Paratroopers Invade Harvard Square

Dowbrigade Interviews Under-Secretary of the Army

Several
times a year, we take our students on the patented Dowbrigade tour
of the Harvard
University
campus,
ending
at
the Harvard
Museum complex. It is usually at the beginning of a semester, and functions
as a bonding experience, as well as the raw material for their first
essay assignment, which is to write a detailed physical description
of a single exhibit of their choice among the four museums we visit.

This morning, as we huddled under the awning of the
Out-of-Town News Agency with a bedraggled gang of eight students, exactly
half of our summer group, we wondered if this semester’s edition would
be the first to be rained out. The streets were awash with a cold, inhospitable
downpour which had started exactly at 9:30, the time we had arranged
to meet.

Taking the pulse of the group, we decided to retire
to Au Bon Pan and regroup over latte. We watched the people ducking out
of the rain, scurrying for shelter, or enjoying the drenching downpour.
15 minutes later the missing half of our class had miraculously appeared
like wraiths
out
of the mist,
and just as suddenly as it had started, the rain stopped.

One of our students commented on the inordinate number
of Army guys on the street and asked if it was normal.  We had noticed
them too, and wondered if there was something going on.  We explained
that it was unusual to see people in uniform on the streets of Cambridge,
unless, for example the Fleet was in port, or the President was in town.  The
Army guys we could see, however, were not a security detail, or lowly
young grunts.  They were middle-aged and competent looking.

Glancing optimistically
at the clearing skies, we gathered our charges and headed across Massachusetts
Avenue to Johnson Gate and the inner sanctum of Harvard Yard.  This
year, as we launched into our spiel, passing social-cultural and FIDE
judgment on the Chess Master of Harvard Square, we had a parallel agenda.

Two weeks ago, we had been in New York City, and searched
in vain for a downloadable museum guide to the Metropolitan Museum.  All
we could find was a guide to the damn MOMA.  The Dowbrigade can’t
stand most of that modern crap, and some of the pieces make us physically
ill, especially when we read how much these alleged works of art are
worth. But the idea of independently produced, quirkish, iPoddable walking
guides to popular museums fascinated us.  Individualistic takes
on the artwork, by other artists or art students, backed by weird, new
music they choose to provide appropriate ambiance, much superior to the
canned cannonic drivel of the official museum audio tours.

Later
we ended up wandering the lower lip of Manhattan, near Delmonico’s in
the financial zone, and the old, tiny, twisted streets
near the Seaport.  Every
old, narrow building told a story, but unfortunately, we knew none of
them.  How wonderful it would be to be able to download narrated
street guides, block by block, and listen to some squirrelly history
buff (you know the type, every neigh hood has one, who know all the legends
and the factual history of every family, store and building) or architecture
buff, spin stories on your iPod as you wander from spot to spot.

This is not our own idea, and we understand (although
we have not found it) that there are aggregations of these kinds of guides
springing up in nooks and crannies of the internet.  One of the
most useful, fascinating new ideas we have heard of in some time, and
we couldn’t help thinking that we would love to contribute to the genre,
if there was anything about which we could conceivably consider ourselves
an expert.

Finally, as we waited for our students this morning,
it hit us. We could do the Harvard Tour!  We’ve only done it about
30 times already, and we could spice it up with risque, gonzo stories
and flashbacks to the many memories of the year we lived in Harvard Yard
three decades ago that inevitably invade our mind when we cross those
tree-lined paths.  So we were, to the unquenched curiosity of our
students, furiously scrawling notes, timing ourselves, and recording
comments in our little silver notebook.

We
led them pst Wadsworth House, the second oldest building still standing
on campus, built in the 1720’s.  We explained the
historical significance of the place as the residence of Col. George
Washington in the days before he formally assumed command of the very
first Colonial Army in 1775, a few blocks away on the Cambridge Common
before the United States was even a country. We took them by the Statue
of the Three Lies, and cajoled a hapless Japanese tourist to take our
picture in front of the statue.  Since most of our students are
Asian and all of them are rich, this involved snapping at least a dozen
times, once with each camera.  We showed them Thayer North, the
dormitory where the Dowbrigade spent his freshman year.

Finally, about 11, we reached the Harvard Museum.  After
a quick tour of the four museums just to give them the lay of the land,
we released them to gather the information they would need to complete
their assignment, promptly snuck out a little-known side exit and
headed for the T station.

