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of the event by their squad leader, but he wasn’t exactly in the mood to listen to any of Davis Lee’s immature bigotry about the neighborhood where the shooting had taken place. Shaun was happy to see both Ross and James, but let it be known that he was much more receptive to the idea of either one of them coming alone for future visits.
    As graduation day approached, the three remaining roommates were each looking forward to their respective future postings. Many events of both a positive and negative nature in society had occurred during their four years at the academy, and there had been numerous discussions among the young men about several of them.
    Heading the list of positive achievements for America, and frankly all of mankind, was the successful landing of ten men on the surface of the Moon. The historic event had first been accomplished by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Apollo 11 mission during July of 1969, and had been duplicated successfully on four of the five other attempts since that particular flight. The only miscue had occurred during the Apollo 13 mission when a near fatal explosion in the spacecraft while in flight made a landing on the Moon impossible. Fortunately for the astronauts, a large team of highly skilled and dedicated personnel at NASA were able to get them safely back to Earth. There was still one more Apollo mission to the Moon that was scheduled for December of 1972, but all other future missions had been cancelled due to budget constraints.
    On the negative side of the human endeavor had been the tragic massacre at Kent State University in Ohio during May of 1970. While hundreds of college students were in the midst of a protest against the United States military presence in Vietnam, four of them had been killed, with several others wounded, by gunfire from the National Guard troops that had been sent in to subdue the unruly behavior. It had been an emotional event to say the least, and had stirred deep feelings and opinions from both sides of the argument during the discussions in their quarters.
    In the most recent weeks, the discussions of worldly events had been overshadowed by talk of each man’s respective assignment, or posting, after graduation. Davis Lee, through the assistance of his powerful and well-connected father, would be stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. That way he would be out of harm’s way, and close enough to the family that they could maintain their influence over his thought process. Ross was again saddened by the fact that Davis Lee had actually made significant progress towards accepting other people, but that progress would soon be reversed by his family.
    James Franklin had decided to become an officer in the Marine Corps, and while his choice was something that had earned him the respect of others, that path would potentially place him in harm’s way. He would most assuredly find himself in the middle of the Vietnam conflict that was still ongoing.
    Ross had decided early in his academy days, and frankly long before that, to become a Navy pilot and fly jets. He had completed his major course of study in the field of aeronautical engineering, and had jumped through the appropriate hoops to make that ambition a reality. He, like James, would be headed for the Vietnam theatre, but at least Ross would be based on the relative safety of an aircraft carrier.
    The other good friend that Ross had at the academy was Dennis Strickland, who was a year behind him as a member of the class of 1973. He was from a family in Colorado that had been in the mining industry for the last three generations before him, so he justifiably excelled in the field of geology. Both Dennis and Ross had similar ambitions with regard to career path, as the collective plan was to fly jets and then apply for the astronaut program at NASA. When Ross had once asked him why he just didn’t go to the Air Force Academy in his home state, Dennis informed him that it was because the Air Force