Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

y such piffling mendacity, even on official documents, for his bold signature appears at the bottom
of his Service Record, confirming both the errors and his physical description height 5'101⁄2",
weight 165lb, eyes grey, hair red, complexion ruddy. Six weeks later he was inexplicably promoted
to First Sergeant, a leap in rank that was astonishing even by his own standards of self-regard.[3]
Ron's lack of concern for literal truth was exemplified by the persistence with which he claimed he
had once been the youngest eagle scout. Even when he won the Woodward school finals in the
National Oratorical Contest, with a speech on 'The Constitution; a Guarantee of the Liberty of the
Individual', the school newspaper did not fail to mention that he was 'at one time the youngest
eagle scout in America', although it was not immediately apparent what this had to do with
oratory.[4]
To the intense pleasure of his parents, Ron graduated in June. In a letter to another university
(Lieutenant Hubbard was clearly determined to keep his son's options open), his father wrote
proudly: 'Ronald worked day and night to prepare for the several examinations and was successful
in passing all of them. In my own opinion he has covered considerably more ground than is usual
in any high school course and the fact that with all the handicaps he has encountered he has
succeeded, he is therefore the best possible subject for university and college work.'[5]
On 24 September 1930, Ron was admitted as a freshman to the School of Engineering at George
Washington University, with a major in civil engineering - a discipline suggested by his father. He
was photographed for The Cherry Tree, the university year book, standing in the back row of the
student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers in a smart suit and spotted tie, staring
solemnly at the camera, hair smarmed back and instantly identifiable by his curiously protuberant
lips, which often gave him an unfortunately sullen demeanour.
The GW Campus, in the heart of Washington DC, was a lively place to be at the start of the 'thirties,
despite Prohibition and the worst depression in American history. Even though the newspapers
were full of stories about children scavenging for food in garbage cans and pictures of gaunt faces
waiting in bread lines, civil engineering students seemed to face a bright future, for people were
already beginning to talk about the new era of technocracy, the absolute domination of technology,
and the 'Great Engineer' - Herbert Hoover - occupied the White House, just a few blocks from the
campus. In New York, the Empire State Building, the tallest building in the world, was nearing
completion, testimony to the vision, brilliance and the bright prospects of American civil engineers.
Unhappily, it was a future Ron viewed with some jaundice, for his heart was not in engineering and
he had no time for worthy folk like civil engineers. While lecturers droned on about the theory of
structure and stress analysis, Ron's imagination roamed the world of the adventure comic strips
which were just then beginning to make an impact on American mass culture. His lusty fantasies
were still peopled by spies and commissars, pirates and warlords, English soldiers of fortune with
impeccable credentials and the stiffest of upper lips pitted against Chinamen of barely credible
inscrutability.
His mother's advice - 'don't write anything outside your school stuff' - was quickly forgotten as he
covered page after page of his notebooks with swashbuckling yarns, usually set in the Orient and
always scribbled in obvious haste as if he could never wait to arrive at the dénouement. His literary
interests naturally attracted him to the staff of the university's weekly newspaper, the Hatchet, but
while Ron considered himself well enough qualified to be an editor, all he was offered was the job
of reporter, which lowly position he only managed to endure for a few months in the spring of 1931.