Philosophical Thoughts of a Young Conservative

The Trim and Nasty Show

2011-11-28T22:07:00.001-08:00

I’ve been told that this is as good as it gets. Department Heads, Commanding Officers, even Carrier Strike Group Admirals. There is something about your junior officer tour with a fighter squadron that never leaves your memory. I’m not sure if this is true, as only time will tell, but these last three years have been a crazy ride.

As I leave, a friend of mine asked that I write a few paragraphs with some of the high points. Since I’ve been contemplating it anyways, it couldn’t hurt to try. The problem is, I don’t really know how to put this stuff into words. Or at least in terms that conveys a culture completely alien to anything else in our society.

This isn’t for lack of stories. Coming back from my last mission aboard the USS Nimitz to a hellacious thunderstorm, having to tank other aircraft until my fuel was below what I’d normally land on the carrier with, then filling my own plane up (with electrical discharges going off between the refueling probe and tanking drogue) amidst lightning and a rapidly closing wall of clouds was memorable. So is getting shot off Cat III with a 59k, Asym 3 kick in the pants, accelerating to over 180 mph in less than 2 seconds twice a week for four months. And dropping ordnance on a hilltop of insurgents attacking a special forces outfit in the Hindu Kush. Or landing at night in fog so thick you couldn’t see the already absurdly small flight deck until two seconds before touchdown. Let’s also note any of the 4am nights (mornings?) in Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, Malaysia or Tokyo.

Yet somehow, that’s just the job. The fleeting moments of sheer adrenaline surrounded by endless boredom. As I’ve come to reflect on these past three years, it’s the people that have stood out. And among them, the leaders. Because it’s these guys that we sit around talking about, sober or otherwise, late into the night, no matter where we find ourselves. Not the flying.

First, the senior leadership. There were plenty of poor showings – Captains and others that drove us up the wall, vowing never to follow their example if we ever were in their shoes. That will happen. But to get there, you need to have had those you aspire to be.

We in the Black Ace Junior Officer Protection Agency (JOPA) called it the “Trim and Nasty Show.” Trim was the first Air Group Commander (CAG) I experienced as a new guy. Nasty was the Captain of the USS Nimitz. Both were straight out of the 1980s – bushy mustaches, boisterous and awe-inspiring charisma, god-like aviators, big Ray-Band Aviators. Top Gun legends – Trim commanding the place and Nasty doing the live fire missile scenes for the Hollywood movie. You couldn’t help but follow either of those two into the bowels of Hell itself.

The thing that most impressed me about Nasty was that he knew my first name, even as a new check-in, and said it every time we passed in the hallway. Not Prof, or Son, but Ben. The commander of over 5,000 people, not including the Air Wing I was a member of, knew my name. It sounds absurd, but it made my day.

Now, he probably knew it because when I first arrived off the coast of Japan, I struggled quite a bit behind the boat. On those nights, you’d hear the voice of God over the tower frequency, in a fatherly, deep tone:

“102, Old Salt.” (Old Salt being the callsign used by whoever commands the Nimitz)

Gulp. (meekly): “yes, sir…”

“102, you’re gonna have to do better than that behind My ship, son. Fly the ball all the way to touch down, and don’t catch the One Wire.”

Dejectedly: “yes, sir…”

This conversation was something everyone in the Air Wing could hear.

But my proudest moment in these entire three years came from that same voice, and shortly after those dark days.

“110, Old Salt.”

What’d I do? That was a good landing!

“yes, sir…”

“110, Well done. That’s how we fly in the Navy.”

Stunned silence.

From the back seat: “Prof, say something!”

Me, now for the first time knowing how a giddy school girl feels: “Thanks, sir!”

Now that I think about it, he was the only Carrier Captain to talk to us on the radio. It was infrequent, but it was always appropriate and worthwhile. He cared.

He would also steer the ship around when airborne in the tanker. (He would only fly with our squadron, hearkening back to his F-14 days, and only tankers, presumably so he could do endless flybys). It probably drove the SWO’s driving the ship nuts. We thought it was hilarious. And he’d do the sickest flybys of the ship you’d ever see. Flybys we would’ve gotten thrown off the flight schedule indefinitely for doing. There is very little I wouldn’t do to work for him again.

Trim was a different story. You could hear him coming from a mile away. Piercing eyes staring you down. Even the biggest jocks in the air wing were intimidated by him. Statements laced with profanity so creative and frequent, it was almost poetically mesmerizing. Constantly smoking a cigarette – even inside the ready room. And he hated Nuggets (first cruise aviators) – I know because he told us whenever he saw us. Now, we couldn’t tell if this was because he was secretly jealous as we had an entire life of flying to live, or if he genuinely hated us, but I was sure he could crush me with merely his glare.

Yet, I loved the guy. His speech to the one hundred plus aviators during my first time in Fallon, NV was something to behold. No notes, just pure stage presence. Here was a warrior marshalling and inspiring his assembled aviators for four weeks of intense and breathtaking flying. It sent shivers down my spine hearing him talk of lost friends and aerial feats of daring. And who could ever forget seeing him, alone and unafraid, go to the merge with three groups (groups!) of adversaries meeting him head on. “THE ENEMY IS AFRAID OF OUR POINTY END, GENTLEMEN, NOT OUR TAILS.” Perhaps overly brash, but the way he said it, you wanted to be there next to him to find out.

Trim was the aviator we all wanted to grow up to be when we were little kids. To the wardroom full of SWO’s eating lunch, just after landing to begin a month long period at sea: “WELL, YOUR REASON FOR EXISTING HAS JUST ARRIVED.” Only he could get away with such arrogance. He’s retiring soon, and in this new Navy, probably not a moment too soon for the admirals. Every person who knew him thinks it’s a crying shame.

One of my mentors, and a department head when I was first on board, said I would never see anything like that pair again in my entire career – he had been in over 20 years to that point and hadn’t either. Thus far he’s been right.

Liberty's Spark

2011-05-31T10:41:00.000-07:00

It’s sobering to realize that every year of your service someone in your community has died before their time. A crash in the landing pattern, a mishap during an airshow, a helo down in fog, a man sacrificing his own life to save his crew, the sickening report of a jet and her crew destroyed in a place you called home for four years.

And in the reflection, you realize that you had many a close scrape as well. The too-fast rendezvous through clouds in flight school, the screaming power call from the LSO as your plane crossed the carrier deck in stifling darkness, the discharge of static electricity between probe and basket with aviation fuel passing between them in the midst of a thunderstorm. Then again, the government does pay us $206 a month extra to fly. So we have that going for us.

This is an inherently dangerous profession. I don’t think anybody signs up not knowing that. In the first week of ground school, the instructors show video after video of airplane crashes. In one, a C-2 launches off a carrier, pitches severely nose up, stalls and plummets backwards into the sea. A strap was incorrectly secured, causing a rapid change in the center of gravity during the acceleration of a catapult launch. In another, a helo gets tangled in the nets around the landing area on the back of a destroyer, tipping over violently, sending rotor parts shooting in every direction.

Some people quit then and there, but most seem to take perverse pleasure in what they are about to undertake. Danger – the allure of young men (and increasingly women) throughout the ages.

Yet, there has to be something else driving volunteers from across the country, from every conceivable background and ethnic group, to sign up for something like aviation in particular, and the military in general. Someplace, somewhere, they were inspired. Inspired to such a degree that they put everything else aside, the rest of their life on hold, to venture forth into the unknown.

For some it is the faded picture of an unrecognizably young grandfather as he trundles off to war in the 1940s. For others, they just felt a compulsion to serve. Many merely need the money and discipline. Most could probably cite a combination of all three.

