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Twyla Tharp
Dancer and Choreographer
Twyla Tharp: There are ideas, and then there are ideas. The piece was not without a certain amount of calculation. That's the first piece I did for the Joffrey. I went for a season to watch the Joffrey Company and the Joffrey audience, before I made the piece. It was very distinctly tailored for both the audience and for the company. On the other hand, it is extremely arrogant and very foolish to think that you can ever outwit your audience. And all you can do is make your sincerest stab at saying, "Hey, I think you could understand what I'm trying to say if I say it this way. I think I know you well enough that this is how I need to say it for you." I don't consider that selling out. I consider that going halfway to meet a person, and I consider that to be what communications is all about. Deuce Coupe was very successful in that regard. As far as watching, I was in it. So I was too busy hopping around backstage to have any sense about what it was doing to the audience out front. I was having too much fun.
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Twyla Tharp
Dancer and Choreographer
I think that the challenge is always in taking with you what you understand, but pushing it to another point. I don't believe in rushing, and dropping it off and saying this is done and over with. That to me, that form of rebellion doesn't make sense to me. I've always attempted to familiarize myself with the traditions, and consider that a responsibility of the artist. I think it's a bit facile to go in as the avant-garde traditionally is expected to do and just chop off the past and say, "Okay, now we start." It seems a little wasteful to me. Let's take what we've got and let's push it somewhere and let's use it because why waste all those good lessons about how the body moves. We don't have 300 years. The classic ballet has been working that long, learning lessons of the body. Let's hurry up and get that together, so we can go on with it.
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Michael Thornton
Congressional Medal of Honor
I put my life jacket over his head and then I took a 4X4 -- which is a gut patch about like this -- and I stuffed it in his head, and I took another one and wrapped it around his head. And I tied -- there's an H harness so I took that H harness and put it around my neck and kept him on top of my neck where -- on my back. And then I brought the other guy around and put him in front of me, and then I started to breast stroke. And we were in the water for approximately three hours. Thomas Norris: I gave him a fit though, because I mean I could see -- and the blood would wash off -- or the water -- I could wash the blood off my face just for seconds, and I could see two of our Vietnamese, and I knew Mike obviously was with me, and the other one was hanging on, and I could see the other one. But I couldn't find the last one and I kept asking Mike, "Do we have everybody? Do we have everybody?" And he kept telling me, "Yeah, we've got everybody. We've got everybody."
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Michael Thornton
Congressional Medal of Honor
Michael Thornton: When I was in the water swimming I was saying, "God, let me--" When I saw the bullets, I was saying, "God, don't let it hit me now," because I knew if I went down Tommy was going to go down. And also the other guy would be going down with me, because he couldn't swim at all. And then after I had all my guys taken care of, I was the last one. Because it was really funny -- after 30 years -- this guy was asking for information about me. He thought Tommy was dead, and he was actually on the Newport News. And he says, "There's Mike Thornton holding Tommy and lying him on the operating table," and I said, "Take care of my men." And he said, "Are you all right?" And I kept saying, "All right." And he said, "There I see Thornton standing in two big puddles of blood," which was my own that I was -- But then my concern went to Tommy because -- I mean, like you say, the camaraderie and the love that you feel for each other -- because I know if that had been me on that beach that Tommy would have done the same thing for me. And that's what type of commitment you have to have in each other, and belief you have to have in each other, to do something like that.
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Michael Thornton
Congressional Medal of Honor
I wanted to be an FBI agent, so I started pursuing that avenue. I had a very good friend who was an ex-Navy SEAL who had since been in the FBI. I contacted him. I went over and interviewed with him, as well as a number of people -- agents in the office. And the outcome of all of that was we did quite a bit of research to determine whether or not there was any other people in the FBI who had injuries similar to mine. And there had been an agent who had lost his eye while he was on active duty, but that was the only incident we could find. And I no longer -- obviously I did not meet the physical requirements to become an agent. So we decided pretty much in order that if I was going to become accepted at all I would need to have a waiver through the Director of the FBI. So I wrote him a letter requesting that he waiver my disabilities. And it was Judge Webster, William Webster was the Director of the FBI at that time. And surprisingly, he wrote back and said, "If you can pass the same test as anybody else applying for this organization, I will waiver your disabilities."
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Michael Thornton
Congressional Medal of Honor
Michael Thornton: I was actually awarded the Medal on October the 15th, 1973, and Tommy was still going through operations in Bethesda, Maryland, at the time. And they weren't going to let him out because he was getting ready for another operation, and they were looking all over the place for Tommy and he was staying with me at the hotel in a room, and everybody in the world is trying -- and then we had to try to get him the clearance to get into the White House. Well it was really funny. We got him clearance to get in the White House -- for everybody to go to the White House. It's kind of like when I came here -- everybody was cleared to go in the White House but me. I was not cleared to go in the White House. It was really funny because the same thing happened -- I didn't have my credentials or something when we went over to the -- and I said, "Well, give the medal to Tommy." But I'll never forget that day. My mom and dad was there. My brother was there. Tommy was there. And the President asked me, he said, "Mike, you know, what does this mean to you?" It was President Nixon, and we were in the East Room. And I said, "Sir, if you could take something and cut this in half, I'd like to give the other half of this medal to the gentleman who is standing behind me," and that was Tommy.
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Michael Thornton
Congressional Medal of Honor
This medal does not belong to me. This medal belongs to every man and woman who has ever served their country. And Tommy feels it. We were doing what we were trained to do. We were doing our job. Why we were chosen to receive this great honor, I don't know. And you know, I don't question it, but what I do -- what I do and I let everybody in the world or the public know, is that this Medal of Honor belongs to every man and woman who gives us the freedom today to be able to hold our flag and hold our heads up high and say we have the greatest country in the world. And that goes with the men and women in the past, and the men and women of today, and the men and women of the future. As long as Mike Thornton lives, that medal will always stand for all them. Not for me. Not for what I've done, but for what I was trained to do and what they have been trained to do to give us our freedom today.
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Charles Townes
Inventor of the Maser & Laser
You have to be determined. You have to be open-minded. You have to be willing to examine. You have to be willing to stand up by yourself and differ with people, but you have to be very self-critical at the same time, otherwise you can waste a lot of time. If you just want to be yourself, and be different from everybody else, and not self-examining, then you can waste a lot of time. You have to be very self-critical and honest with yourself, when you're right or wrong. At the same time be able to stand by what you think.
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Charles Townes
Inventor of the Maser & Laser
I like to have enough money so I can live reasonably and do science, but I didn't want to get wrapped up with a lot of patent cases, and trouble administrating patents, and worrying about it and so on. And in addition, there's an organization that takes patents from university people, collects money from it, and then puts that money back into university research. That's called the Research Corporation. And I thought the Research Corporation was fulfilling a very good function, and they would take the load off of my back if I would just turn it over to them. They characteristically give the scientist some portion, and I got some portion of the proceeds in the maser patent. The maser patent really covered both masers and lasers. It was the basic idea, so it covered both of them, and Research Corporation had that.
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