Primer for Civilians

To many G.I.s, particularly those with disfiguring battle wounds, the war will not be over until civilians learn to be matter-of-fact about them. The networks tackled the problem months ago. This week, with the War Department's demobilization plan pointing up the issue anew, radio is deep in the groove.

Mutual presents Opinion Requested (Sun., 7 p.m., E.W.T.), a question-&-answer show on rehabilitation problems which brings wounded vets to the micro phone, lets them tell their own stories of successful new starts in life.

NBC offers The Veterans' Adviser (Sat., i p.m., E.W.T.), which explains to G.I.s their rightful benefits and privileges under the G.I. Bill of Rights.

CBS airs Assignment Home (Sat., 4:30 p.m., E.W.T.), a well-written, realistic program dramatizing the return of soldiers to civilian life (last week's story was about the readjustment of a deafened serviceman).

Blue features The Road Ahead (Wed..

9 p.m., E.W.T.), a show dominated by G.I.s who are coming home the long way -- via hospitals. Each week the program is broadcast from a different U.S. military hospital (and is paid for by a different sponsor, who earnestly tries to play down his plugs). Variety entertainment is provided by such glittering stars as Bing Crosby, Ann Sheridan, Bob Hope, Grace Moore. But the high spot is a strictly G.I.

forum, M.C.ed by Clifton Fadiman, which gives civilian listeners a straight-from-the-shoulder load of what the G.I. thinks. The vets kid their disabilities ("the loss of my arm is no more of a handicap to me than my mother-in-law's . . . bridgework") ; ask no favors ("all we want ... is a normal life"); laugh at their own grisly-humorous "theme song," My Legs Are Getting Shorter All the Time. The most expensive and hard-hitting of radio's rehabilitation experiments, The Road Ahead has the explosive force of a buzz-bomb; it obviously shakes even the professional self-assurance of M.C. Fadiman.

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