Inspiration is one of those things our society pays lip service to, but doesn’t always understand the true depth of. It doesn’t fully grasp the commitment required to see that spark of understanding through to a fulfilling conclusion. Initial conditions are important, but hardly sufficient for long term success. It takes something more, something greater than one’s self to bring true understanding to this process.

There is a place in the far southwestern corner of the United States that holds this depth in full focus. Here, you overlook a vista of magnificent glory; the shimmering Pacific below the cliffs to your right, a harbor full of sailboats to your left. Great men and women, heroes, surround you. Marble stones are lined up row upon endless row, some brothers long departed, others too recently. Old Glory whips in the brisk wind while you gaze out at the sinking orange sun, wondering.

Wondering who these people were. What that space between the two engraved dates really meant. Love, pain, tragedy, joy. But of course, you cannot know.

Inscribed are their travels – Rear Admirals in Korea mixed among Bos’ns mates from the Great War. A corporal here, a Colonel there. Many aged, long widowed wives buried beside. And the less faded stones with sharp black letters precisely carved – these men are much less aged, with desert countries conspicuously chiseled. Now among generations who were soldiers once, and young, too.

Yet even with the names right in front of you, there is a sense of anonymity for those resting. The egalitarian headstones for the lowest private to the oldest Admiral lets them forever be part of cooperative things like the Big Red One or the Wasp or the Third Marine Air Wing. These entities have known, even famous, histories, but the individual names of those who made them work have long faded from collective memory. And this is good. For the entity they all really sought to advance was that of America herself.

Ironically, a nation of individual liberties only thrives when some submit to collective direction. A desire to forgo personal glory for the advancement of a team. We know not the names of those charged with killing our most wanted enemy, but this only enhances their prestige. We give entertainment awards to actors we can readily name who portray the heroism of those we cannot. In a way, those gaining individual glory have received their rewards, but nothing more – those who carry on anonymously have their reward in the ongoing success of America and her ideals.

I have heard some complain that our society can name the highest paid baseball player, but not our last Medal of Honor winner. I can’t help but think this is an asset. It shows that there are men and women willing to save a friend or charge a hill not because it will bring them honor, but because it is the right thing to do.

We all know someone got the Medal of Honor, and we all know what that represents. That is enough, as men will only charge into the battlefields freedom requires when they know the buddy next to them will be there in their moment of most dire need. They need to believe heroes can be found among their peers. And the litany of past examples that swell our nation’s military cemeteries show that this belief is well founded.

Thus, generations past hold the key to our continued existence as a nation. Their experiences and examples are the kindling that perpetuates the spark of inspiration that keep the ramparts of liberty and freedom well manned.

Many have already watered the tree of liberty with their blood, and many more will as well in the years and decades to come. It is right and honorable that we remember those who sacrificed on our behalf. But we must also not forget to carry on the work which they so ably fought and died for. It is work well worth the effort.

Requiem

2011-05-31T10:38:00.000-07:00

Originally Published May 29th 2009

Lord, guard and guide the men who fly
Through the great spaces in the sky,
Be with them always in the air,
In dark'ning storms or sunlight fair.
O, Hear us when we lift our prayer,
For those in peril in the air.

As with everything on a warship, we make do with the accommodations available. No Flanders Fields, or windswept bluffs overlooking oceans; merely the cold hard steel of a plated floor. Aircraft pushed to ends of the hangar bay, naked engines free of their nacelles. The space in the center cleared for the memorial that will soon begin.

Standing amidships, back facing starboard, front to port, a massive American flag hangs to the left, covering the entire three story height of the cavernous bay. To the right is a similarly sized blue fielded ensign with the circular emblem of the USS Nimitz. A stage stands, austerely in the center: no chairs, simple lectern, faded and grease smudged bunting covering the legs of the raised platform. Off behind the assembling crowd on the massive floor of Elevator Two are seven men holding rifles, adorned in black uniforms, set against a dull, overcast Southern California morning.

And next to the stage, five distinct pictures with smiling young faces. In front of three of the pictures, the Dixie Cup hat of the enlisted sailor on top of a folded American flag. The other two with white officer’s covers – one male and one female – on top of the same triangular starred cloth. All the images look playful, and full of joy, as only youth can exude even during excruciating trials. But these pictures are not taken in times of trial – they appear in flight suits, confident, at ease within the machines they daily took to touch the face of God. They are aviators, now meeting Him sooner than they could ever have imagined. Their beaming faces are surreal amidst the mourning and sorrow.

On the evening of May 19th, a cadre of Carrier Air Wing Eleven aircraft took off from the USS Nimitz for a training mission into Western Arizona. They successfully completed their objective and picked up two aviators who were simulating downed pilots in the midst of a hostile environment. The two helicopters involved in the rescue stopped over at a nearby Naval Air Station before the trek back to the Nimitz. One of the newest members of our squadron was one of the aircrew picked up during the rescue; he was returning in the lead helicopter.

At around 11:00pm, mere minutes off the coast of Coronado Island, he looked back at the second helicopter that had been faithfully following them and saw…nothing. Nothing was heard, and immediately the pilot of the lead aircraft began to conduct a real search and rescue operation. They didn’t find anything; there was nothing they could do.

I was on the last recovery that evening, and had just taken off my flight gear when I walked into the ready room, mentally deconstructing my first night battle with the dreaded KC-135 tanking hose (wistfully known as the “Iron Maiden”). This was quickly forgotten as our skipper and executive officer came running through with slightly frantic, yet determined looks on their faces. All I heard was “a plane is in the water.” Immediately, my eyes went to the computer screen that showed the status of all airborne aircraft, and for a moment I became incredibly confused as it showed all planes safe on deck – I was one of the last to land. Until I caught the last two lines showing the helicopters. At the time, we didn’t know any details, and that aforementioned newest member was still unaccounted for. I felt sick to my stomach.

It was the beginning of a long night. We felt the ship shudder as she tore through the water towards the suspected location of our downed compatriots. Those of us in the Delta House stateroom aimlessly and somewhat airily chatted, shaken by what had just occurred. Our fellow Black Ace was back safely by this point, but two of our airwing pilots and their three enlisted aircrew were still gone.

Its one thing to walk through our scattered national cemeteries and in quiet awe take in the expanse of marble headstones that represent those who have paid for liberty with their blood. To absorb the black granite near Lincoln’s monastery, or look in the forlorn faces of the Korean statues as they perpetually make their way through another frigid mountain night. The names that accompany the anonymity of those sacred locations help bring those sacrifices to life – but mostly they are as foreign as the places they died. Even seeing my grandfather’s headstone at the Fort Snelling National Cemetery, who I never had the chance to meet, is somewhat impersonal.

But there is something quite different to know some of those names now. To have spent countless hours planning missions side by side with them in exercises past, to have seen them smile in cordial greeting as we passed in the cramped hallways of our ship. We in modern aviation are fortunate that we have so few deaths as compared with wars past. As recently as Vietnam, some squadrons came back from deployment with none of the jets they left with – all having been destroyed in the midst of combat and replaced mid-cruise with newer versions. Yet, ironically, the very infrequency of these present tragedies makes them all the more conspicuous.

This remains the same though: Sometimes there isn’t the ability to mourn immediately. We followed the mishap with three more days of intense flight ops to complete our qualifications to be certified for our upcoming deployment. As with countless other warriors in countless ages past, the mission had to be accomplished until a time for grief was allowed. There is cathartic release in doing those things you know you can control in the midst of those you cannot, and for Type-A personalities, keeping busy is sometimes the best medicine.

