Read Someone Else's War: A Novel of Russia and America Page 63
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For CC Cooper, the most interesting part of any seminar began after the class ended. Talking with the students who stayed behind to question and to argue and to probe. Suggesting that they continue the discussion over coffee or tea or vodka or bourbon or whatever. Then listening, just listening, as his students—men in the prime of their lives and the ascending trajectory of their careers—grew sometimes honest. Even better was between the fall and spring semesters, when everyone had time. So now he sat, silently drinking his tea in the students’ canteen, while they verbally buffeted each other. From time to time, he heard a trace of the kind of English he’d taught them. Odd to hear a Russian-accented Kentucky drawl, but the inflections of Old Dixie were contagious. After all, the unofficial language of the United States Army was a combination of jargon and profanity, expressed in a mild Southern accent, natural or acquired. His mind drifted off as the men slipped into Russian. After a few minutes, one of his students turned to him.
“Colonel Cooper, we in your fall seminar would like to enroll as a group in your spring course. Is that possible?”
“Deedy do, it is.”
“The course is not yet listed.”
“I know. I’m still working on the title.”
“What are you thinking of?”
“American Power in the 21st Century: Dominant, Exorbitant, Irrelevant.”
Another student squirmed uncomfortably. “How can you, an American officer, teach such a course here?”
“Perhaps, sir, the important question is not, how can I teach it here? The important question is, will it be true?”
“Perhaps. But still…”
“But still, nothing, sir. Maybe if I teach it here, word will get back and they’ll let me do something like it at home. Even if not, this is material that you and your comrades will have to address as history takes its course. Anyway, we have a saying back in Kentucky. ‘You pays your money and you takes your choice.’ Maybe someday my country will understand that it’s paying for some very wrong choices, and will be for a long time to come. Maybe this will someday help us all to make some right ones. In any case, remember. You heard it here first.”
“Another Kentuckyism, Colonel?”
“Absolutely. And by the way, have I ever explained to you what a ‘Kentucky Colonel’ really is?”
“A retired officer who sells vast quantities of chicken?”