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Col. Don “The Great Santini” Conroy


Image by Judge Rock

If you ever read the book, ‘The Great Santini,’ by Pat Conroy, or seen the movie by the same name, or are ‘just’ a father, then then you may also enjoy reading the below text. It is a rather stirring commentary, written when Pat Conroy’s father, Colonel Donald Conroy, USMC, died; so if you liked the book and enjoyed Robert Duvall’s portrayal of this larger-than-life Marine fighter pilot on film, then you will want to read Pat Conroy’s eulogy for his dad, the real-life Great Santini.

The Great Santini’s Eulogy
by Pat Conroy

The children of fighter pilots tell different stories than other kids did.None of our fathers can write a will or sell a life insurance policy or fill out a prescription or administer a flu shot or explain what a poet meant. We tell of fathers who land on aircraft carriers during pitch-black nights with the wind howling out of the China Sea. Our fathers wiped out anti-aircraft batteries in the Philippines and set Japanese soldiers on fire when they made the mistake of trying to overwhelm our troops on the ground.

Your Dads ran the barber shops and worked at the post office and delivered the packages on time and sold the cars, while our Dads were blowing up fuel depots near Seoul, were providing extraordinarily courageous close air support to the beleaguered Marines at the Chosin Reservoir, and who once turned the Naktong River red with blood of a retreating North Korean battalion. We tell of men who made widows of the wives of our nations’ enemies and who made orphans out of all their children.

You don’t like war or violence? Or napalm? Or rockets? Or cannons or death rained down from the sky? Then let’s talk about your fathers, not ours. When we talk about the aviators who raised us and the Marines who loved us, we can look you in the eye and say "you would not like to have been America’s enemies when our fathers passed overhead". We were raised by the men who made the United States of America the safest country on earth in the bloodiest century in all recorded history.Our fathers made sacred those strange, singing names of battlefields across the Pacific: Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, the Chosin Reservoir, Khe Sanh and a thousand more. We grew up attending the funerals of Marines slain in these battles. Your fathers made communities like Beaufort decent and prosperous and functional; our fathers made the world safe for democracy.

We have gathered here today to celebrate the amazing and storied life of Colonel Donald Conroy who modestly called himself by his nom deguerre, The Great Santini. There should be no sorrow at this funeral because The Great Santini lived life at full throttle, moved always in the fast lanes, gunned every engine, teetered on every edge, seized every moment and shook it like a terrier shaking a rat. He did not know what moderation was or where you’d go to look for it.

Donald Conroy is the only person I have ever known whose self-esteem was absolutely unassailable. There was not one thing about himself that my father did not like, nor was there one thing about himself that he would change. He simply adored the man he was and walked with perfect confidence through every encounter in his life. Dad wished everyone could be just like him. His stubbornness was an art form. The Great Santini did what he did, when he wanted to do it and woe to the man who got in his way.

Once I introduced my father before he gave a speech to an Atlanta audience. I said at the end of the introduction, "My father decided to go into the Marine Corps on the day he discovered his IQ was the temperature of this room." My father rose to the podium, stared down at the audience, and said without skipping a beat, "My God, it’s hot in here! It must be at least 180 degrees."

Here is how my father appeared to me as a boy. He came from a race of giants and demigods from a mythical land known as Chicago. He married the most beautiful girl ever to come crawling out of the poor and lowborn south, and there were times when I thought we were being raised by Zeus and Athena. After Happy Hour my father would drive his car home at a hundred miles an hour to see his wife and seven children. He would get out of his car, a strapping flight jacketed matinee idol, and walk toward his house, his knuckles dragging along the ground, his shoes stepping on and killing small animals in his slouching amble toward the home place.

My sister, Carol, stationed at the door, would call out, "Godzilla’s home!" and we seven children would scamper toward the door to watch his entry. The door would be flung open and the strongest Marine aviator on earth would shout, "Stand by for a fighter pilot!" He would then line his seven kids up against the wall and say, "Who’s the greatest of them all?""You are, O Great Santini, you are.""Who knows all, sees all, and hears all?""You do, O Great Santini, you do."

We were not in the middle of a normal childhood, yet none of us were sure since it was the only childhood we would ever have. For all we knew other men were coming home and shouting to their families, "Stand by for a pharmacist," or "Stand by for a chiropractor."

In the old, bewildered world of children we knew we were in the presence of a fabulous, overwhelming personality; but had no idea we were being raised by a genius of his own myth-making. My mother always told me that my father had reminded her of Rhett Butler on the day they met and everyone who ever knew our mother conjured up the lovely, coquettish image of Scarlet O’Hara. Let me give you my father the warrior in full battle array. The Great Santini is catapulted off the deck of the aircraft carrier, Sicily. His Black Sheep squadron is the first to reach the Korean Theater and American ground troops had been getting torn up by North Korean regulars.Let me do it in his voice:"We didn’t even have a map of Korea. Not zip. We just headed toward the sound of artillery firing along the Naktong River. They told us to keep the North Koreans on their side of the Naktong. Air power hadn’t been a factor until we got there that day. I radioed to Bill Lundin. I was his wingman.’There they are. Let’s go get ‘em.’ So we did."I was interviewing Dad so I asked, "How do you know you got them?""Easy," The Great Santini said. "They were running-it’s a good sign when you see the enemy running. There was another good sign.""What was that, Dad?""They were on fire."

