The Courier-News from Bridgewater, New Jersey • Page 37

Cadet tells life ot West Point gnniiiniiuiiiiiiiinHniniiuniiiiiimiiiimmimiiinnnramfnnuiiiininmifniins I The m. Book Nook ss your reading pleasure By KAREN HERMAN METUCHEN Despite the spit-and-polished formal aire that often seems to eminate from a West Point cadet, he is active and alert with definite opinions and attitudes. He no longer views the world through "rose-colored" glasses for idealism and realism have become united to form an integral whole with realism taking the advantage. Timothy Lupfer, of 36 Clive Street, top graduate of the 801 man 1972 class of the U.S. Miltary Academy at West Point, N.Y., is an example of a newly graduated cadet and a commissioned officer in the U.S.

Army. He has learned to respond and obey but as he stated, "At -f I no time do they treat you like a brainless robot. They teach you to think on your feet and rapidly on your feet" EVERYONE TAKES quite a few mandatory courses from engineering to law leading to a Bachelor of Science degree unspecified with an area of concentration. His area was history. "I've always been interested in military history since I've learned to read," he said.

And he received the Major John Alexander Hottell Award at graduation for excellence in modern history. "It's personally meaningful to men," Lupfer said, "as it was presented to me at graduation by his (the Major's) parents as a memorial to their son who was killed in Vietnam in 1970." Among his other honors goes the honor of being first, "It's an honor I'll take with me the rest of my life," he said. Summers, however, for Lupfer were different than most college oriented summers. "SUMMERS ARE devoted to military training with two months of training and one month leave," he explained. During his junior summer he was stationed with the Second Armored Calvary Regiment on the Czechoslovakia border as a junior officer.

"I enjoyed West Point as much as it can be enjoyed. It is not meant to be a fun experience, it is a whole experience," he said. And whole it is even in regard to time for a cadet's day goes from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. and sometimes later if permission is secured.

6:00 a.m. Plebes call out the minutes and it is time to get up. 6: 15 a.m. revele sounds and the cadets assemble to march to breakfast. Responding to dressing in 15 minutes, he smiled and added "You can get dressed in three.

Some guys even have it down to a science." fi- i jr just to professional economists, but also to businessmen, journalists and readers generally who want a quick rundown on the, climate, resources, geology, population distribution and principal production of the major areas of the world. The maps use bright colors whose contrast makes clear without too much resort to figures the comparisons desired. The map dealing with demography that study of peoples, their ethnology and population expansion in the frame of their geographic distribution and resources is rather sobering. For instance, the estimated population of Asia by 1990 was over two billion, a jump of nearly 700 million in only 20 years. The question is, what will happen to food and space if this rate continues? There also are maps on relative nutrition in the various continents and countries, the main agricultural and mineral products, energy production, hydro-electric power, manufacturing, railway and motor-vehicle distribution, computer usage, migrations, fatal accidents, diseases, communications, etc.

At the end is a compact but surprisingly complete gazetteer, and finally a statistical resume on the world's countries, large and small, alphabetically arranged. not to find something of real importance on the growth and development of any main QfOfl Ronald C.Hood Associated Press Vt TISIM1NT BOOKHOUSE BROWSINGS Summer time should include some just plain take-it-easy relaxing hours. How about relaxing with a book? We've got amusing books, like Avery Corman's "Oh, God," and we've got exciting books, like Fletcher Knebel's "Dark Horse," about an honest New Jersey politician. (Did I just make a few enemies?) We've got crossword puzzle books and double crostic books and chess books, including Bobby Fischer's "My 60 Memorable Games" and a paperback titled "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess" (which does not include a chapter on etiquette). Relax with a book of fisherman's advice and anecdotes, or delightful tales of earlier, simpler times like "The Foxfire Book." Bill, our resident seagull, says that almost everyone, sooner or later, buys two copies of his favorite book, "Jonathan Livingston Seagull." One to keep and one to give to your very best friend.

Could be. It's now No. 1 -on the N.Y. Times Bestsellers list. And don't miss looking at Jan Adkins' delightful "The Art and Industry of Sandcastles." Come browse for a summerful of delightful reading.

We have 25,000 titles in stock, in both paperback and hardcover. THE BOOK HOUSE is as 218 East Front Plainfield. We're open from A.M. to 6 P.M., and until 9 P.M. on Thursdays.

Summer time is a time of leK sure. Take time to read. 1 MRS' BOOKHOUS6 SAMUEL DE CHAM-PLAIN. FATHER OF NEW FRANCE. By Samuel Eliot Morison.

Atlantic Little, Brown Co. $10. Rear Adm. Samuel Eliot Morison, who likes to call himself the ancient mariner, is midway of two authoritative works on the European discovery of America. Now, without even taking time out, he has published an informative and delightful biography of one of his favorite explorers and colonizers, Samuel de Champlain, a sort of intermezzo between two major productions.

Morison calls Champlain, who deserves most credit for the first permanent French settlements in Canada, "the most versatile of colonial' founders in North America; at once sailor and soldier, writer and man of action, artist and explorer, ruler and administrator." In pursuit of this relatively brief and brisk execution of a work of professional admiration, Morison observes his customary meticulous care in verifying geographical, historical, nautical and, when necessary, scientific matters. It appears that the admiral, from early youth, has sailed, flown or otherwise covered the malor routes followed by Champlain in his explorations around the periphery of Acadian Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and up the St Lawrence River. Much of each year Morison lives and writes on beautiful Mount Desert Island, in Maine's Bar Harbor, which Champlain sighted in 1804 and named. The illustrations include the splendid maps and drawings which Champlain made and which the admiral, certainly not a mean sailor himself, assures us can be useful to modern mariners. Appended is the admiral's own translation of part of Champlain's solid "Treatise On Seamanship and the Duty of a Good Seaman." The sharp Morison wit comes through.

