Post by trappersnurse on Feb 3, 2004 15:33:51 GMT -5
I recently bought this off ebay and would like to share it with TJMD fans. It is an interview with Gregory H. from TV Guide-dated June28-July4 1980.
Once a conscientious objector and a medic, Gregory Harrison is at home playing a young doctor who's...BUCKING THE SYSTEM. Written by Ellen Torgerson Shaw.
Years ago, at 16, in love with surfing and a girl named Starla, Gregory Harrison wrote a poem to her. Part of it said: 'The challenge, though unfair, makes me stronger/Readies me for such a hopeless fight against a sea so huge and great/I doubted success, but I doubt no longer as I find a different fate/I emerge riding safely in the sun's light."
Starla never responded. Fate did.
Gregory Harrisons is 30 now, so classically handsome that 20th Century-Fox is using him for a poster. harrison is the costar of CBS's Trapper John, M.D., playing Gonzo Gates, a brilliant, unconventional, flippant young doctor. But fate, as it so often does, has taken a curious turn or two for Harrison. He is featured in a show derived from an enduring antiwar series, M*A*S*H, after having been himself a conscientious objector in the Vietnam war. After enlisting in the Army, Harrison says he "realized on the second or third day I wasn't fit for the military. I had spent the first 18 years of my life with absolutely no second thoughts about going into the Army. I'd go kill for my country, simple as that." Quickly, he found out how he really felt.
"In basic training, shooting at targets shaped like human beings...told to growl in hand-to-hand combat training because you're supposed to be an animal while fighting...I refused to do it."
A series of legal battles with officialdom began. Greg received his conscientious-objector status near the end of his 25 -month Army career, and was honorably discharged. "I was always running into trouble," he says. "I refused a lot of direct orders. Yes, as medic, I made people well so they could go out and fight," he says, realizing the obvious conflict. "That's why I kept trying to get out."
For three weeks, Harrison says, he was placed in a psychiatric ward; then he was given a cot in an abandoned cryptography room, underground and behind metal doors. "They didn't want me associating with the other soldiers." He worked eight to 10 hours a day, "Then I went back to my room." For almost two years, Harrison lived--in Landstuhl, Germany, where he was stationed--silent and , at times, suicidal: "I took a whole bunch of pills and wound up in the hospital. But I don't think I really wanted to die."
Though they were like a prison term, the years Harrison spent in his bunker served him well. A thoughtless young man became a thoughtful one. He read, meditated, and wrote poetry, composed music, and played his guitar. "It taught me a great lesson. Now I feel I can survive anything."
Anything. Even the insane pressures of making a television series. Even the lack of a private life. Even the scary hunger of strange women fans who write crazed letters. Even success, Harrison is solemn about acting as an art--and about his music, composing, singing. He comtemplates his personal relationships with an often pained gravity. His 19-year-old brother, Chris, sometimes must act as his parent and is not always sure his decisions are the right ones.
To be continued...
Once a conscientious objector and a medic, Gregory Harrison is at home playing a young doctor who's...BUCKING THE SYSTEM. Written by Ellen Torgerson Shaw.
Years ago, at 16, in love with surfing and a girl named Starla, Gregory Harrison wrote a poem to her. Part of it said: 'The challenge, though unfair, makes me stronger/Readies me for such a hopeless fight against a sea so huge and great/I doubted success, but I doubt no longer as I find a different fate/I emerge riding safely in the sun's light."
Starla never responded. Fate did.
Gregory Harrisons is 30 now, so classically handsome that 20th Century-Fox is using him for a poster. harrison is the costar of CBS's Trapper John, M.D., playing Gonzo Gates, a brilliant, unconventional, flippant young doctor. But fate, as it so often does, has taken a curious turn or two for Harrison. He is featured in a show derived from an enduring antiwar series, M*A*S*H, after having been himself a conscientious objector in the Vietnam war. After enlisting in the Army, Harrison says he "realized on the second or third day I wasn't fit for the military. I had spent the first 18 years of my life with absolutely no second thoughts about going into the Army. I'd go kill for my country, simple as that." Quickly, he found out how he really felt.
"In basic training, shooting at targets shaped like human beings...told to growl in hand-to-hand combat training because you're supposed to be an animal while fighting...I refused to do it."
A series of legal battles with officialdom began. Greg received his conscientious-objector status near the end of his 25 -month Army career, and was honorably discharged. "I was always running into trouble," he says. "I refused a lot of direct orders. Yes, as medic, I made people well so they could go out and fight," he says, realizing the obvious conflict. "That's why I kept trying to get out."
For three weeks, Harrison says, he was placed in a psychiatric ward; then he was given a cot in an abandoned cryptography room, underground and behind metal doors. "They didn't want me associating with the other soldiers." He worked eight to 10 hours a day, "Then I went back to my room." For almost two years, Harrison lived--in Landstuhl, Germany, where he was stationed--silent and , at times, suicidal: "I took a whole bunch of pills and wound up in the hospital. But I don't think I really wanted to die."
Though they were like a prison term, the years Harrison spent in his bunker served him well. A thoughtless young man became a thoughtful one. He read, meditated, and wrote poetry, composed music, and played his guitar. "It taught me a great lesson. Now I feel I can survive anything."
Anything. Even the insane pressures of making a television series. Even the lack of a private life. Even the scary hunger of strange women fans who write crazed letters. Even success, Harrison is solemn about acting as an art--and about his music, composing, singing. He comtemplates his personal relationships with an often pained gravity. His 19-year-old brother, Chris, sometimes must act as his parent and is not always sure his decisions are the right ones.
To be continued...
