tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1618609235086099477.post1607206873333597071..comments2017-07-26T18:53:17.026-04:00Comments on Past and Present Futures: E. Hoffmann Price apologizes to the KlanAndy Duncanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06421758303392878100noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1618609235086099477.post-74535973421352861212015-04-04T14:45:10.712-04:002015-04-04T14:45:10.712-04:00Dear Andy,
I'm not sure what you want me to ...Dear Andy,<br /><br /> I'm not sure what you want me to address, so I'll give you some personal background on Ed. We'd both been cavalrymen in our days--1915 and 1970. He liked to talk and I was delighted to listen.<br /><br /> Ed had joined the 15th Cavalry at age 16 to patrol the Philippines. He'd met an old trooper who told him that Oriental women had their vulvas crossways, so that when they spread their legs they got tighter. That sounded good to Ed.<br /><br /> In fact he spent only 30 days in the Philippines before the 15th Cav was recalled to the Mexican Border where Pancho Villa was raiding. Shortly after that they were shipped to France where they acted as mule skinners unloading freighters in Bayonne, France. He had stories about the prostitutes in all three continents.<br /><br /> When WW I was over, Ed was on garrison duty on the German border. The army created a service-wide scheme by which enlisted men could take an entrance exam for admission to West Point. Ed was one of the extremely few who gained admission through that test. He graduated in 1922 and was briefly a 2nd Lieutenant assigned to a Coast Artillery unit in NJ. He resigned ahead of a court martial because he had gotten to know the battalion commander's wife rather better than the major was pleased to learn.<br /><br /> I've told the story this way to make it clear that though Ed was very smart, he was also an iconoclast who was not even slightly interested in polite society or its norms. He was acting out in the introduction, but I don't doubt he meant what he said.<br /> <br /> Ed's judgments on the stories in FLOD as he went over them were sometimes puzzling. The pro-Klan paragraph is an example of that, but his enthusiasm for _Hands of Janos_ and _Bones for China_ baffle me to this day. I would recommend that you read and judge stories as stories, not as examples of political correctness or of racism (as the case may be).<br /><br /> In particular, read _One Step from Hell¬_. I'll be pleased the day I think I've written its equal.<br /><br /> All best,<br /> Dave<br />Dave Dralehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18129140646117868155noreply@blogger.com