On Saturday, we stood in massed formation as the ceremony proceeded. The invocation, followed by a singing of the Navy Hymn and then brief biographies of the deceased. Allison, a rare woman who brought the calmness and intoxicating aura of femininity to our mostly male profession, was getting married in late June. Samuel, a rescue swimmer, had a three year old, a one year old – and on Thursday his wife found out she was pregnant with their third. The others with young children and now widowed wives, save the young man who was three months shy of his twenty-first birthday.

These details were a reminder that despite all of our focus on mission success and the upcoming time away, the most important thing has always been and remains family.

We heard from their friends, and then saluted in unison to the haunting rendition of taps as tears welled up in the eyes of those assembled. Finally, hundreds of us simultaneously turned around to face the open sea and hear the seven riflemen fire three times each. We were dismissed into the most pervasive silence I’ve ever experienced aboard this ship of six thousand people and nearly incessant clamor. By the end though, the healing had taken hold.

As our generation of warriors nears its eighth continuous year of war (truth be told, many of us don’t know what its like to be in a peacetime military), the signs back at home are fading that the conflict is ongoing. This is a good thing -- it means that the horrors of this all too frequent of human endeavors are being relegated to the locations of our choosing. But it also means there remain men and women who are still in far off places, some of whom lose their lives in the service of their country.

On this Memorial Day, whether we are on a pristine beach barbecuing with our loved ones and friends or deployed amidst sand, stone or steel, it is appropriate to remember those who have allowed us to enjoy what we often take for granted. And to take a moment to pray for those still with us.

Eternal Father, Strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bid'st the mighty Ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
O hear us when we cry to thee,
for those in peril on the sea.

An American Paradox

2010-11-14T18:14:00.000-08:00

Originally Published on 11 Nov 2010

Year Ten. The Long War, the one perhaps morphing to Perpetual War, continues. Continues in intensity and continues to fade in the mind of American citizens focused on tea and more jubilant parties.

Not that there is anything malicious to fault in its obscuration. In fact, the road to armed competence and heretofore unquestioned military dominance has lead to this unintended consequence. The All Volunteer Military, a truly professional and skilled segment of our society, has removed the burdens and sacrifice of service from the majority of our population. The Protected are free to go about their lives, pursuing whatever talents they have to their individual and societal advantage with little thought to what an unstable country would look like. The Protectors stand on the fringes, ready to fend off foes far from the core of our culture. Yet this necessitates the two growing further apart, both in physical location as well as psychological and ideological outlook. This is little contemplated, nor addressed amidst the near universal, and admittedly impressive, cacophony of praise for our service members.

But it should be. As Professor Andrew Bacevich succinctly observes, “the evisceration of civic culture that results when a small praetorian guard shoulders the burden of waging perpetual war, while the great majority of citizens purport to revere its members, even as they ignore or profit from their service” is impossible to measure. It is hard to get revved up about something if you don’t have skin in the game.

Too often we get caught up in the well publicized ideological lines. You’ve got the no-war-at-any-cost Left and the unleash-hell-against-all-foes Right, but there is that grey area, those subtle nuances of statecraft that fall out when policymakers and their electorate become increasingly removed from the agents of action. When all you have are news cycles or heated discussions around the dinner table to lose, it is hard to see the human element of the young father charged with pacifying a village in a far off land that has never given much deference to foreigners, helpers or not.

A paradox much personally contemplated: In a recent survey, over 80 percent of Americans trust the military, little more than 40 the President, and barely 20 our United States Congress. Other surveys over the past year show a precipitous decline in support for the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why is it that there is such mass trust for individuals charged with executing unpopular orders from unpopular leaders, especially when the majority of those individuals generally believe in their given tasks and voluntarily left other lives to take part in those pursuits?

I’ll be the first to admit that consistency has never really been the forte of democratic electorates. Merely look to the jumble of contradictory Propositions passed within California over the past decades to see this play out. Yet with something as seemingly important as where we send our nation’s monetary and youthful treasure, there is the (however naïve) hope that more considered and consistent judgments would be rendered.

One of the most indelible memories I have is watching a news report during the first half of the current decade showcasing enthusiastic young supporters of military action against Global Terror. After the obligatory questions about why they supported various interventions, the interviewer wondered why these young people were not running to the enlistment centers to take part. Their answers? They had other priorities and believed their talents were better used elsewhere.

Despite the flag waving, as Bacevich notes, “the events of 9/11 reaffirmed a widespread popular preference for hiring someone else’s kid to chase terrorists, spread democracy and ensure access to the world’s energy reserve. In the midst of a global war of earth shattering importance, Americans demonstrated” an unwillingness to join with “soldiers defending the distant precincts of the American imperium.” They are willing, however, to buy you drinks if just returned from deployment.

Reinhold Niebuhr once observed that there is an irony of American history. Our perpetually preached and cherished characteristics of individualism and self-sufficiency are also the very elements most antithetical to the traits required for its defense. There was once a time when our nation’s hallowed institutions were teeming with those who recognized the implication of this. It seems, however, that in the modern age, the incessantly proclaimed qualities have been fully embraced to the exclusion of those more silently executed ones. The burden of service falls to a shrinking share of the population.

Thankfully, the embrace is not yet entirely made. As Niebuhr soberly remarks, “many young men, who have been assured that only the individual counts among us, have died upon foreign battlefields” for the sake of democracy at home. So too, have many young men with the same assurances willingly risked their lives for a compatriot in the line of fire.

Philosophical conclusions alone, however, hardly illustrate the point. So I look to the life of one of those rare people who have captured my full admiration, and indeed, someone who I aspire to emulate. He is the Captain of a company of men departing from his Midwest home to the desolation of Afghanistan on or around this very Veterans Day.

This Captain is of those who volunteered for the cooperative venture of Soldiering to preserve Individualism. A soft-spoken but charismatic giant, he has the easy smile of a man willing to undertake hardship, however reluctantly, to preserve those things he cares for most in this world. In a scene that is replayed thousands of times a year, he leaves behind a beautiful wife of five years, an eighteen month old daughter, and a newborn who he has seen for all of four days. His dedication and service saw he and his beloved parted for the first two years of their marriage while he fought in Iraq four years ago. This is the face of true advocacy for a cause.

Perhaps then, this is the answer to the survey’s seeming contradiction: the recognition and admiration of personal sacrifice despite personal and political differences. Viktor Frankel, no stranger to suffering and hardship himself, puts it best:

“Freedom is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness.”

Those who practice the latter element deserve our unfading societal focus.

As Americans, we must not become acclimated to conflict abroad, nor should we be passive when those charged with defending us are sent in our name. We have the distinct honor of being able to decide our nation’s future at the ballot box, and this includes how we utilize the fighting men and women who have given up the best years of their lives so we can live ours. Some wars will be necessary and seemingly interminable – others will not. In either case, remember the man or woman standing the Watch. Their footprints may be invisible, but it is in those very moments when they, and those whose shoulders they stand upon, have left their best and most lasting legacy.

Agape

2010-06-02T20:03:00.000-07:00

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends – John 15:13 (KJV)

There are very few instances in life where a person is truly presented with the philosopher’s favorite hypothetical: when faced with preserving your own life or those of others, whom do you choose?

For some though, in a matter of moments, this sophistic exercise becomes reality.

