Veteran's Day 2009

Has to be Navy. O.K. maybe Marine.

I'm proud that I served, served for ten years as an officer in the U.S. Navy. Served five years longer than I should have because it was a good paycheck. Served on shore duty after 3 years on a ship 'cause I never quite got that whole port and starboard thing down to anyone's satisfaction. I got to see a lot of places and do a lot of things I never would have if I had not served. I was able to work with shipmates that came from all over the country, from every circumstance. I try to remember some of their names now and memory fails. That kid I drove to the shrink from New Orleans to Biloxi, MS. He was just a kid and was from Kentucky. Now I remember his name. His last name was Procter. We listened to "Freebird" from the government car radio. He said that he never heard the song before. I told Proctor that that was one of the greatest songs in the history of rock and roll. And he responded like any good sailor would to an officer: "That was pretty kick-butt guitar Lieutenant." Indeed it was.

I have no ambivalence for having been in the "profession of arms" as Capt. Pippinger described it the day we were commissioned, my OCS class and I. But I wasn't cut out for it by temperament. Not even close. I gave my first division of sailors gift certificates to a music store (probably Tower Records) at Christmas. Folks, that just was not done. Not done. I didn't care. It was a simple gesture of thanks for working so hard for me, for the Navy. I wanted to call them by their first name. I did occasionally. Shouldn't have, but I did. Calling another man by his last name all the time, all the time, just did not sit right with me. They had to always call me "Sir" or "Mr. ____" or "Lieutenant ____." I was supposed to call them by their last name. It was the Navy way. I had empathy for the misfits who were in the Navy but in some ways just too smart to take so much of the bullshit seriously. They were always getting in trouble.

One of my sailors, a fellow nicknamed "Chico," was a bohemian hard alcoholic that I had to send to rehab. He came back to the ship after that. Was brilliant, a sailor with a college degree in Philosophy as I recall. We had the task of getting out the "Plan Of The Day" each day. Kind of a daily newsletter of sorts. Of course, it had to be perfect. No mistakes, no typos, no errors, perfect every day. It was sort of the public record of the administrative aspects of a Navy ship each day. The ships log, was the operational record. Well, there would be days that the "P.O.D." would get up to the XO for his signature with something or other not quite right, or flat out wrong, and I would come back to the ship's office having been a bit chewed out by Toucan Dan. Chico could only empathize and see the absurdity of a misplaced period or semi-colon being a reason to doubt myself as a competent admin officer. But I did. It was all part of the game.

When I left the ship for good to go on to have more Navy adventures, Chico gave me a parting gift, a Henry Miller book, title forgotten, inscribed with: " _______, you are a person, not a P.O.D.! Chico." He'd written my first name. But I'll never tell.

So E. got way off track here going down memory lane for my own benefit I suppose. But I talked about ambivalence above. I had none about my service, but I am certainly very ambivalent today; not about the good lower level people in the military. Except to say that they are not all heroes though, just by serving. I served and no one called me that, and I didn't earn it.

I'm ambivalent on this Veteran's Day:

• because the general now in charge of Afghanistan (Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal) had no compunction in signing the medal paperwork for Pat Tillman's bronze star for valor, when Tillman was killed by friendly fire and the general damn well knew it. It was not a good time for the U.S. to admit that. So it was a big fat, fatter, fattest lie for which he was never held accountable. This is well documented in John Krakauer's latest book, Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman. Isn't there some code in the military academies that cadets will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those who do? Does the code change once you become a general?
  

• because fundamentally I believe in the warning that Ike gave about the military industrial complex. The stocks of the top ten U.S. military suppliers have done just fine thank you since 2002 when Bush et. al. beat the drum for war with Iraq. Or was it et. al and Bush? We seem to have become accustomed in this country to perpetual war and that, I am certain, is just fine with the war profiteers. Do you hear much about layoffs etc. from military contractors. Hmmm. Even in this economy.
  

• because I believe along with Randolph Bourne that War Is The Health of the State.

• because I like Fred Reed and and the way he thinks and he has his opinions about the military thing. He's earned the right to think and write as he likes. He returned from Vietnam (where he served as a Marine) "with a lot of stories, as well as a Purple Heart and more shrapnel in my eyes than I really wanted."

All the best to to our vets and our military still in uniform. And I hope all the Navy shipmates that I served with at sea and ashore are having a wonderful life like E.