This is the world in which my father lived deeply. I had no knowledge of it as a child. When I was writing the book The Great Santini, they told me at Headquarters Marines that Don Conroy was at one time one of the most decorated aviators in the Marine Corps. I did not know he had won a single medal. When his children gathered together to write his obituary, not one of us knew of any medal he had won, but he had won a slew of them.

When he flew back toward the carrier that day, he received a call from an Army Colonel on the ground who had witnessed the rout of the North Koreans across the river. "Could you go pass over the troops fifty miles south of here? They’ve been catching hell for a week or more. It’d do them good to know you flyboys are around." He flew those fifty miles and came over a mountain and saw a thousand troops lumbered down in foxholes. He and Bill Lundin went in low so these troops could read the insignias and know the American aviators had entered the fray. My father said, "Thousands of guys came screaming out of their foxholes, son. It sounded like a World Series game. I got goose pimples in the cockpit. Get goose pimples telling it forty-eight years later. I dipped my wings, waved to the guys. The roar they let out. I hear it now. I hear it now."

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, my mother took me out to the air station where we watched Dad’s squadron scramble on the runway for their bases at Roosevelt Rhoads and Guantanamo. In the car, as we watched the F-4′s take off, my mother began to say the rosary. "You praying for Dad and his men, Mom?" I asked her. "No, son, I’m praying for the repose of the souls of the Cuban pilots they’re going to kill."

Later I would ask my father what his squadron’s mission was during the Missile Crisis. "To clear the air of MIGS over Cuba," he said. "You think you could’ve done it?" The Great Santini answered, "There wouldn’t have been a bluebird flying over that island, son."

Now let us turn to the literary — to the book, ‘The Great Santini.’ Some of you may have heard that I recorded some serious reservations about my father’s child-rearing practices. When The Great Santini came out, the book roared through my family like a nuclear device. My father hated it; my grandparents hated it; my aunts and uncles hated it; my cousins who adore my father thought I was a psychopath for writing it; and rumor has it that my mother gave it to the judge in her divorce case and said, "It’s all there. Everything you need to know."

What changed my father’s mind was when Hollywood entered the picture and wanted to make a movie of it. This is when my father said, "What a shame John Wayne is dead. Now there was a man. Only he could’ve gotten my incredible virility across to the American people."

Orion Pictures did me a favor and sent my father a telegram; "Dear Col. Conroy: We have selected the actor to play you in the coming film. He wants to come to Atlanta to interview you. His name is Truman Capote." But my father got the joke and took well to Hollywood and it's Byzantine, unspeakable ways. When his movie came out, he began reading Variety on a daily basis. He called the movie a classic the first month of its existence. He claimed that he had a place in the history of film. In February of the following year, he burst into my apartment in Atlanta, as excited as I have ever seen him, and screamed, "Son, you and I were nominated for Academy Awards last night. Your mother didn’t get squat."

Ladies and gentlemen, you are attending the funeral of the most famous Marine that ever lived. Dad’s life had grandeur, majesty and sweep. We were all caught in the middle of living lives much paler and less daring than The Great Santini’s. His was a high stepping, damn the torpedoes kind of life, and the stick was always set at high throttle. There is not another Marine alive who has not heard of The Great Santini. There’s not a fighter pilot alive who does not lift his glass whenever Don Conroy’s name is mentioned and give the fighter pilot toast: "Hurrah for the next man to die." One day last summer, my father asked me to drive him over to Beaufort National Cemetery. He wanted to make sure there were no administrative foul-ups about his plot. I could think of more pleasurable ways to spend the afternoon, but Dad brought new eloquence to the word stubborn. We went into the office and a pretty black woman said that everything was squared away.

My father said, "It’ll be the second time I’ve been buried in this cemetery." The woman and I both looked strangely at Dad. Then he explained, "You ever catch the flick, The Great Santini? That was me they planted at the end of the movie."

All of you will be part of a very special event today. You will be witnessing the actual burial that has already been filmed in fictional setting. This has never happened in world history. You will be present in a scene that was acted out in film in 1979. You will be in the same town and the same cemetery. Only The Great Santini himself will be different. In his last week's my father told me, "I was always your best subject, son. Your career took a nose dive after The Great Santini came out."

He had become so media savvy that during his last illness he told me not to schedule his funeral on the same day as the Seinfeld Farewell. The Colonel thought it would hold down the crowd. The Colonel’s death was front-page news across the country. CNN announced his passing on the evening news all around the world.