Returning home from a mission, mere miles away from the aircraft carrier, an engine indicates an oil problem. The aircrew executes their procedures and shuts the engine down, leaving them with one engine remaining. However, rather than the now static propeller feathering into the wind, minimizing drag and allowing for a much practiced single-engine approach, the prop inexplicably and unexpectedly locks in place. Instead of eight aerodynamic blades cleanly slicing through the air, the locked position becomes the airborne equivalent of a circular brick wall pushing full against the airstream.

The plane yaws uncontrollably into the failed starboard engine, and only through the herculean effort of the pilot-in-command, putting his whole strength against the opposite rudder pedal, is controlled flight precariously maintained. Momentarily. The aircraft cannot maintain its altitude. It is only a matter of time before it impacts the water. A choice must be made.

Before every flight, the pilot-in-command of a naval aircraft signs his name on a slip of paper kept within the aircraft maintenance log. It is the last of three signatures required before a plane is taken airborne. The first two are from the maintainers certifying that the plane is safe for flight. The last transfers responsibility for the aircraft to the pilot, meaning he is now accountable for the machine and aircrew within its confines. A mere formality on most days, especially when done in haste and hundreds of times previously, it nonetheless is something not soon forgotten.

We live in a society where occasionally those we are meant to admire abridge their obligations to accountability. Candidates for office falsely claiming membership in the combat ranks, elected officials blaming past leaders for events occurring on their watch, business tycoons refusing to acknowledge their complicity in financial collapse or environmental disaster. Such nonsense has no place in a stricken aircraft.

The pilot-in-command that day (March 31, 2010) was LT Steven “Abrek” Zilberman, a veteran Naval Aviator on his second combat cruise in as many years. His parents emigrated from Ukraine when he was in sixth grade, in part to escape the bigotry they feared he would face as a Jewish conscript in the Russian military. Much to their surprise, he chose to enlist in the US Navy, eventually winning his commission and Wings of Gold. As is the tradition in this brotherhood, Abrek was his bequeathed callsign, in reference to the first space monkey sent into space by the Russians prior to Yuri Garagin. Ironically, and probably unknown to the American aviators at the time, it also means “valiant man” in Russian.

At some point, he made the decision to stay in the cockpit, fighting with all his strength to keep the aircraft relatively stable so his three fellow crewmates could bail out. This meant almost certain death – when it came time for him to bail out, the autopilot would be unable to account for the drag-induced uncontrollable yaw, and his only hope for survival would be an incredibly risky ditch into the sea. For a few days, he was listed as missing. The search came up empty handed. For his gallantry, Abrek was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross alongside the folded flag given to his wife at the funeral.

To paraphrase Sebastian Junger, author of WAR, warriors know they may face death. When they pledge their oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic, they face that fact. This conscious, voluntary effort is their greatest act of courage, already accomplished. All subsequent acts in the line of duty stem from this. Some, however, are more conspicuous than others.

Perhaps the reason we humans view such heroes so reverently is that they did not intend to seek out recognition. They do not wake up in the morning hoping to die, save others and get glory. Instead, Fate, Providence, luck, whatever you want to call it, is the initiating force behind many acts of courage. That split second decision to take action, sometimes a reaction honed from years of subtle practice and thoughts, is where the individual takes the yolk from fate and forcibly alters the outcome. Yet inimical to this heroism is the tragedy associated with any sacrifice. It is a cost not readily borne, but on occasion selflessly accepted.

The paradox of the horrors of war and the character of the men and women who fight them is stunning. Within the depravity, death and destruction of combat exists the characteristics of awe-inspiring traits most humans struggle to emulate in more peaceful moments. These acts, demonstrated both consciously and unconsciously, are often removed from the greater political stratagems and goals of the fought-for country, and instead are directed towards preserving others. On the fields of Shiloh, men braving volleys of bullets to drag a wounded compatriot to safety. Amidst the Sands of Iwo Jima, Marines storming heavily fortified machine gun nests to ensure their buddies in subsequent waves would be safer. In the prisons of Hanoi, aviators forming a self-contained society dedicated to resisting the propaganda, torture and special favors of their captors – while being isolated and beaten for years on end as their countrymen ignored their plight.

In the face of the greatest hardships, we find the hardiest souls and amidst the arrows of stinging hatred, the greatest love. Again, Junger: “The willingness to die for another person is a form of love that even religions fail to inspire…What the Army sociologists slowly came to understand was that courage was love. In war, neither could exist without the other and that in a sense they were just different ways of saying the same thing.”

Today, while remembering the heroic tragedy that surrounded this sacrifice, there is the legacy that remains alongside the countless others that are spread throughout our military traditions. The reminder is in more than the places of honor we bury our military dead – it is around us every day. The strangers and friends descended from ancestors saved through selfless sacrifice generations ago. The men and women still fighting abroad against those who would do our country harm. But most significantly, the very society and country we find ourselves blessed to be counted citizen among.

The likes of Abrek and his fallen brethren gave their lives for their immediate friends and compatriots, but their collective acts are the reason for the joy we feel on a warm summer afternoon, surrounded by majestic hills, dedicated friends and the freedom to live our lives as we see fit. “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.”

Our future, full of hope and possibility, is the lasting gift we Americans continue to receive from those destined never to see it.

Happy Memorial Day, and God Bless.

Adaptation and Reversion

2010-05-02T21:21:00.000-07:00

Date: 2 Feb 2010
Location: Off the Western Coast of Malaysia, Eastern Indian Ocean

Our war is over. We’re on our way home.

There comes a point when, no matter where you find yourself, you have fully adapted to your environment. Not necessarily become comfortable or content with it, but adapted. And this adaptation involves viewing the entire world through the prism of your surroundings. This thing called home is an apparition on the horizon, but you are too far removed from it to really understand what it is.

You’ve become used to watching the three channels of the Armed Forces Network, with the thrilling titles of “Spectrum,” “News” and “Sports.” You’re really not sure what new and exciting products are available in your home country, but are aware that it’s a bad thing to shake your baby, chewing tobacco will give you cancer that deforms your jaw (with the spokesman to prove it), sexual harassment is not acceptable and joining the military was the best decision you ever made (look at all the cool places you can go! You all can be fighter pilots and SEALs with constantly exciting jobs and an energizing soundtrack!) – such public service messages, and many schoolmarm others, serve as advertisements during commercial breaks. State controlled media at its best.

When you go to a foreign port and try to fall asleep in the hotel room, you are shocked by the silence. No jets are doing afterburner engine checks on the flight deck two stories above at 3am. No chains being dragged across the metal deck just above your head, no water pipes whooshing on and off next to your bed, no 1MC announcements proclaiming “THIS IS A TEST OF THE SHIPS EMERGENCY SYSTEMS: BOOONG BOOONG BOOONG…BEEEEP BEEEEP BEEEEP…RIIIING RIIIING RIIIING. REGARD ALL FURTHER ALARMS, THIS WAS ONLY A TEST.” You check your watch and it reads 6:00am. Seriously? 6AM? Don’t the ship drivers realize we aviators need our sleep after landing in pitch blackness with the ship trying to kill me at midnight??? You also realize that you are all alone. There aren’t seven other guys rustling and turning and snoring within ten feet of you. It feels a little uncomfortable.

You forget what its like to have a cell phone with you at all times. In fact, you don’t even realize you miss it, because you feel free of it. No ability to check Facebook at all hours of the day because the internet speed is worse than the old school 14.4k modems (I suppose I’m finally old enough to be dated by an obsolete technology…). Your only connection to the outside world is the occasional email, a daily political newsletter that analyses something called Washington DC from a conservative perspective, and the calendar squares on the wall sent from the squadron wives and girlfriends.