Waiting for the 71 bus to take us back to our car in
Watertown (Norma Yvonne had called us in the museum with an urgent shopping
list), we got our first inkling that something was up.  An MBTA
official was directing passengers to walk up the underground roadway,
into the light at the end of the tunnel, to catch the bus on the street
rather than in the station. We asked why.

"Some kind of military maneuvers," he answered, "They
got paratroopers dropping onto Harvard Square, and they cut off the electricity
to one whole sector.  Can’t be having our paratroopers getting fried
now, can we? Whole side of the square is closed off.  Think its
some kind of war games…"

What now? War games in Harvard Square? Where? We hurried
up the tunnel after the other passengers. Where the hell was this happening?
Paratroopers invading Harvard? Should we walk around and try to find
it, or get our car and come right back? Just then the bus rolled up and
we decided to search in the White Whale.  Norma’s groceries could
wait.

It only took us twenty minutes to get home and back
in the car. It was clear that the center of the commotion was the Cambridge
Common. The entire area was closed off by police cruisers, motorcycles
and army vehicles. We approached as close as we could and found a place
to park, not caring that it was resident only. For a story this big,
we would risk a ticket!

Surrepticiously, notebook in hand, playing the reporter,
we approached the Common. Nobody tried to stop us, and as the armed,
uniformed soldiers swarmed around us, we realized why.

It was a public celebration, not a war game or military
takeover!  It was the 230th Anniversary of the very event we had
been telling our students about.  The foundation of the first American
Army!  And the Army had decided to celebrate at the exact same spot
where Washington had accepted that initial command.

It struck us as passing strange that we had heard nothing
of this event in advance, and only stumbled on it by the purest of chance.  Perhaps
the Army had kept a lid on the event, knowing the People’s Republic’s
propensity for protest.

In
fact, there were a few protesters, no more than 20 or 30, standing behind
a line of police, off to one side of the common.  They
too seemed to be celebrating something.  Fashionably dressed in
straw  boaters and white canvas tennis shoes, they looked like they
were at a garden party rather than apolitical protest.

Their signs were amusing and clever.  Their chants
were astute but delivered in a cheerful rah-rah which made them sound
more like football cheers than rage rising from the streets. Pedestrian
stuff, like "Fund Kindergarten, not Combat" "Don’t Believe the Lies".
Quite frankly, they
were an embarrassment
to the history of the American anti-war
movement,
and made us sadly remember the days when an anti-war march in Harvard
square meant barred and chained gates to Harvard Yard, clouds of tear
gas at multiple flashpoints, buildings occupied, windows smashed, banks
trashed. 

We wondered where our buddies the Black Flag Anarchists
were.  They presented well against a scraggly band of brain-dead
Nazi’s, but show them a real Imperial machine and they were nowhere to
be found. This protest was literally a walk in the park, a mocking shadow
of  the street struggles of our youth, on this very spot.

We wandered around, looking at the military vehicles
and displays.  There was a troop of soldiers in their original 1775
uniforms.  There were weapons caches. there seemed to be an inordinate
number of recruiters wandering around, scouting for prospects.  We
were glad we were way beyond that certain age.

Over in the corner some bigwig was holding court, addressing
a gaggle of microphones and looking cool and professional in a thousand-dollar
suit and a million-dollar smile.  He turned out to be Undersecretary
of the Army Raymond Dubois, who had placed a wreath and given a speech
as part of the ceremony.

He was talking in sound bites: "There is no wavering
from the All Volunteer Army". 

He
was asked about the military missing almost all of its recruitment goals
in the past months.  He hemmed and hawed
impressively, noting that  in business they set their sales goals
year to year and only count monthly totals mostly to make adjustments
along the way. He mentioned that reenlistment rates were actually coming
in
higher than expected.  He lamented that the news media don;t pay
attention to all of the positive, non-combat things the Army does, building
schools, and  fixing water systems.

Finally, as he was finishing up and his handlers were
moving in to hustle him away to the next undisclosed location, the Dowbrigade
got in a last, timorous question. "Sir, (at this point we still didn’t
know exactly who this dude was), do you feel that the protesters over
there in any way represent a legitimate voice from the American public?"
Lame, we know, but we were winging it.

Dubois actually smiled at that, as though we had served
him up a nice fat softball. "Let me tell you," he practically purred,
" When I came back from Vietnam and went to Princeton, now there were
some real protests. This," he tossed his head dismissively at the pathetic
handful of protesters behind him, "This is chump change."

On that, at least, we were in complete agreement.

"Protests Break Out At Flag Day Ceremony" from the TheBostonchanel.com

Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words Dept. – Steve Garfield has an excellent Video Blog Report of the event.