John Merrow on PBS

Have you ever seen the Merrow Report segments on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer? They had one last night about how the federal No Child Left Behind Act forces schools to give military recruiters equal access to high school students as college recruiters. Did I hear somewhere that the U S Armed Forces are actually the biggest college level educational organization in the world? That didn't seem to be the tenor of the report. Why the host seemed a bit surprised that there was forced equal treatment for an organization that might send its recruits to Iraq! They seemed shocked, shocked. Do you bring some special insight to the question John Merrow? What did you do in the (Vietnam) War John Merrow?

A little birdie told me that you got a job as a teacher right out of Dartmouth (employment deferment), then soon got married to a rich girl (the birdie says you drove away on your honeymoon in a Rolls - that's a marriage deferment). Nowhere do I see any military service when you were of prime draft age during the height of Lyndon Johnson's draft!

And the birdie says that while you were teaching those high school students, you did a big section on anti-war poetry. You know, Where have All the Flowers Gone? And your students held you in such high regard that one day they brought a coffin to class and put a kid inside. When you arrived, he popped up waving an American flag reading Elizabeth Browning. And there are witnesses. One of those students, Mary LeS. went on to be a big time assistant to the likes of Lucas and Spielberg in Hollywood! Maybe she can help them produce a movie, Where Have all the Flower Children Gone? (Seems at least one went to PBS!)

Enquiring minds want to know! Hint http://www.pbs.org/merrow/about/Merrow_bio.pdf