And despite your adapting to this now familiar and comforting place we call the ready room, the beginning of every month brings a bit of anticipation because something will change – new squares suddenly appear on one of the walls. Children grow – some guys seeing this progression from newborn to giggling toddler only through pictures as the months pass because their babies were born after we left. Old wedding pictures to celebrate anniversaries, awkward pictures of you and your siblings in past decades that your parents think are adorable but bring jeering ridicule from fellow aviators (or uncomfortable admiration if your southern-belle blond sister just happens to be gorgeous). And amidst all the family friendly photos, the younger wives make the single aviators feel part of the show with cutouts of scantily clad models cooing over how much they look forward to you coming back home.

Your day job has even become routine. By the fourth month of war, doing the same six hour missions day in and day out, you come to understand the rules of engagement quite well. The hour-long preflight brief can nearly be recited backwards and forwards, knowing exactly what is to be encountered given where you are going. The KC-135 is still a complete pain to tank off of, what with the inflexible metal boom and incessantly leaking basket that fills your cockpit with pervasive jet fuel fumes for hours after. Even the British JTAC’s on the moonscape below know you by your voice – especially if you are a girl and you’ve flirted with them a few times over encrypted comms in the previous weeks.

Then when you finally think you’ve adapted, when it seems that you’ve managed to make it through another day, and are feeling pretty good about yourself, the shock comes – a completely unexpected change of pace. Unexpected but welcome.

During our last week of combat ops in the third week of January, the Black Aces came face to face with international diplomacy and politics. We were four days from out-chopping from Fifth Fleet to start the eastward steam home when we got a tasker from the Commander of Naval Forces in the Gulf: Send two jets to the Bahrain International Airshow. Now.

This seems a pretty simple task. And normally it would be if you had more than twelve hours to plan it, had diplomatic over-flight rights of neighboring countries and had jets in the proper “slick” configuration required for demonstration flights at the show as opposed to say, fully laden combat platforms with pylons, bombs, targeting pods and fuel tanks. But the Navy being what it is, none of these nice to have conditions were met.

I happened to be in the ready room, milling about, at 7pm when I saw a huddled conference of our skipper, operations officer and maintenance officer pouring over airplans and navigational charts. This piqued my interest. Through bits and pieces, I eventually figured out what was going on.

Carrier Air Wing Seven, embarked on the USS Eisenhower, was originally tasked with supporting the airshow and had been coordinating this event for months. Their maintenance personnel were already within the Kingdom of Bahrain, everything set. Then in one of those diplomatic snubs that sometimes occur from time to time between tenuous allies, a large country they were to fly over from the Med had the over-flight paperwork lost in a convenient morass of bureaucracy – and were only informed it had been misplaced the day before. The solution by the Vice Admiral was to get jets from the only other asset available: us.

Thus set into motion a first hand view of the international military-industrial-political complex in full swing. In many ways, this last minute order was over fifty years in the making.

A simplified history of the region is in order. After World War II, the small island of Bahrain broke away from their Iranian overlords. Needing a strategic base in the midst of a small gulf with access to the world’s preeminent source of black gold, the United States immediately agreed to ally itself with this newly formed kingdom. Over the subsequent decades, the US Navy maintained an ever increasing presence, working closely with the inhabitants of Bahrain. This friendship paid off with the growing importance of the region, and the subsequent wars fought between the US and countries in the Middle East. Furthermore, after the fall of the Shah in Iran, combined with a defiant fear of re-invasion by their once-masters, the Bahraini government saw an easy way to parry their fears with the strength of the American military.

I’m jumping a bit ahead in the narrative, but there was a telling moment as I stood showing off our Super Hornets at the airshow. A young sheik stopped by – apparently a member of the Bahraini royal family. He was dressed as all the audaciously wealth Arabs of the region do – flowing white robe with matching headdress, finely coiffed goatee with big, silver-tinted reflective aviators. He lingered for a while in front of the display, seeming to lean in apprehensively as I chatted with some Irishmen. Soon it was just he and I, so I struck up a conversation with what turned out to be a kid barely in high school. His travels were already broad – he had spent time in Los Angeles, and had a flat in Manhattan where he lived for over a year. It was rather amusing to talk to him – here was this fabulously wealthy near-prince shyly and deferentially talking to a middle class kid from the Midwest who happened to be in a green flight suit. Anyway, as he left he said “Thank you for defending my country.” Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I should be proud or uncomfortable – the world’s leading democracy in cahoots with an avowed autocracy. But that is the reach of American hegemony – and ironically, perhaps even Pax Americana.

Even so, an increasingly wealthy and strategically placed nation has developed its own aspirations towards self-sufficiency. There is no better way to improve your military, at least superficially, than to buy a modern air force – and for a country with money, it’s good to have the competitors come to you in the form of your First Annual International Airshow. Conversely, despite two wars occurring, it is apparently good politics and business to send your most capable aircraft to show off to a long time ally in the hopes they will spend a few billion to help prop up a struggling domestic behemoth. And why not feature some young twenty something hotshots in flight suits to seal the deal?

When they were deciding who to send, I was in the line of sight of the Ops O, and he threw my name on the schedule. I was to go from weary warfighter to shining mini-celebrity overnight (and now that my fifteen minutes is exhausted, I’m back to weary ex-warfighter).

Walking to the flight deck the morning after some frantic navigational planning, our bulky combat chariots had been magically transformed into lean, sleek fighter-looking aircraft. The makeover was stunning in a way only an aviator can appreciate – this was the plane Boeing sold to the Navy when they first unveiled her ten years ago. It was with the pride of a father that I looked on those birds, because their transformation was due to an overtime effort by the forty two troops I have the honor of leading within the aircraft division. And not only did they slick the jet of any and all external encumbrances, they scrubbed each of them of the grease and grime that had accumulated over six months of combat. It was these unseen and all too often unheralded barely twenty year-old wrench-turners who executed a herculean task overnight with precision and expertise so we flyboys could joyride for a few days and relax.

Due to the lack of diplomatic clearance through the United Arab Emirates, we were forced to fly the tenuous airways over the Straits of Hormuz. This is the strategic cross-roads of the world, and it’s remarkable that the world economy hinges on a stretch of water surprisingly narrow in width. With Iran occupying three sides of it. As we made our way through in tight formation, hugging the correct side of the menacing black line on our moving maps, even crossing over it at a few points to follow the negotiated GPS points, a feeling overcame me that I have never experienced yet, and hope never to experience again. My first combat mission was even different from this. It was fear, pure and simple -- An insidious tingling deeper than that of nervousness within the stomach. Images of the news reports of the British Navy crew captured by Iran last year flashed through my mind. Here we were adhering strictly to international agreements related to the Straits passage, but what if we navigated wrong? What if we were queried and they didn’t view our response as appropriate? What if they figured out who we were, even unarmed, and intercepted us? Of course, it was completely baseless. Should anything happen en route, no doubt the response would be swift and furious. Even so…

This lasted no more than five minutes. Soon, we were through, and Dubai appeared on the horizon – a soothing relief. A dark black spire rose up from the desert, dwarfing the other metal structures clustered around it – the Burj Dubai as a lighthouse of civilization amidst the unwelcoming barrenness. The World writ small in manufactured islands next to the failed man-made Palm, devoid of any habitation save the one frond built on by the Emir as an example of what was possible – before financial collapse due to debt default sent investors scrambling and left nothing but empty dreams. Here were the exploits of man, seen from the air, soon passed.