Don Conroy was a simple man and an American hero. His wit was remarkable; his intelligence frightening; and his sophistication next to none. He was a man’s man and I would bet he hadn’t spent a thousand dollars in his whole life on his wardrobe. He lived out his whole retirement in a two-room efficiency in the Darlington Apartments in Atlanta. He claimed he never spent over a dollar on any piece of furniture he owned. You would believe him if you saw the furniture.

Dad bought a season ticket for himself to Six Flags Over Georgia and would often go there alone to enjoy the rides and hear the children squeal with pleasure. He was a beer drinker who thought wine was for Frenchmen or effete social climbers like his children. Ah! His children. Here is how God gets even with a Marine Corps fighter pilot. He sends him seven squirrelly, mealy-mouthed children who march in peace demonstrations, wear Birkenstocks, flirt with vegetarianism, invite cross-dressers to dinner and vote for candidates that Dad would line up and shoot.If my father knew how many tears his children had shed since his death, he would be mortally ashamed of us all and begin yelling that he should’ve been tougher on us all, knocked us into better shape–that he certainly didn’t mean to raise a passel of kids so weak and tacky they would cry at his death. Don Conroy was the best uncle I ever saw, the best brother, the best grandfather, the best friend, and my God, what a father. After my mother divorced him and The Great Santini was published, Don Conroy had the best second act I ever saw. He never was simply a father. This was The Great Santini. It is time to leave you, Dad. From Carol and Mike and Kathy and Jim and Tim and especially from Tom. Your kids wanted to especially thank Katy and Bobby and Willie Harvey who cared for you heroically.

Let us leave you and say good-bye, Dad, with the passwords that bind all Marines and their wives and their children forever. The Corps was always the most important thing. Semper Fi, Dad. Semper Fi, O Great Santini.

Why “The Truman Show” is Unrealistic


Image by Profound Whatever
Truman Burbank is just some dude. He lives his life unaware that every moment is being filmed for a grand television show: "The Truman Show". All his friends and family are actors. His neighborhood is one big set. The sun and stars are stage lights high above the ground on the ceiling of a massive, sky-blue dome.

In the movie, the show portrayed as some worldwide smash hit, but it's nothing more than a boring webcam. Yes, he's oblivious to the deception, but I can go online and in ten seconds find ten videos of people unaware they're on camera, and none of them deserve the kind of mass appeal "The Truman Show" is given by its diegetic audience. If audiences really dug that peek behind the curtain, why isn't "Candid Camera" the most popular show of all time?

The real-life success of reality TV just digs a deeper grave for this movie. Your Survivors, your Big Brothers; those guys know they're being filmed, and they're going to make the best of it. They're going to put on a show because they know they're on a show. But Truman? He's just living. Being there. As long as he's just a guy getting by, as long as he's unaware of the show, there's nothing to watch.

But if Truman were a chick? If the film remained the same, but the gender roles were switched? That would get you a TV show worthy of the global audience. If Truman is a dude, you're just watching a dude; if Truman is a girl, you know she's going to get naked sooner or later. Imagine the ratings bonanza during She-Truman's college years as she sows her wild oats. The producers would pounce on it. The show would acknowledge, expect, and then eventually provoke and script the kinds of situations that produce boobies. It would turn the show into one big elaborate porno, with an unaware star at the center of the fray. There would be outrage, there would be moral condemnation, but there is no doubt the show would be ratings success. Everybody likes nudity. Put on a show where a young woman has a good chance of getting naked each night, and you've got a winner. The viewers would pour in.

Morality would finally bring the axe down. She-Truman would be proclaimed a victim of ruthless exploitation, an innocent soul corrupted in the name of ratings, a modern martyr. The show would be shut down and labeled a sick game.

But it'd be fun while it lasted.

Although, once you bring sex into the mix, you can't just stop. It's like potato chips or gummy bears. The show's producers would have to create one hell of a sexy unreality to keep viewers hooked night after night. She-Truman's daily life would be scripted to allow all sorts of contrived opportunities for nudity. Every car wash becomes a wet T-shirt contest. Every parking ticket ends with a sexual favor. Every birthday party leads to an orgy. Porn stars are hired to augment the normal townsfolk actors. Nudity is made uniform. Sex is made commonplace. But that's the thing: to She-Truman, it wouldn't be contrived; it would be normal. It would be the world she grew up in; the way things are. She would know nothing but a modern society in which hyperactive sexuality and nonstop nudity are as everyday as buying groceries or eating dinner. The ratings would soar as her worldview twists.

But if this version of the film follows the same plot, and She-Truman escapes the television show, her fate would be just as uncertain. If she unshackles her legs and climbs out of Plato's cave of sexy shadows, she would enter a world completely foreign to her expectations of daily life. She would be an unabashed, sexually-aggressive nympho unable to understand why people insist on wearing clothes each day.

And that would be the sequel.

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