The Vor Game

I went to the goodbye party of a young man I know who is going into the Air Force. There are a lot of reasons why I think this is a very bad idea -- he's a little on the fragile side, and there's my opinion of the military to begin with. Specifically, he aced the language aptitude test and they're going to train him as an airborne cryptographer. They said they'll train him in a "level four" language: he can't remember what they all are, but Arabic is one of them.

Arabic is a lovely language, spoken by a large number of interesting people spread all over the world. You can often talk to learned people in backward countries if you know Arabic.

I am so afraid they will ask him to interpret for interrogations.

So I got him Young Miles to read. As usual, I did it too late. I didn't realize he isn't allowed to take books to training camp -- he could take a Bible, though. But he has a day to read The Vor Game, and I hope he does. I want him to have young Miles on his mind. I want him to think, "So, I'm in the military, I will do this right, I will do it with honor, I will follow the law and not just the rules."

I don't know, though. They own him for six years, and for the first five weeks he's not allowed to read a book of his own.

And this is all my writing for today except ( today's story fragment )

And now it is tomorrow, and I have a lot to do tomorrow, not least of which is begin to look for work in earnest.