We finally landed at the newly paved airstrip where the show was hosted – another oasis in the desert completed literally that week as the King’s private airfield. It was so new, our monthly updates for instrument approach procedures had yet to list it as a viable strip. The road leading to the entrance had been paved 48 hours before. The line of pavilions that served as our luxurious break rooms were constructed over the past three months explicitly for this event. It was an unbelievable effort for a four day event. The cheap, wide-eyed immigrant labor used to build it was still milling about as high tech, multi-million dollar aircraft screamed overhead.

The next three days flew by. We manned our post in front of the display jet and answered questions from the citizens of the world – Indians, Frenchmen, British, Saudis, Irishmen, Germans, Australians. It was amusing to watch husbands eagerly discuss every aspect of aviation while their well dressed and bored society wives looked on in exasperation. Little kids running over to the landing gear and proudly shouting what part of the plane it was – then begging to take a picture with the pilot. I met a Bahraini who was a fellow Vikings fan. The local media ate us up – radio, television and newspaper interviews. We watched as French Rafale’s, Saudi Hawks, Russian SU-27’s and a myriad of other world renown tactical aircraft showed off their stuff – and then watched the demonstration team flown in from Oceana Naval Air Station fly our squadron’s painted up CAG bird wow the crowd. Even I was impressed – and I see the thing fly every day.

When we finally returned to the Nimitz, she was recovering the last of our planes from the final day of combat operations. Our trip to Wonderland was over – the ship recalled her own. As soon as the recovery finished, the Nimitz started heading East towards the States.

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As we steamed away, I contemplated what we had done over the past four months. I tried to figure out what it all meant. As fun as the air show was, and relit that spark of love for aviation that had slowly been strangled by six-plus months at sea, I remembered what happened on my last combat flight – and brought this war into better focus than I had understood.

My last mission was over the same area’s we had surveyed over and over again. We were working with the British north of Kandahar on a routine patrol. This was the first time, however, where we were in a region that we could see the entire convoy both in our targeting pod and visually. As they moved towards their desired location, they asked us to sanitize the villages and compounds along their route. Our section of F-18s was also listening into the chat between the convoy and two overhead Apache’s doing a close escort (and more effective) version of what we were.

As we approached the end of our VUL, we heard from the Apache driver that he was in visual contact with a compound where it appeared that women and children were filing out. This was noted with seeming casualness by the JTAC in the lead vehicle. It could be nothing – or it could mean an imminent attack. After five minutes more of uneventful searching, I looked out again at the convoy and saw a huge plume of smoke fly up from the ground where the first truck in the convoy had just been. Within a few hundred meters of this plume, tracks in the sand were kicking up small clouds of dust where some high speed vehicles were converging on the now stopped convoy.

Just as we were about to key the mic and confirm with the guys on the ground that they had hit an IED, they let us know they were, in fact, hit. Fortunately, they were all okay. The first thing out of the JTAC’s mouth, in a way only the ever polite Brits can say, was “Apologies, but I am no longer going to be able to see your down-link information…my laptop just got smashed to hell.” Silence. “And just so you know, I’m okay as well.” We couldn’t help but laugh even in the midst of this terror of war – leave it to an Englishman to care about the guy safely above before telling us about himself. At that moment, I realized how close we as allies really were.

In the aftermath, the Apache driver followed the trigger-puller into a dense compound where he lost him and then saw three more emerge. Positive Identification had been lost. There was no way to find the perpetrator. The vehicles approaching the stopped convoy were Marines on an additional patrol.

Thus even as we leave, this war remains. Marines and Rangers and Soldiers and Coalition ground forces of all stripes remain. My Army brother-in-law heads over within the year. We have been replaced by an airwing that was here last spring, including an old college friend and another close former roommate from Pensacola. My current roommate is in workups to deploy again this fall. When we return, our schedule has us heading back out again in 2011. Our strike group, once at the tip of the spear, is now just another in the line of those who have come and gone over the past eight years. This is, in fact, the long war.

On our way home, we’ve talked internally of our “successes.” The number of sorties flown, the number of weapons dropped, the number of IED’s found. How well our maintenance did in giving us full mission capable jets nearly every day. And these are successes, tactically – but we haven’t won the war with our seventy million dollar machines and thousands of pages of tactics. There is an elusive enemy that has adapted to the methods devised by our best engineering, economic and strategic minds. Yet we find the time and money to wow crowds with measures of contemporary military prowess as if the earth shaking noise of an afterburner doing a dirty roll will defeat an insurgent with nothing but a bit of C4, a cell phone and a cooking pot.

This is the challenge of our generation – and one that seems to have now been embraced by two seemingly divergent ideological administrations. It’s hard to give up on something that so much effort has been put into – and also hard to stay the course when the end seems endlessly in “the future.” I’ve been disabused of my previous idealism – but increasingly resolved in the necessity of preserving the land I call home.

You can’t appreciate the magnitude of what we in America take for granted everyday until you’ve seen what life is without it – how desperate people around the world are for the hope and promise liberty brings. A land where war is an apparition only seen when desired via a newspaper or television screen. You learn what it really means to love something fully when you deeply and inexplicitly realize how much you desperately miss it, faults and all, no matter the distance or the time. We’re headed back to that place. Finally.

The General and the JTAC

2010-05-02T21:20:00.001-07:00

Date: 28 November 2009
Location: Arabian Sea, South of Pakistan

Sitting behind cat four, my mind kept drifting back to what was happening back home. Or rather, what would happen. It was combat mission number twenty for me. The day prior and that morning, I felt a strange premonition about that flight, but couldn’t put my finger on it. A few hundred feet in front of me, the Commander of the US Central Command, Gen David Petraeus, was about to get the first cat shot of his life, ensconced in the back seat of our colorfully painted CAG bird. Meanwhile, Thanksgiving in the Gulf kept moving forward.

I thought about the table that was to be used back home. The history it had seen, the many people who had eaten off it. It wasn’t anything spectacular: just two long pieces of plywood found at some point decades before, stained and connected with hinges pinned together using stray nails. A couple of 2x4’s laid across two beaten sawhorses provided the platform for it to support the coming meal. A few years back, we started signing it in the spot where we ate that year, and the names had begun to stack up. Friends from college, an old girlfriend, new military families needing a place to spend the holiday, the odd traversing long lost family member. And of course, the names that were repeated over and over, but rarely in the same place. Most of the year it was stored in some garage, passed around from home to home depending on who was to host.

As we taxied into the shuttle, about to launch, a game played on that table from the late 1980s flashed into my head. I think this was where I got hooked, at 7 years old; where another tradition had flourished and continued on. I sat by my father’s side as he played the annual Thanksgiving Risk game in the dining room of my great-grandmothers house at 4911 Sunnyside. His opponents were my Uncle Joel, and our Colorado cousins, Bill and Frank. It came down to Bill, with the Yellow blocks, and my Dad, playing as the Black Horde. He (we), lost. I was devastated.

Thus the game was played for years after, continuing to this day. I eventually got my own team -- Black. At one point, I decided to add a sense of realism to the ancient board and created a permanent land bridge in pen between Australia and Peru. Apparently, this world is supposed to be flat. It was not looked kindly upon by my Father, the owner of said world. But despite some missteps, I learned the principles of Clausewitz and Sun Tzu at a young age without ever having read their books. Find your opponent’s center of gravity. Mass your forces. Expect the unexpected, especially from irrational opponents. Adapt. Use deception when necessary. Accept defeat magnanimously (I’m not sure I’ve worked that one out yet…) And never get involved in a land war in Asia. Another principle too: there comes a point in love and war where you may have to choose one over the other. Sometimes winning the war is the right answer, because if you don’t, she will. To your eternal chagrin.

