Word: reckoning
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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While air strikes are dependent on the weather, artillery support is a constant that infantrymen can reckon on. Last week, in a heavy snowstorm, U.S. troops near Yoju edgily waited for a Communist attack. Then, as they heard the muted rustle of outgoing shells through the curtain of the snow, they relaxed. "That's what I like about those gunners," a platoon sergeant said. "Any hour, any weather, always on the ball...
...Crimson had used the "Radcliffe Mother" tag before on phony letters, and thought everyone would spot it as an obvious gag. But, said the editors ruefully, they "failed to reckon with the Associated Press." The A.P. gave the letter a deadpan lead ("Awaken ye men of Harvard . . ."), inserted the phrase "purportedly from the mother of a Radcliffe girl," and sent it clicking across the nation...
This letter was written on the belief that CRIMSON readers would find the by-now patently fake Radcliffe Mother's opinion funny. The belief was apparently accurate; every undergraduate reply to the letter was similarly tongue-in-cheek. But "Radcliffe Mother"--and the CRIMSON--failed to reckon with the Associated Press...
...said to the bold young pilot: "Raddy, you guys are crazy to fly those airplanes like that. You're going to kill yourself one day with an engine failure." Raddy replied: "Look, sir, if we're going to accomplish anything in naval aviation, we can't reckon on engine failure. We have to think of these planes as being good enough to stay...
...than we deserve. Food good, medical care fine, ten cigarettes a day, we can use the piano and we are safe from everything but our planes." A corporal from Missouri, reported as having been captured after two companions refused to surrender and were killed, was quoted as saying: "I reckon they believed that they would be shot in the back of the head like MacArthur said. Well, we were not. That was just his way of trying to get us to fight...