rolled across the stage, "all I can say is that I plan to go through with the Field Board Hearing. And I hope to win! Now, I guess the only way I can handle this from now on tonight is to just answer questions from the audience." 
    A black man stood up in a row where a lot of young black men and women were seated. Our Organization Chapter had worked with the local black student group on some issues and a few black students occasionally came to Organization meetings, but I didn’t recognize any of these young people. 
    "My name is Archie Miles," he said. "I’d like to ask something of the black brother standing there with you," and he pointed at Ronnie Lee. "I go to Douglass College," Archie continued. that’s an all-black school about fifty miles north of here. I came to this state from Detroit to study. In all my life I have never trusted a white man. Now I just may start with this one here," and he pointed to a white man of about thirty sitting beside him. "This is Tim Brandon, my instructor in a class on Contemporary Affairs at Douglass College. He brought us down here," and Archie made a sweeping gesture to include the row of black students on his right. 
    "Now what I want to know is this,’ Archie went on, "I see you with these white men. You walked out on stage to stand by them and I know that’s risking trouble with the army. Why do you trust them?" Archie swept his gaze searchingly across the stage at Ronnie Lee and the white G.I.’s. 
    Before Ronnie Lee could answer, Armando Gallegos, a tall, blue-eyed Cuban exile, well-known among the right-wing students at our University, stood up facing Archie. 
    "Why do you ask him anything?" Armando shouted at Archie. "Can’t you see he’s a Communist?" 
    Archie held up his right hand with the knuckles towards Armando, "You see this hand here?" Archie shouted, "I’m talking to him because his hand is the same color as mine!" 
    "Boy!" Armando called out. "You don’t know what you’re talking about!" 
    I knew that in Cuba men often address one another as chico meaning "boy" with no racial slur intended, but the students from Douglass College cried out "No!" in rage at Armando. 
    There was a wave of angry loud noise across the auditorium. Then Ronnie Lee stepped up to the microphone and spread his arms and motioned for quiet. 
    "I met this guy Pete here when we both did hard labor together," Ronnie Lee said, gesturing towards Pete. "I was there because I deserted when I got back from Nam. They had us blacks on the hardest of the hard labor, humping ammo. That’s carrying boxes of shells from trucks into a storehouse. There was only a couple of white guys there besides Pete and they tried to stay away from us blacks - never gave us a nice word, just complained how hard the work was. Pete was a lot smaller than either one of them but he worked hard with us as part of a team and he tried to get to know us. Now I was born and raised in a shack in Mississippi. My mama and daddy couldn’t read, neither write. So I don’t know what a communist is." 
    "I’ve heard people talk about Communists," Pete put in, "but I still don’t know what they are." 
    "Pete introduced me to Will when we got off of the hard labor," Ronnie Lee continued. "Pete may be a Communist and he sure is white, but I trust Pete because he’s a good person to have working on a crew with you. He makes the work easier. Will may be a Communist but he’s Pete’s friend and he’s acted like a friend to me." 
    Just then one of the trio of drunk state legislators stood up, swaying back and forth. He had evidently heard nothing of what was being said, "Oh, what it’s really about is that you’re a coward, Will Orry!" he bawled. "You’re just a coward!" 
    I was still backstage. Jim Ed was standing next to me. I had known him since we were children and this is one of the very few times I had ever seen him angry. His face contorted and his bright teeth, which usually were in a grin, were like the fangs of a saber toothed tiger. 
 Jim Ed ran out on the stage. "Don’t say that to my friend," he yelled at the state legislator, "Fuck you, you son of a bitch, just fuck you!" 
    I ran out on stage and grabbed Jim Ed by the belt. I was afraid he would jump off the stage and attack the legislator. I saw reporter flash bulbs popping and a TV camera running. Jim Ed pulled me several feet across the stage. 
    State Representative Arcanza Hackett reacted to Jim Ed’s "Fuck you" like it was meant for her. She snapped, "You too, bud!" 
    I put my arm around Jim Ed’s shoulder and we went backstage. A campus cop came up to Jim Ed and said, "You’re under arrest for public profanity." We went with the cop out a side door into the hallway and we could hear the rumble of the audience going out the front entrance of the auditorium. 
    Attorney Ben Markovitz conferred with the campus cops. "They’re taking Jim Ed  to the county jail," he called back over his shoulder to  Clue. "We can get him out of recognizance tomorrow morning." 
 I turned to Clu, "Will didn’t get to speak very long," I said. "How does all this fit in with your plan?" 
    "It fits in better with the plan than if I had thought it up myself," Clu said with a strange smile.