So here I found myself, halfway around the world in the middle of the real thing, wondering who would occupy Afghanistan in a quaint Minnesota basement. I was a single black block, a pawn in the grand schemes of some strategic grandmaster. A grandmaster, interestingly enough, who happened to be launched off the same expansive ship mere moments before me.

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The weather has started to turn, and in dramatic fashion. From our location South of Pakistan, the change is barely noticeable: calm seas and warm, clear skies as always. We missed the oppressive heat of the summer, and the climate where our ships float is what vacationers everywhere seek. Occasionally the haze lifts enough so that at 25,000 feet, hundreds of miles in any direction are easily visible. Pressing up North, however, is markedly different.

When we first arrived in theater, the skies over Afghanistan were always free of clouds, with an impenetrable haze our only obstruction. The haze has slowly lifted, but layer upon layer of clouded buildups are now regularly encountered, especially when pressing into the jagged expanses of Northeast Afghanistan. The temperatures have come down dramatically too: in the North, they now equal those of my childhood home in the Northern climes of America during January. On clear days, the virgin snows of the towering mountains in the North punctuate the horizon from the edge of the southern deserts.

What follows are some observations about the landscape of Afghanistan, as seen on Thanksgiving, in the matter of a few hours transit from one end of the country to the other. A one thousand mile commute in each direction, passing from one geographical extremity to another.

Entering from the south introduces you to a barrenness appropriate to the desert that it is. For about 150 miles from the border with Pakistan to a startling and abrupt transition, there is nothing but red-hued, windswept dunes and the rare lonely outcropping of rock. Our moving maps within the cockpit capture this in an eerily perfect fashion: half circles in chaotic rows with virtually no contour lines. There is no notion of civilization, nor even empty carvings of where seasonal rivers flow. This is the case in every direction.

Then suddenly, it ends. Flying over this demarcation line is surprising. The unvarying red sand runs abruptly into a plateau of flat, grey rock that forms the foundation for the population within. It is a line that turns and juts, but unquestionably continues, as far as the eye can see – which is quite a ways from altitude. And just as there was no evidence of life to its south, civilization begins to teem just north of this natural border.

Here, alluvial plains of green spring from the rivers that flow from the mountains hundreds of miles away. This is by no means a concentration of people that we back in the States would refer to as urban. Rather, it is a ribbon of life along that most fundamental of life giving sources, water. A mile in width, maybe, from most rivers, filled or not. The evidence of seasonal outcroppings of water is visible, and what a torrent it must be to carve through the hard land, but since we have been here, most remain as empty as the terrain outside the irrigated farms. Square structures inhabit the edges of roads and in the middle of tracts of land. From the air, the farms are clearly divided by ditches and raised embankments, into parcels that must only provide subsistence and barely more.

A quick note about the buildings the population inhabits: Their very structure says much about the culture that lives within them. Their design is not merely unique to Afghanistan itself, but the entire region. They are all of the same general shape and internal composition, and when looking down upon them, I couldn’t help but think of flying over suburbs of the US. Not in the sense that they were built similarly, because they are starkly different, but in their ubiquitous uniformity.

Nearly all are walled compounds, with expansive courtyards inside surrounded by living spaces on two of the four walls. Without knowing the history of this troubled land, a keen observer would be able to tell that this is a society used to conflict, and not just from without. The walls are meant to keep the unwelcome out – even amidst a culture in which hospitality is one of the defining features. Their structure also shows the decentralized constitution and tribal nature of the Afghan people. This is not a society that implicitly trusts a national, centralized bureaucracy to provide protection: it is a requirement that must be met at the local, if not individual, level.

Even in the few large cities that exist, this same architectural framework is evident. Kandahar is the major urban center of the South, and its streets are lined with similarly built structures. Flying over it, I have never seen any building taller than a few stories. There are central areas, but it seems that they are more communal, and thus less evident, than would be the case in America. It is clear where the center of a region’s power lay in the States, even in smaller conglomerations of people: the big buildings and all major roads leading to the thrones of power. The haphazard structure of streets prevents this over here.

It is easy to tell where the NATO bases are from the air. They are surrounded by a wall, like the native buildings, but these walls are usually hundreds of meters long and only along the outskirts. Western buildings in their neat rows and corrugated roofs with perfectly aligned roads are evident within. Wires and antennae and massive vehicles fill the empty spaces. The clash of civilizations, writ through architecture.

Moving farther north, beyond the population center of Kandahar, the land begins to burst forth to greater and greater heights. The high plains increasingly become disrupted by isolated mountains, and then chains of mountains, some snow bound, others not. On the sides of these outcroppings, little villages are sprinkled, seemingly removed from any other elements of civilization. There appear to be no visible evidence of agriculture or easy accessibility to water, but there they sit. The roads are few; the passes unseen. The rectangular open courtyards remain, sometimes built on a slope. Eventually, the capital of this disparate nation appears.

Kabul lays at yet another stark physical border, nearly 250 miles North from Kandahar. The occasional peaks and high flatlands meeting the legendary Hindu Kush. I had seen Kabul once before, at night, but didn’t quite comprehend its isolation until Thanksgiving. It is surrounded on three sides by peaks that are part of the same chain of mountains that contain the worlds highest and most treacherous. In the summer and autumn, the haze obscures their majesty, and melted caps leave only a dull brown to contrast with the rest of the surrounding landscape. But what a difference the snow makes. An oasis deep within a bowl of towering, cold stone.

The crystal clear and frigid air leaves no particles to drape the range’s endless progression in opaqueness. The last bastion of civilization before embarking through the murderous passes of deep winter for those brave enough to risk the journey. James Michener describes the named genesis of the Hindu Kush in his marvelous book “Caravans.” He tells of it being referred to as such because of the deaths incurred by Indian merchants seeking the legendary crossroads of Samarkand across their heights. Seeing it firsthand makes the source believable.

Passing over these endless mountains and the deep valleys below is a bit unnerving. These are not the relatively quickly flown over mountains of the Rockies or even Alps. They are the creation of one tectonic continent slowly smashing into another immovable landmass, driving the land caught in the middle to stupendous heights as far as the eye can see. Afghanistan borders China and Uzbekistan and Tajikistan amidst these mountains, though no discernable natural demarcation is evident. Why men would fight for such regions, and politically contend for patches here and there, eludes me, but power is its own elixir. Regardless, it was here, at the end of the thousand mile trek – and the end of the world for that matter, that the day’s battle was fought.

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Not since General Eisenhower has there been a military celebrity as well recognized. To be sure, General’s Westmoreland and Schwarzkopf had their days in the sun (and in infamy, as the case may be), and General Powell is still widely respected by the American population. But our generation’s, and this war’s, Ike is General David Petraeus. The latter would likely dismiss this comparison, especially since Ike became President, but I think it accurate nonetheless (and didn’t Ike vociferously and genuinely object to the notion of his candidacy? But I digress into politics…). My unqualified admiration for the man is no secret, and seeing him in person was no disappointment.

We had known of his visit for weeks prior, although to be sure, for most of us it was just another DV coming to play on the Nimitz. But as his arrival approached, it became increasingly clear this was not going to be an ordinary visit.

For one thing, out came the paint cans and power sprayers. For the length of the entire starboard (right) hallway on the level of the ship just below the flight deck, sailors spent day and night whitewashing any area the General might traverse. Interestingly enough, the official schedule was written such that he would only see those hallways that were painted. Traveling from the right to the left side of the ship was comical in its disparity. Months of accumulated combat grime on the latter, while the former as if not a moment was wasted from keeping it clean. The carrier is not a clean place. If ever there was an analogy to putting lipstick on a pig, this was it.

