The General and the Colonel

Just got back from the University of Scranton, where I took in a presentation by Lt. Gen. Roméo Dallaire. He was the U.N. commander in Rwanda in the days leading up to and during the mass genocide of Tutsis by the Hutu majority in 1994. He wrote the memoir Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda. I first heard of him by way of this interview with Terry Gross on the NPR program Fresh Air.

Once I'm done processing everything I've just heard, and maybe have read my signed copy of his book, I'll be able to write a full entry on him. But not tonight.

It's always weird going back to the University. Things are vastly different, but some things seem very much the same. (The lack of parking, for example; signs pointing to "VISITOR PARKING" lead to lots guarded by signs that say "PERMIT PARKING ONLY". I was able to find a metered parking space, an hour after the metered fee had gone out of effect.) Faces are mostly unfamiliar, but there are always a few professors here and there that I recognize.

The Houlihan-McLean Center, where the presentation was held, was for a long time a majestic church of one of the heathen schismatic denominations. The University purchased it years ago and turned it into a performance center for its Jesuit-trained students. But the space has retained much of its churchly character: seating is in pews, the front of the hall has a raised platform more resembling the altar area of a church than a stage for performances, and the entire front end of the building is dominated by a massive pipe organ that I don't remember being there the last time I saw a play there - Lysistrata, maybe, or She Stoops to Conquer.

I picked a pew close to the front, three rows back and off to the right, where I would have a good view of both the speaker and the screen his presentation would be projected onto. I looked around a bit but didn't see any familiar faces. After a while the room began to fill up and I spotted one of my old Philosophy professors, Hal Baillie, now Provost and Vice-President for Academic Affairs. I caught his eye and he came over to chat for a minute. But by then General Dallaire was already setting up, and Dr. Baillie had official greeting duties to attend to.

I looked around some more and saw a few familiar professors here and there. One, E. Springs Steele, didn't appear to have changed at all since I graduated nearly 20 years ago. (Dr. Baillie is looking trimmer and a bit grayer. Dr. Steele has avoided the latter issue by having consistently been bald for at least the past 23 years.) Then a tiny old man made his way into the pew in front of me and sat down next to two women who were perhaps midway between his age and mine.

I couldn't believe my eyes. Could it be...?

"Zim!" cried one of the women. The three of them engaged in some friendly banter.

It was! Zim. Zim Lawhon. Colonel Zim Lawhon. The Registrar!

Colonel Lawhon was ancient when I started at the University back in 1985. Though what was ancient back then to a 17-year-old, I'm not sure; 70's, maybe, I think. Maybe younger. But he was also a legend. Tough and gruff, tiny and friendly, with a quick smile and a twinkle in his eye. Some people demand respect, others command it; he compelled it. There was something about him that just made you say "Sir."

There is something I have wanted to ask Colonel Lawhon for years. I tried looking him up online a while ago, but couldn't find much that was current, and I think I assumed he was dead. And there he was, sitting in front of me and a few inches to my left.

I waited for a natural break in the conversation before I took a chance at rudely interjecting myself into his sphere of consciousness. "Colonel Lawhon," I said, gently but firmly. He turned slightly, showing a face weathered by many years. I introduced myself by name and class year, and he shook my hand and greeted me warmly. "Colonel Lawhon, there is a question I have wanted to ask you for over ten years."

"Go ahead!" he said.

"Did you, by any chance, ever know the writer Robert Heinlein?"

It seemed like a silly question as soon as it came out. But any U of S alum who has read Heinlein's classic Starship Troopers would have taken note of the character Sergeant Zim and would have probably wondered the same thing.

No. It turns out he hadn't. But Colonel Lawhon pointed out that Zim was also his father's name, and his grandfather's, and both of them had been military men; both were Army, and Heinlein was Navy; though that, and Heinlein's early medical discharge, would not have precluded him from knowing of people in other branches of the military.

I thanked him, and again told him how happy I was to see him after so many years, and by then it was nearly time for General Dallaire to take the stage. We shook hands once again and then settled back to hear what the General had to say.

But whatever was to follow, seeing Colonel Zim Lawhon once again had made my evening!