Brando_ Songs My Mother Taught Me - Marlon Brando [12]
At Libertyville High, I was a bad student, chronic truant and all-round incorrigible. I was forever being sent to the principal’s office to be disciplined. Mr. Underbrink didn’t like me much, and seated behind his big wooden desk, with a stern, worn look on his face, he gave me one lecture after another. My homeroom teacher, Mr. Russell, was just as enraged by my contempt for authority, and his response was to belittle me; once he lost his temper and shook me as hard as he could, and announced to the class that I had an IQ of ninety and that I had better pay attention if I wanted to keep up with the rest of the class. I didn’t try hard because I was bored and irritated.
The situation didn’t improve during my second year. I failed or dropped out of so many classes that by the end of the term I was informed that I had to repeat my sophomore year.
I was one of the bad boys of the school. I always had friends, boys as well as girls, but I was anathema to many of my teachers and the parents of many of my friends, some of whom treated me as if I were poison. Though I didn’t realize it then, I was beginning to discover one of the realities of life: members of almost every group in human society try hard to convince themselves that they are superior to the other groups, whether they are religions, nations, neighboring tribes in the rain forest or members of rival suburban country clubs who claim that membership in their club proves they have a higher social standing than those in others. The caste system may be more highly developed in countries like India or England, but every tier of society in almost every culture tries to dominate a group it perceives as beneath it. In Libertyville I was in the caste right near the bottom.
My father’s solution to my difficulties at Libertyville High was to send me to the same school he had once attended, Shattuck Military Academy in Faribault, Minnesota. He thought the discipline would benefit me greatly.
My tenure at Shattuck was probably fated from the beginning to be short. By then I was rebelling against any authority and against conformity in general with every ounce of energy in my body.
5
THE CAMPUS OF Shattuck Military Academy was attractive in the way of a sedate English country boarding school. From a distance it almost looked like one, with symmetrical rows of Gothic limestone buildings and a tall, square bell tower cloaked in ivy. The tower overlooked the parade grounds, where I was soon marching two or three times a day. Beyond the buildings were a football field and hiking trails for extended-order drills. Reveille was at six-thirty, when we shined our shoes and put on our uniforms for the first inspection of the day; after calisthenics there was a formation, morning drill and breakfast. Following five or six hours in a classroom, afternoons were devoted to sports.
I was sixteen when I arrived at Shattuck. Since I had to repeat my sophomore year, I was a year behind other cadets my age. Shattuck had been producing soldiers for the United States Army since shortly after the Civil War. From the first day, we were indoctrinated with its traditions and the exploits of alumni who had demonstrated the values that our teachers said they were going to teach us: discipline, order, honor, obedience, courage, loyalty, patriotism.
As it did for many military academies then, the federal government subsidized Shattuck by providing rifles and cannons for us to drill with. Every year several graduates went on to West Point. Our teachers were called “masters,” and their task