Walter Mitty and Joe Cafasso

Walter Mitty is a fictional character in James Thurber's short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, published in 1941. Mitty is a meek, mild man with a vivid fantasy life: in a few dozen paragraphs he imagines himself a wartime pilot, an emergency-room surgeon, and a devil-may-care killer. He has become such a standard for the role that his name appears in several dictionaries.^[1]

Walter Mitty may be a fictional character that my younger readers may not be familiar with. But the story that needs to be told about Joe Cafasso is strangely similar except for one dangerous thing. Mitty was a meek, mild man; Cafasso is a blustering bafoon who centers his entire existence around destroying people who get in his way; or who are intelligent enough to realize he's not all that he claims to be. The two characters are similar to the extent that they both enjoy extremely vivid fantasy lives. Cafasso's fantasy life exists solely because of a deep insecurity he might be found out, and a real life which is an humiliating embarrassment, but a testament to scam artists and railriding bums that he's been able to get away with it for so long.

Notice here how he engratiated himself in with people at Columbia University, poses as Blackwood, and stalks off when not given the respect he seems to think he deserves. When understanding that he's not even the person he claims to be, the audacity and sheer bravado are breathtaking.

JERRY BLACKWOOD: Excuse me. I don’t have a question. My name’s Dr. Jerry Blackwood. I’m a retired lieutenant colonel in the United States Army. I’ve been in three combat theatres: one you protested, Grenada, and the first Gulf War. I’ve got to tell you something. I’m not a graduate of your school. I went to a small regional hick school called Texas A&M, which had the same background as this wonderful academic school used to have. It trained more military officers than the joint service academies at one time, just like this one did.

I, this afternoon, ran into a student protesting ROTC. I said why? This question. The answer to me was, I oppose military policy abroad. That’s a good answer since we don’t make military policy abroad. [He also said,] “I also have a problem with DADT.” And I’ve heard Professor Silver, I’ve heard a lot of people in this university since I’ve been here. I’ll bet none of you can tell me where DADT even came from. It sure as hell didn’t originate in the military. And gentlemen, you educators in this school, have a hell of an indictment of the school ‘cause most of your students today go into foreign policy and become policymakers. Gentlemen, the military are not policymakers. We’re operators. You want to put the blame on somebody, then you go over to SIPA, you go over to where my family went—and I’ll tell you what, we’re all Yankee boys. My entire family is Ivy League--Brown University—except me, probably because I was born south of the Mason-Dixon Line, not up north.

But I got to tell you something. I come from a rather [inaudible] family: all served. Do not ask, do not tell? I’m asking you guys to go down to the wall for Vietnam, the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington. I want you to go up against those 58,000 names sitting on that wall and say, None of you were gay. Let me tell you something, gentlemen and ladies here, November 11^th, 1970, I lost a friend who was laying right next to me, after forty-eight hours’ continuous firefight, who bled to death. He was gay. And I find it absolutely horrendous that that one single issue is used. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that came from the civilian leadership passed through the U.S. military, and the U.S. military blundered in trying to find a solution.

Let me tell you why ROTC really deserves to be here. It has nothing to do with uniforms or anything else—because you educators have no right whatsoever to create limitations. Well, I’m going to create a limitation, I mean, take opinions of others and allow those opinions to become someone else’s. You have a right to fairness. This school for some reason is a magnet for controversy. I don’t get it. Either it’s the Jews arguing against the Muslims or a professor in this school, or it’s something like this stupid.

You guys have a problem with 1968 and 1969. I got news for you. It’s 2005. Get over it. I wasn’t happy going to Vietnam. I volunteered. I wasn’t happy going to war. No soldier’s happy going to war. And we’re not killing machines. We have a specific job to do. You have a specific job to do. Be evenhanded in your educational process and don’t discriminate. You have a hell of a nerve to say the U.S. military discriminates when you’re doing the same thing by not allowing it here.

What are we talking about? ROTC coming to Columbia. “Oh my god!” I mean, how many students in this school? “Everybody’s going to start wearing a uniform—run now!” Probably less than ten percent will be in uniform. That’s a big deal. And as far as the professors are concerned and their ranking, why that’s ego. I could care less. And I don’t think anybody else can either.

BROZAK: Colonel?

BLACKWOOD: Excuse me. One more. But I got to tell you something, ladies and gentlemen. I’m really annoyed with this tonight. I’m really annoyed with what I’m seeing today. And she’s right—we can’t even win elections. And by the way, sir, I happen to be a Democrat. Most of the officers I know were Democrats. Okay? You have [inaudible] control a good portion of the officers corps, but most of us are Democrats. I got to tell you something. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter when we were being shot at if it was Republican or Democrat. But I got to tell you something. This has got to end one of these days. We all got to grow up, regardless. Work with the system. You don’t like it, work it. If you guys want a big change in the military, you allow ROTC in here and you help it change. If you want to stay here and criticize it, well you’re doing the exact same thing you’re accusing the military of doing. Thank you. [Applause]

I don’t think you know this, gentlemen. I’ve lost five friends of mine in Iraq, three in Afghanistan. Eight. I had an entire half company wasted in Vietnam.

CHEN: Colonel, I appreciate—I’d like to very much listen to the other people.

BLACKWOOD: Have a good night.

CHEN: If you could include a question, that would be very helpful. Use the mike if you have questions.

BROZAK: Colonel. . . colonel. . . colonel, where are you going?

There are a few other examples that have been easily obtained over the internet which I will share, but I prefer short versions to punctuate the points as opposed to encyclopedic ramblings.

Joe Cafasso