[Sample B: Approval/Signature Sheet] - George Mason University

telling his oldest buddies to get lost.” 333 On liberty, Shellburn visits Buddhist temples
and his Japanese girlfriends. He starts to chafe against Marine discipline and
sympathizes not only with the Japanese, but the Filipino and Chinese people he comes
into contact with. In one scene, Shellburn talks with an elderly Japanese man and they
discuss how the Japanese could have won the war against the Americans. Shellburn’s
buddy, Abe, “wondered if old Johnnysan was turning into a blue-eyed Jap or
something.” 334
Like the Warren Commission’s version of Oswald, however, Shellburn has
trouble maintaining his relationships with his girlfriends and buddies, he listens to Radio
Moscow, and he finds himself in trouble with his superiors. In a scene in the Philippines,
Shellburn criticizes a fellow soldier for always quickly following orders, and Shellburn
languishes under a tree reading Kipling: “Lo, all our pomp of yesterday;/is one with
Nineveh and Tyre!/Judge of the Nations, spare us yet/Lest we forget – lest we forget!”
Shellburn ruminates that “It was a prediction of what might, and did, come of the British
Empire. The same thing’s going to happen to America.” 335 Johnny Shellburn predicts
American decline and wants to be on the right side of history, as Thornley said of the real
Oswald. Shellburn opines “I’m a revolutionary; I can’t wait; I always try to make things
happen” – a sentiment that would fit into the conception of Oswald as a lone assassin
who wants to change history by slaying President Kennedy. 336
333 Warriors, 11.
334 Warriors, 55.
335 Warriors, 100.
336 Warriors, 160.
150