Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Time at Stanford and VMI

Sunday, July 11, 1999 | 9:20 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

ALLOW ME to inform our readers that I do watch programs other than sporting events on the tube. A good example was last week after watching our U.S. Women's World Cup soccer team compete, I watched several commencement speakers from different colleges and universities. Two of the best were the speakers at Stanford and Virginia Military Institute. When you learn the name of the VMI speaker you'll probably think I have flipped out. Even more disconcerting will be that I sat through the entire address by G. Gordon Liddy.

Long ago Liddy showed the world he was a tough guy when refusing to cut a deal with the prosecutors of Watergate criminals. He took prison and kept his mouth shut. Since then he has become a very controversial radio talk show host who sometimes makes more than his share of outrageous remarks and draws fire from several quarters. I find it rather easy to turn the dial when he gets too wild.

Well, the VMI class of 1999 picked Liddy as its commencement speaker. The students' choice lighted a fire among members of the faculty. Lt. Col. Rose Mary Sheldon, associate professor of history, remarked, "We are judged by the heroes we choose to elevate before us. It saddens me to think G. Gordon Liddy is the best we can do. If the reaction outside the Institute were only shock and outrage over our choice, that would be bad enough. But the more common reaction seems to be: 'Well, what do you expect, it's VMI.' " This feeling didn't go unnoticed as Liddy began his delivery in good humor when saying, "Gen. Bunting, Gen. Farrell, Pres. Gottwald, distinguished guests, friends and enemies in the faculty ..." This drew hearty laughter from his audience.

Liddy's delivery was smooth and entertaining and he didn't miss one of his favorite targets. Advocating keeping women in military noncombat roles, challenging the use of military people as policemen, citing examples of leadership and even the proper use of prayer were among his subjects. He really zeroed in on the proper use of language. He told the graduates to say clearly what they mean and not fall into the modern habit of putting sugar on words. "You cannot buy a used car, it is always a previously owned vehicle. I was in nine prisons, not one of them was ever called a prison. Some of them were referred to as penitentiaries although I never found anyone there who was penitent, certainly not I," he noted.

He advised them against praying for self-serving or trivial matters like working for Ford Motor Co. and praying to take a 10 percent market share from General Motors. He asked them, "Why would God do that? First of all, implicit in that prayer is the concept that you at Ford Motors are more righteous in the eyes of God and more deserving of his favor than those of General Motors. The last time I heard that was a decision for God alone to take. You start usurping his functions, then he is going to become annoyed. Do not put him in a conflict of interest because annoying God is a bad career move. You want 10 percent market share ... Go out, work hard and earn 10 percent market share. Leave God out of it."

Liddy's address was free flowing, to the point and not too long. At Stanford the speaker chosen was U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky who delivered a much longer speech. Despite the length of his talk, Pinsky kept my attention with his beautiful use of quotes from Chief Seattle and others along with his own poetry.

The final charge given the Stanford graduates ran a chill down the back of this history buff when Pinsky told them:

"Though you win a Nobel Prize in physics and literature, in a sense it is more important that you keep physics and literature alive, to be passed on to the generations that follow you, as treasures that you got from the generations that preceded you. Your success in business or law may be laudable, and may enrich you and your families and communities, but that is less important in the largest way than the fact that by practicing your skills and exercising your knowledge, you are also preserving them and perfecting them, and you thank those predecessors who preserved and perfected those skills for you by maintaining them for those to follow you.

"I charge you not to break the chain that goes back to the primates that evolved what we now separate into bands and music and poetry and speech as a means of extending memory in an individual lifetime and beyond it. I charge you in whatever way you choose to honor the past and to convey its treasures to the young."

Then he read his poem "Shirt."

Like millions of other Americans I haven't studied at Stanford or VMI but television allowed me to taste the final educational messages the 1999 graduates chose to hear. I have watched and listened to several commencement addresses in recent weeks and have learned something from each of them. My favorites, for entirely different reasons, were those given by Pinsky and Liddy.