Acknowledging contemporary demand for an account of the sex life of the subject of any biography, he tells us there is nothing to say in this category about Champlain, who untypically rebuffed even the "frisky daughters" of the Canadian Indians who sought to oblige him. A year ago many of us found exciting Morison's account of the European explorers along the northern routes to the Americas. Now, at 84, he is just back from a long air survey of the trail of Magellan and is hard at work on explorers in the southern voyages. While waiting for this second volume, the life of Champlain should help keep us informed, Ronald C.Hood Associated Press OXFORD ECONOMIC ATLAS OF THE WORLD. Fourth Edition.

Oxford University Press. $25. wnen uxiora university and Press set out to produce a reference work, they manage to make it both instructive and interesting. This latest economic survey should be useful, not -it' tries. Chinese is one of the five official languages of the United Nations.

The other major languages of the world include English, spoken by some 270 million people; Spanish, 160 million; Russian, 130 million; Hindustani, 120 million; Japanese, 100 million; and Bengali, 100 million. Chinese is one of the oldest languages in the world, going back to around 1700 BC. The earliest Chinese writing was done on bones and shells, later on stones and on bronze. The Chinese were probably the first to have dictionaries. The structure of written Chinese has changed less since antiquity than that of the spoken language.

Each Chinese character corresponds to a word in English and not to whole ideas, as some people think. These characters are, therefore, logographs, symbols of words, rather than ideographs, symbols of ideas. '4 a Tim Lupfer, Metuchen, packs away his West Point uniform along with his memories of the Academy as he prepares for his basic training in Georgia where he'll don a second lieutenant's uniform. He's required to serve five years. More people speak Chinese THEY ALWAYS assemble outside, even in the rain and an intentional skip of a meal or a class results in confinement for two months.

(Confinement means no visitors.) After breakfast, which lasts a half an hour, it is back to the room for 45 minutes, to clean the room, make the bed and sometimes even to study or sleep. "The rooms, however, are always subjecy to inspeciton. It doesn't mean they are inspected every day, but they are always subject to it," Lupfer explained. 7:30 a.m. the cadets leave the barracks.

(The first class is at 7 40 a.m. and lasts for one hour and 20 minutes. 9 a.m. signals mid-period break one and a half hours. 10:30 a.

m. is the second period and 20-minute class. 12:30 is dinner formation. 1 05 p.m. is the first afternoon class and 2: 15 to 3: 15 is the second class.

From then on the afternoons consist of mandatory intramural sports, parades and drills until dinner which is at 6 15 p.m. Drills are with M14 rifles. First class cadets carry sabers. After dinner study is mandatory until taps at 11 p.m. Also during this time extra-curricular activities occur and juniors and seniors are allowed to attend movies on the post.

Special permission may be secured for extra hours for studies. NOW FOR THOSE not accustomed to military terms post is equivalent to campus and barracks to dorm. Class divisions are also different. Freshmen are plebes; sophomores, yearlings; juniors, cows and seniors firsties. As for the barracks, "They are good quarters, with two to three men per room," he said and then smiling added, "the decor is early Spartan no posters are allowed on the walls." "You get used to it and work around it," he continued, "The hardest part was the first three weeks.

We were quickly informed that we were not treated as guests and that our individual idiosyncrasies would have to be dampened." The academy also has an intricate demerit system he explained, "demerits can be given for anything as minor as dust on overshoes to drinking which is a major offense." Demerits accumulate and if you exceed the number of allotted demerits yearlings get 13) for every one over the allotted number you walk the area for an hour. "Walk the area is just as it sounds. You get out there on the post and walk back and forth," Lupfer said. The academic week lasts from Monday morning to Saturday 1 p.m. and Saturday afternoon there is always a parade.

LUPFER WAS company commander at the academy as well as editor of the West Point magazine, "The Pointer," which published once a month during the school year. This summer he has 60 days leave before he begins three months tour of duty Aug. 7 at Fort Benning, followed by three months at Fort Knox, and then on to Fort Hood, NEW YORK (AP) -Chinese is spoken by more people than any other language in the world. According to Warren Preece, editor of Encyclopaedia Britannica, there are some 3,000 languages being spoken today, with English and Chinese claiming the most widespread use. Approximately three-fourths of the 800 million people on the China mainland speak Chinese.

Mandarin, the most popular dialect, is spoken by 500 million people. Another 55 million speak Wu, 50 million speak Cantonese and 31 million Amoy. The rest of the country, some 64 million, reflect their ethnic origins and speak a number of exotic tongues: Thai, Miao-Yao, Turkish, etc. In the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Chinese is described as the national language of one country as contrasted with English which is an international language of several coun for duty assignment. "You have to have a strong grain of pragmatism to survive at West Point.

Nothing goes perfectly and you learn you have to adjust to the fluctuations of an organization." "You learn you have to be realistic in your approach to a situation," he said. "At no time is the Army painted as a glorious or perfect institution." He has no set plans for his free time other than to relax and sleep 'as late as possible" in the mornings..