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

$35 a month did not fill the hole I put in their groceries and it was
understood that when I graduated I would root for myself. By doing my military
time, no doubt -- But I had my own plan; I played football and finished senior
year season with the California Central Valley secondary school record for
yards gained and a broken nose -- and started in at the local State College
the next fall with a job "sweeping the gym" at $10 more a month than that
pension, plus fees.
I couldn't see the end out my plan was clear: Hang on, teeth and toenails,
and get an engineering degree. Avoid the draft and marriage. On graduation get
a deferred-status job. Save money and pick up a law degree, too -- because,
back in Homestead, Florida, a teacher had pointed out that, while engineers
made money, the big money and boss jobs went to lawyers. So I was going to
beat the game, yes, sir! Be a Horatio Alger hero. I would have headed straight
for that law degree but for the fact that the college did not offer law.
 At the end of the season my sophomore year they deemphasized football.
We had had a perfect season -- no wins. "Flash" Gordon (that's me -- in the
sports write-ups) stood one in yardage and points; nevertheless Coach and I
were out of jobs. Oh, I "swept the gym" the rest of that year on basketball,
fencing, and track, but the alumnus who picked up the tab wasn't interested in
a basketball player who was only six feet one. I spent that summer pushing an
idiot stick and trying to line up a deal elsewhere. I turned twenty-one that
summer, which chopped that $35/month, too. Shortly after Labor Day I fell back
on a previously prepared position, i.e., I made that phone call to my draft
board.
I had in mind a year in the Air Force, then win a competitive appointment to
the Air Force Academy -- be an astronaut and famous, instead of rich.
Well, we can't all be astronauts. The Air Force had its quota or something. I
was in the Army so fast I hardly had time to pack.
So I set out to be the best chaplain's clerk in the Army; I made sure that
"typing" was listed as one of my skills. If I had anything to say about it, I
was going to do my time at Fort Carson, typing neat copies while going to
night school on the side.
I didn't have anything to say about it. Ever been in Southeast Asia? It makes
Florida look like a desert. Wherever you step it squishes. Instead of tractors
they use water buffaloes. The bushes are filled with insects and natives who
shoot at you. It wasn't a war -- not even a "Police Action." We were "Military
Advisers." But a Military Adviser who has been dead four days in that heat
smells the same way a corpse does in a real war.
I was promoted to corporal. I was promoted seven times. To corporal.
I didn't have the right attitude. So my company commander said. My daddy had
been a Marine and my stepfather was Air Force; my only Army ambition had been
to be a chaplain's clerk Stateside. I didn't like the Army. My company
commander didn't like the Army either; he was a first lieutenant who hadn't
made captain and every time he got to brooding Corporal Gordon lost his
stripes.
I lost them the last time for telling him that I was writing to my
Congressman to find out why I was the only man in Southeast Asia who was going
to be retired for old age instead of going home when his time was up -- and
that made him so mad he not only busted me but went out and was a hero, and
then he was dead. And that's how I got this scar across my broken nose because