Back When Political Correctness Wasn’t an Issue

This picture above was taken sometime in the 1960s when I commanded a drill team as part of a University of Kentucky military fraternity, Pershing Rifles. I’m the short guy on the right with the fake facial hair. (Several years later I grew real facial hair and have kept it for over thirty years).

The unit I commanded was called the Confederate Squad. We not only performed a comedic civil war type drill, but re-fought the Civil War once a year with Ohio State University’s Union Squad. That “battle” carried on a long tradition, going back at least to the 1930s. My Confederate Squad won the battle for the first two years I commanded it, but lost the third, when a victory would have allowed us to retire the trophy that went to the winner. I don't think that it was a coincidence that that third year the battle was fought at Ohio State University and we lost by one point.

I suppose today a Confederate Squad would not seem politically correct; but when I was in college in the 1960s, very much involved in the Civil Rights movement (see my September 29th post, Driving into the Sun) and justice activities, I never considered it contradictory to my other activities.