"Robert A. Heinlein - Glory Road" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

Glory Road
Robert A. Heinlein

Copyright 1963

BRITANNUS (shocked):
Caesar, this is not proper.
THEODOTUS (outraged):
How?
CAESAR (recovering his self-possession):
Pardon him Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his
tribe and island are the laws of nature.
Caesar and Cleopatra, Act II
-George Bernard Shaw

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Chapter 1

I know a place where there is no smog and no parking problem and no
population explosion...no Cold War and no H-bombs and no television
commercials...no Summit Conferences, no Foreign Aid, no hidden taxes -- no
income tax. The climate is the sort that Florida and California claim (and
neither has), the land is lovely, the people are friendly and hospitable to
strangers, the women are beautiful and amazingly anxious to please --
I could go back. I could --
It was an election year with the customary theme of anything you can do I can
do better, to a background of beeping sputniks. I was twenty-one but couldn't
figure out which party to vote against.
Instead I phoned my draft board and told them to send me that notice.
I object to conscription the way a lobster objects to boiling water: it may
be his finest hour but it's not his choice. Nevertheless I love my country.
Yes, I do, despite propaganda all through school about how patriotism is
obsolete. One of my great-grandfathers died at Gettysburg and my father made
that long walk back from Chosen Reservoir, so I didn't buy this new idea. I
argued against it in class -- until it got me a "D," in Social Studies, then I
shut up and passed the course.
But I didn't change my opinions to match those of a teacher who didn't know
Little Round Top from Seminary Ridge.
Are you of my generation? If not, do you know why we turned out so wrong-
headed? Or did you just write us off as "juvenile delinquents?"
I could write a book. Brother! But I'll note one key fact: After you've spent
years and years trying to knock the patriotism out of a boy, don't expect him
to cheer when he gets a notice reading: GREETINGS: You are hereby ordered for
induction into the Armed Forces of the United States --
Talk about a "Lost Generation!" I've read that post-World-War-One jazz --
Fitzgerald and Hemingway and so on -- and it strikes me that all they had to
worry about was wood alcohol in bootleg liquor. They had the world by the tail
-- so why were they crying?
Sure, they had Hitler and the Depression ahead of them. But they didn't know