 We knew how to party. That was the 70s. |
| "Up until about 100 million years ago, then, South America was joined to Africa in the east and to Antarctica in the south. Aantarctica was joined to Australia, and India was joined to Africa via Madagacar. There was in fact one huge southern continent, which we now call Gondwanaland, consisting of what is now South America, Africa, Madagascar, India, Antarctica and Australia all rolled into one. There was also a single large northern continent called Laurasia consisting of what is now North America, Greenland, Europe and Asia (apart from India). North America was not connected to South America. About 100 million years ago there was a big break-up of the land masses, and the continents have been slowly moving towards their present positions ever since (they will, of course, continue to move in the future). Africa joined up with Asia via Arabia and became part of the huge continet that we now speak of as the Old World. North Americ drifted away from Europe. Antartica drifted south to its present icy location. India detached itself from Africa and set off across what is now called the Indian Ocean, eventually to crunch into south Asia and raise the Himalayas. Australia drifted away from Antarctica into the open sea to become an island continent miles from anywhere else." (Richard Dawkins, "The Blind Watchmaker" 1996) |
We were all `patriots' doing our duty, there to protect and serve the president. We all fit the profile. We believed it was the supreme obligation of nationalism, of devotion to God and country - and the kind of nationalism we were infected with is a very dangerous condition. It has been the reason given for fighting over borders and against threats, mostly imagined since the time nation-states were established. While it is no longer about kings, it is about economics and power and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Survival doesn't depend on marking one's territory and defending it to the death. We're cultural failures because we can't see beyond selfish interests of the ruling classes and how we have become their pawns. Our survival is not predicated on maintaining the power of the rich.
The purpose of life is not to perpetuate our own worthlessness even if that has been our history. I say "worthless" because while we have brains and the ability to think about life we don't do very much to make it better. It is foolish to think that nationalism and privilege is the answer to preserving life and reducing harm and suffering. Maybe nothing of this really matters, but if we want it to, we have to be more like the humanity we envision ourselves to be. And a measure of that humanity is how we treat each other and all life.
| We knew how to party. That was the 70s. |
"Our imagination could not encompass the
situation which would result from an attack on this country
involving the explosion of 2,000 megatons....War no longer has
any logic whatsoever."
Dwight
D. Eisenhower (1960)
When we traveled with the president no one ever referred to anyone by their military rank. It was as if we were civilians and we got to know many of the secret service agents who protected the president.
"The problem in defense is how far you can go [in
military spending] without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without."
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953)
The guys I worked with also played together and our families did things together. and no one ever pulled rank. It was the same way at work. Of course when the colonel came around we would be on our best behavior. When we were with each other we did the work and then just waited for a call telling us what was next or we ran tests. We ran a lot of emergency preparedness tests.
 Little John, Big Tree (70s) |
I knew guys who stayed at the White House during their entire service career. I couldn't do that. When my first three years were up I got out and to leave one of the most exciting jobs I ever had. But I didn't know then I would have another unusual and exciting job in the military.
I was determined then to go back home to Florida and give civilian life a go. I kept hearing how everyone was making so much money and that was the lure of returing home. I soon found out that there wasn't much demand for former voice security cryptologists and in the early 60s people used typewriters to write letters and Vietnam was still just a name on a map that nobody heard of.
I worked for awhile as a boat refinisher and carpenter, but when I dumped 100 gallons all over the bosses' new truck he wasn't too happy about it and he fired me. I thought his reaction seemed a bit extreme at the time, but I suppose it was understandable under the circumstances. Then, I worked in a dairy, but when I broke the valve on the milk holding tank and hundreds of gallons of milk spilled out I got fired again. So, I went out to the hay fields and picked up 90 pound bales of hay until my hands were all blistered and hurting and this time, rather than waiting to get fired for something I hadn't done yet, I quit. It seemed to me civilian life just wasn't ready for me and I never quite fell like I had returned home in South Florida, so I reenlisted and requested an overseas assignment.
It wasn't until years later that I realized that it is true and Thomas Wolfe was right, that you can't go back home; it just is never the same, or maybe it isn't the way you thought it was, and it was never the way you imagine it to be or was. It seemed to me that my parents were never that warm and loving. My father was as self-absorbed as he is today, and that might have been a consequence of his own difficult youth but it became apparent to me that some people, regardless of your connection to them, can never let you completely into their orbit -- and we were only partially permitted into their world. My brother was favored and it would always be that way.
After a few months trying to transition to civilian life I decided I missed the army so I reenlisted. While I didn't go back to the White House I did go back to Washington, to the War Room at the Pentagon, where I worked for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but first I was going to do a tour in Europe, be involved in the buildup to the Vietnam War with (MAAG) Military Assistance and Advisory Group (with less than 1,000 forces there), and meet my first communists.