It's Not Quite Crying "Uncle!"... It's Not A Statue... Maybe It's Better?

Aero-News wasn't the only outlet to give the University of Washington hell for the unbelievable-but-true tale of the members of the Student Senate who thought that "Marines are not what we should be producing." Not by any means. The blogosphere and talk radio are also in full cry, and the University is in full defensive crouch.

An AP report quoted one unidentified blogger as saying, "How dare these snot nose, hemp-wearing, pot smoking, drum beating, dreadlock wearing, 'gee when is the financial aid check going to arrive,' brat kids diss Pappy Boyington?" (If anybody knows what blog that is, drop Hognose a line. He wants to read the rest of it).

Another student claimed to have been offered a beating by a Marine. (If you're a collector of beatings, kid, our advice is to take it. It will probably be a thrashing to remember). In all seriousness, though, these kids need a clue, not a clobbering... but if you haven't got a clue by college age, you will probably be living with Mom and Dad and still trying to find yourself at 35. We have no idea how to give a clue to people like that.

But there's one very positive bit of reaction. The UW Foundation, which among other things steers UW-related generosity to deserving recipients, has set up a Lt. Col. Gregory "Pappy" Boyington Memorial Scholarship Fund.

"This fund will provide scholarships to undergraduate students who are either a U.S Marine Corps veteran or are the child of a U.S Marine Corps veteran," Renee Fricke, Director of the Annual Giving Programs at the University of Washington Foundation, emailed to columnist Michelle Malkin, another writer outraged by the Student Senate's bizarre reasoning and results.

Maybe the answer is to flood the place with Marine vets and offspring -- and a flush scholarship fund would help with that. It would sure help the Marine vets who are there now on what is clearly a hostile campus. (Still, Marines did Belleau Wood, Tarawa, Hue City and Fallujah. The contempt of the student senate is unlikely to faze them, as "hostile" goes).

A cynic might say it's an attempt to cash in during a time when the university is getting more than its usual share of publicity (they say there's no such thing as bad publicity... this would be proof of that). But maybe money in this fund will do some good -- make your own decisions.

Boyington, whose famous self-assessment was, "Show me a hero and I'll prove he's a bum," might actually like the idea of a scholarship a lot better than the statue. He might have been uncomfortable with the idea of a statue of himself.

If it's a "real" Boyington scholarship, winners should have to maintain a 3.0 GPA in Aeronautics or Aeronautical Engineering (his majors) and commit one alcohol-related act of gross insubordination per semester. Somehow we don't think that requirement will see light of day, but he'd definitely have laughed at that.

We'd also like to point out one factual error in Hognose's opinion piece. A reader pointed out that he quoted Ashley Miller as sneering that there were memorials enough to "white males," and actually she said "rich white males." Boyington was even less rich than he (part Indian) was white, but we've learned better than to expect common sense from the denizens of the UW student senate. But if we're going to quote fools, we ought to quote them completely.

Finally, thanks for all the mail on the subject, most of it running pretty strongly pro-Pappy. (Not all; and we note that we'll always welcome a decently-written opinion piece from our readers, even, or especially, in response to an op-ed or Aero-Views of our own).

There's a lot of Marines out there, we're learning. And oo-rah back at ya.

http://www.uwfoundation.org/ They currently have the Boyington Memorial Scholarship linked on the front page. Here is the direct link to make a gift to the scholarship, in case you read this some time in the future and their home page has changed.