My old alma mater, the United States Army, has officially sanctioned witchcraft. With Army approval, a  coven of witches is doing its thing at Fort Hood, Texas. 

The Army gave them a grassy field to hop around in, and even lent them a confused chaplain. 

This is what we in the non-witch community call diversity run  amok. 

The army was always big on diversity. Now it has  become madly big on it. Future war movies will certainly insert a witch into the rich, diverse mixture of the Hollywood rifle platoon. 

As movie-house warriors know, the Hollywood rifle  platoon always contained a diversity stew fresh from the ovens of Central Casting. For example, there was always a guy from Brooklyn who wanted to know how  the Dodgers were doing. 

When he died on screen, oozing ketchup blood, his dying words  were about "da bums." 

"Did da bums beat da Yankees?" he would ask with his last breath. "Five to four with a home run by Snider in the ninth," his buddy would tell him. And then he could die blissfully. 

Then there was the Southerner who played the harmonica. He was an essential part of Hollywood diversity too. He was a crack shot and he usually picked off two or three hundred Germans before a Hollywood bullet pierced a vital organ in the last reel. 

"Tell Bobby Jo I died game," he would say. "And tell her to say  good-bye to Ol’ Blue for me." Ol’ Blue was a coon dawg and a damn good one. 

After the Army desegregated, it became mandatory to have a  black guy in every Hollywood rifle platoon. This insertion, in the name of diversity, used to infuriate my black friend, Stanley. 

"The black guy always dies saving the white guy," he complained. "Why isn’t it ever the other way around? The  Southerner with the coon dawg hates the black guy, and then the black guy dies going out to save him. Every time I see a black guy in a Hollywood rifle platoon, I want to yell ‘Hey, man. Be careful! You’re gonna get shot saving some cracker!"

The fellow who always survived was the white, Anglo-Saxon, Dana Andrews type. He spoke with no  accent, owned no hound dawgs and played no musical instrument. But he was always around in the end, walking through the carnage, to comment on the noble futility of it all. 

Now that the Army has recognized witches, a witch will certainly have to join the Hollywood rifle platoon: 

 "Mighty quiet out there, Morlock." 

"Too quiet." 

"Whatcha thinkin’ about, Morlock?" 

"Oh, I was just thinking about home. I was thinking about a night with no moon when we would strip buck naked and jump around the campfire and the high priestess would take a big knife and sacrifice a goat." 

"Yeah, I know what you mean." 

 "You do?" 

"Yeah, I know what you mean in a diverse sense. In  my case it 
was walking down to the river with my girl and putting my arm around her waist and listening to the crickets sing. But it’s all the same thing, diversity-speaking." 

"That’s right. Hot, throbbing goat’s blood or a stroll by the river. Your thing and my thing. That’s what we’re fighting for. So  each of us can do his own thing." 

"Right, Morlock." 

 I haven’t worked out who gets killed in this script yet. My last mandatory class in diversity training didn’t  include witches. The  Army is way ahead of us. Apparently when they said "be all that you can be," they weren’t kidding. 

But knowing how these things work, I guess the politically correct sympathies are supposed to be on the side of the witches. In 
the world of diversity, we are supposed to embrace the kooks and crazies and pretend we think they are neither. 

Knowing the Army’s love for field manuals, I expect that soon 
there will be a buff-covered book titled "FM 22-666, Witches Drill and Ceremonies." This will contain commands such as, "Right Shouldaaa-Broom!" and "Poooo-oort, Broom!" 

Also on the Army’s list for potential approval is the Church of  Satan. News accounts say ... ...I don’t know if I can continue this column. It’s  beginning to read like a newsletter in a mental ward. 

Once, a columnist could make a living by warning that the  country was going to hell. Now, that ain’t news. A little sanity would be news. But where do you go to find it?