Jake Morgendorffer: Difference between revisions

Jake's time in military school further traumatized him, as his parents refused to visit him and all but forgot about him until graduation ("[[Of Human Bonding]]"). [[Corporal Ellenbogen]] and the Commandant of Cadets seemed to target him specifically, and he was regularly bullied by many of the other cadets (including being hung from the flagpole by his underpants for a time and being made to eat his dress socks by "the big guys"). His letters home show him becoming increasingly broken and bitter from his time there, and writing vicious screeds against his father; he forgives his mother though, viewing her as having no choice but to go along with "Mad Dog's" ideas. He was in the Color Guard during this time, and put on a Leadership Platoon Reaction Course. He had a friend called [[Randy]] (sent to the Ridge for putting his fist through a wall) who, after four years, went AWOL; Jake wanted to go with him but didn't to deny his father "the satisfaction" of him flunking out. Apart from all that, he wasn't very good at being a cadet: he failed at many basic tasks, and in four years he racked up 98 demerits "but they still won't kick me out". ("[[The Daria Diaries]]")

Afterwards, Jake enrolled at [[Middleton College]] thanks to funding from his family, thus not being shipped off to the [[Vietnam War]] ("[[The Daria Diaries]]") - though he once claimed to a veteran that he wasn't drafted because the "war was winding down" ("[[My Night at Daria's]]"). Around the time of the funding, Jake had been threatening to 'drop out' and be a hippie as soon as his father couldn't legally stop him; this is probably why Mad Dog sent him to college, mistakenly thinking that'd stop him (Jake promised to "really... hit the books" there). ("Diaries") He was arrested in summer 1969 as a student ("[[That Was Then, This Is Dumb]]")and graduated in 1972; if Middleton has the traditional four years for US colleges, he presumably started college in 1967.

At college, he joined the hippie counter-culture and met his future wife [[Helen Morgendorffer|Helen]] there; the counter-culture was a calming influence to the seething cauldron of repressed rage and hatred for the world around him and for his father, and he became an extremely cheery optimist with a firm belief in the counter-culture's ideals and rejecting the modern world. He also attended [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altamont_Free_Concert Altamont Free Concert] and somehow ''got his money back'' despite Altamont being free ("[[Road Worrier]]").

The two moved into a commune after their graduation in 1972, and in 1975 they got married. ("Diaries" and "[[The Daria Database]]") His father died shortly thereafter.