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%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK216 Jack Fritscher%u201cHey, numbnuts,%u201d Ski said. %u201cI%u2019m sitting right here.%u201d%u201cBut do you remember Gunn%u2019s radio a year ago?%u201d I said.%u201cI remember the first day I saw you eleven years ago, you stupid mick, you and Lochinvar there, and you haven%u2019t changed.%u201d%u201cThe Cuban crisis, stupid. When JFK made us finally take a stand against Khrushchev and Castro,%u201d Lock said. %u201cGunn brought in the radio and put it on the corner of his table. Were you out to lunch?%u201d%u201cIf Kennedy had sent in the Marines, I would have gone,%u201d I said.Ski spit pupgullion all over the table. %u201cOh, Mary! And Joseph!%u201dLock put his hand to his mouth.%u201cMy brother Thom is in the Marines,%u201d I said. %u201cGunn was trying to inspire us to be patriotic priests, maybe turn out to be military chaplains like he had been.%u201d%u201cWar is immoral,%u201d Lock said.Ski blew raspberries.%u201cHey, you, Ski,%u201d Lock said. %u201cStop spitting out your food!%u201d%u201cMy uncle was a chaplain,%u201d I said. %u201cHe was in the Battle of the Bulge. He had his picture in Life magazine saying Mass in front of a Jeep in Belgium.%u201dSki scowled. %u201cKennedy stopped the Russians, didn%u2019t he?%u201dKeith Fahnhorst said, %u201cIf he hadn%u2019t, and if there%u2019d been a war, the government would have made us stay here inside Misery all year round to keep our clergy exemption. Like in the last war.%u201d%u201cIf Kennedy and Khruschev had gone to war,%u201d Ski said, %u201cthere wouldn%u2019t be any Misery. There%u2019d be fallout all over the place. My pastor says so.%u201d%u201cPhooey.%u201dEveryone had a two-bit opinion. We argued on till Gunn rang the bell for silence and we stacked the dishes. I loved Irish Jack Kennedy. His call to arms was stronger than the call to the priesthood. I was committed to Jack Kennedy. If he had taken us to war, I would have knocked on the redheaded Jesuit%u2019s door and said, %u201cO%u2019Malley, I cannot sit still at Misery while the world blows up.%u201d I would have joined my brother Thommy in the Marines. Kennedy had drawn a line with the blockade of Cuba. Washington peaked at war intensity. Any Soviet arms-running ship refusing inspection and immediate return to Russia, he ordered sunk.Gunn and Karg and all the old priests who had served in World War II grew more excited than I%u2019d ever seen them. They brought radios into the refectory, and we ate quietly listening to Kennedy%u2019s Roman-orator%u2019s voice crackling direct to us between reports from on-the-spot announcers. In a day, the first letters from home, stuffed by boys%u2019 parents with newspaper