Veterans on the Campus

By the statue of the Trojan on the University of Southern California campus a group of male students meets almost every day. One of them occasionally taps the toe of his artificial leg with his cane.

Another awkwardly tries to hide the shiny black glove which covers his artificial right hand. A third, when rolling up his sleeve, is careful to keep four livid scars well covered. These and others in the group get an occasional nod from passing students, but they are different from the rest -- proud, reserved, mature, cliquish, hard to know. Coeds and Navy V12 trainees fresh from high school mostly ignore them.

The men by the statue are the vanguard of the legion of World War II veterans soon to return to U.S. campuses, and they and the university are having a hard time adjusting to each other. Other colleges and other veterans appeared last week to be solving the problem more readily, but for all of them it is tough.

Fraternity Folderol. There are now 80-odd student veterans at the University of Southern California, some of them in their third semester. From the start they have had trouble with the fraternities. To many of them fraternity folderol seemed childish, fraternity members immature. They formed their own club, the Trovets (Trojan Veterans).* Fraternity pride was deeply hurt. At first the fraternities tried to control the Trovets, since then have been openly hostile to it. On several occasions notices and reports of Trovet meetings submitted to The Daily Trojan have been "somehow misplaced."

But the veterans' chief gripes are about the way the university has insisted on their following its regular routine. They feel they have learned a lot in the war. They want now to equip themselves as quickly as possible to earn a living. Required courses in such subjects as "Hygiene and Health," "Behavior of Modern Society," and "Principles of Learning" seem to them either old stuff or a waste of time.

Required Gymnastics. The required gym course is the worst. Ray Randazzo, 31, lost 65 Ibs. when he got rheumatic fever in the New Hebrides. He has his weight back now, but is still too weak to turn over in bed without help, let alone take regular gym exercises. He has to try them anyway. Frank Scares, 35, lost his right leg at Oran when somebody fumbled a souvenir German grenade. When Scares' gym instructor recently asked him to skip rope, he managed three jumps, then fainted.

The U.S.C. veterans do not expect the university to turn itself inside out for them. Just a little understanding of their special problems would do, they think. For instance, 27-year-old Walter Piper, who wears a black glove because he lost his right arm on New Guinea, wishes some of his professors would not be so impatient with his slow note-taking. His left hand is not yet very handy with a pencil. And 21-year-old Marvin Niles, who is slow too, wishes the professor would remember that the German land mine which shredded and scarred his arm in Sicily left his elbow so sensitive that when it brushes against a desk he almost screams with the pain.

"However, if in time ..." Confronted with such complaints, U.S.C.'s President Rufus B. von KleinSmid explains: "You see, various subjects are required for various degrees. . . . Naturally, to obtain a degree, you must meet certain educational requirements. . . . However, if in time it is proven that certain courses are not needed for these boys, or if adjustments must be made for individual circumstances, why, I am confident we can see our way clear to alter our courses or make the prescribed adjustments."

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