Reality control via manipulation of the truth contributes to totalitarian power whereby the ruling party wields total power, for itʼs own sake, over the inhabitants. It can make people believe whatever it tells them by way of propaganda and the rewriting of history.

He had swam out to the middle of the lake and reached a point of no return. Keep on swimming into the unknown and hope to reach the other side. His coveted quest to become a professional ballplayer included a labyrinth of obstacles and the straightforward path had been lost. This was destinyʼs gravity.

The VC wouldnʼt come out and fight. They were hiding in the bushes, waiting to ambush and we had no idea where they were. Thatʼs when a platoon leader ordered the rookies to go for a walk in the woods and draw fire. That’s suicide!

The summer had passed and he hadnʼt heard from the Minnesota Twins. It was another summer without baseball; another summer waiting around in limbo; waiting for something to happen; waiting for someone else to dictate his life. He had the urge to do something, whether right or wrong, so in November, he took one last cruise in his hot rod and cranked up the Cricklewood Green -- Tax the rich, tax them some more. Tax the rich, till theyʼre rich no more. End the war!

Not unlike a character from a Joseph Heller novel, he kept finding himself caught up in a Catch-22; a hopeless situation well beyond his control. It seemed fruitless, but he somehow kept escaping the shackles of society by pitching his way out of the jam. The war was lost, and so too was his childhood dream of becoming heir apparent to Aparicioʼs role as starting shortstop for the White Sox. How now was he to escape from this seemingly futility?

Hit the road ball-slinger and donʼt cha come back no more no more. So, just like his older brother, he hit the road without expectations of ever returning home. Hit the road ballplayer and donʼt cha come back no more no more.

“Therefore in various eras there frequently is felt the need for a refreshing, enlivening breeze, a mighty gale, which would cleanse the air and drive out the poisonous vapors; a need is felt for the saving movement of a great event which saves by stirring the stagnation; a need is felt for the enlivening vision of a great expectation--so that men shall not be suffocated in worldliness or destroyed in the encumbering moment!”  (Kierkegaard, Søren. Works of Love. NY: Harper Torchbooks, 1962. Pp. 231}

“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed--if all records told the same tale-- then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past, ran the Party slogan, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” (Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Harcourt Brace, 1949. Pp. 36)

Joe DiMaggio, Hank Greenberg, and Bob Feller all suited up for military teams during WWll. During the Korean Conflict, Fort Meyer Military District won the 1952 National Baseball Congress semi-pro World Series and a year later finished runners-up to the Fort Leonard Wood Missouri Hilltoppers. The Camp Wheeler Spokes of Georgia won the event in 1943 and Enid Air Base of Oklahoma won it all in 1945. Fort Ord won consecutive California State UBC titles from 1952 to 1954 including a 6-1 victory over the Marysville Giants in the finals of the 1953 Northern California NBC tournament. This ballplayer was given the same line that the great Billy Martin was given when he asked to join the Fort Ord Warriors -- Officers only!

Military Man (Excerpts).