On a flight deck walkdown two days prior to his visit, I saw other sailors hurriedly power washing the flight deck. The same deck we were to launch aircraft off of for twelve hours in each of the subsequent days including that of his arrival. The same deck that was to see engine changes and fuel transfers and leaky oil collectors drop black ooze onto its surface. Rumor was, the general might decide to take a run on it, and it had to be clean in order for him to do so. I generally discount the things I hear, but given the painting fiasco, I didn’t doubt it. One enterprising sailor even power washed a “Happy Thanksgiving” into the now dark, thick white line at the very end of the ship.

The ironic thing is that the man who arrived probably couldn’t have cared less what the ship looked like. The consummate warrior, the man who trod the halls of the White House and the streets of a collapsing Baghdad, was here to recognize the warriors and troopers who were in the grime day in and day out. But here the military showed its finest bureaucratic accomplishments to impress everybody’s boss.

In a somewhat sad turn of events, all the preparation for the General’s arrival seemed to have overlooked the necessities of taking care of the troops. When I emerged from the near empty Officer’s Mess after our Thanksgiving meal, I wandered up to the hanger bay and was shocked by what I saw. Enlisted sailors, many of whom had spent hours painting the walls, and cleaning the floors to present an image of perfection to our superior, were standing in an endless line hundreds deep waiting to get their meal. A meal that was due to close minutes later. I had never seen a line so long on the ship before. Somewhere the logistics chain failed, and priorities were askew. I did what I could for a few of them, but many still missed out on their meal. As a leader of these men and women, I felt ashamed. As far as I know, General Petraeus didn’t get wind of this – had he, I wonder how it would have turned out.

His personality would probably never have allowed such an oversight. In short, he is a self-deprecating and humble leader. I think a telling story is one I heard from some of my troops who got to eat Thanksgiving dinner with him. He didn’t want to talk shop at all, didn’t speak one word of the White House personalities he had sat with three days prior. His sole focus was on them, and their interests and things not of war. What was happening back at home, how their families were doing, eating up every moment and enjoying the company of deckplate Americans. He mentioned his joy at being out there with them, and seeing him say it in person while he visited the ready rooms, I believed him. His time seems to mostly be spent talking with politicians and our nation’s strategic leaders. Seeing the way they act on most days before camera’s, I can understand his relief for a few days respite from the self-important Beltway.

Late that night, the General took the stage in the hangar deck, and put on a show. The Nimitz was supposed to have hosted Jay-Z as part of a USO event, but at the last minute an MTV contract didn’t get signed, and the show was cancelled. The General joked that he was the replacement, and they decided to bring out “General P” instead. He cocked his ballcap just slightly to the side and struck a pose. The crowd erupted in laughter. He called up sailors and challenged them to feats of strength, winning most of them.

It’s a rare celebrity who is actually deserving of his acclaim, and even more so one who is so at ease with laughing at himself. He is an academic who has been the first to volunteer for combat assignments in the most dangerous and unwinnable situation. He has come out on top every time. It is no wonder he is so revered throughout our military and beyond.

I could tell he was at ease with this crowd. The last time I saw him on TV was during last year’s Super Bowl. His 5’8” slight frame was dwarfed by the massive Steeler and Cardinal captains who joined him at the 50 yard line for the coin toss. He said little, and somehow seemed out of place. It appears his natural niche is not on the contrived battlefield of the gridiron, but rather on one where lives contained within iron are risked for grids upon which nation’s fates are determined. On Thanksgiving, he was back on his turf.

His last stop of the evening was in the ready room of our sister squadron, the VFA-14 Tophatters, for a quick greet and go with the air wing’s Super Hornet aviators. Its not often we get to see men of substance so close, but here he was, mere feet away. It made the mission completed just hours before all the more meaningful, knowing the guy whose leadership was guiding our cause stood looking me straight in the eye.

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The transit across the length of Afghanistan was not expected. In fact, it only transpired at the last possible minute.

Our initial tasking placed us south of Kabul, with the mountains in view but far enough away to be complacent as to their effect. For an hour, we had meanderingly searched some roads for IED’s. I was in endless, slow left hand turns while my WSO operated the FLIR, looking for anything suspicious. The JTAC controlling us seemed more interested in seeing if some of our digital transmission systems were working correctly than what we were actually reporting (“hey, guys, thanks for the reports, but realize we’ve just had lots of snow, and its melting now, so a lot of what’s out there is probably just puddles of water.” Glad I’m here on a holiday…) Since it was Thanksgiving for him too though, I wasn’t too concerned with the boredom setting in, as it meant not much was transpiring. To pass the time, I counted down the minutes until our next tanker hit, then until we would head home, mentally calculating fuel flow rates and trying to predict how much extra gas we would have when we finally arrived. I know what you’re thinking…

Coming off the tanker, fat on gas, and slowly making our way back to our original killbox with the preoccupied JTAC, we got retasked. In an instant, the boredom disappeared when I heard the callsign of the element declaring the TIC and the location he was reporting from. These were SpecOps guys on the border – way up North. This is where the action was, and these guys get whatever they want. We used some of our extra gas to speed up our transit, but it still was going to take twenty minutes, leaving us with little more than fifteen minutes of on station time, barely enough to be of any use.

We entered the Hindu Kush, that foreboding region where empires had been absorbed time after time, never to be heard from again. I could feel the temperature within the cockpit drop as we passed overhead the snow covered land below, subconsciously turning up the cabin temperature. That premonition returned -- Nervous shivers and small beads of cold sweat started.

Upon checking in, and getting the situation update, the JTAC had immediate coordinates to pass so that we could engage the enemy attacking them. A spotter team that had engaged the American Special Forces earlier in the day had been tracked and identified.

The tactics of mountain warfare have caused headaches for generals, great and small, for millennia. No less daunting are the physics of mounting attacks from the air in such a region, especially for targets on ridgelines within deep valleys. The advent of precision guided munitions has significantly aided this endeavor, but any errors in target coordinates, laser energy or GPS satellites are magnified.

For instance, on a flat piece of land, a horizontal miss of ten meters is a miss of ten meters. On top of a ridgeline however, a miss of ten meters can mean a bomb falling hundreds of meters or even kilometers (.62 miles for you non-metric types) in an unpredictable direction depending on the slope of the incline surrounding the target and the terminal angle of the bomb. If the bomb vertically misses the ridgeline on say, a four thousand foot peak by a mere foot, it could travel the entire way down a steeply sloping embankment and impact the valley miles below. Not good.

In addition, bombs fall towards the earth. This is obvious. But this also means they cannot hit anything on their way down if they are to reach the intended target. Say, a 20,000 foot mountain. So you have to find an unobstructed run in. For preplanned missions, geographical software can determine this before we take off. For targets of opportunity, we make the best estimate possible airborne. While also accounting for the speed and direction of winds aloft (which at the high altitudes we need to work in while operating above towering peaks, are often quite significant). Sometimes the only run in heading available is unusable if the winds are unacceptable. Then you need to make sure that when using particular fuses, the bomb time of fall is long enough, but not too long such that the fuse runs out of power.

Fortunately, the computers in the jet take care of most of this. We just have to make sure the bomb falls unimpeded. In our case it did. There were a few seconds of panic after the elapsed time of fall had arrived and past with no visible impact on our IR sensor, but eventually we saw the boom in the correct location. The target was neutralized.

Within fifteen minutes of checking in, we were on our way back home, relieved by a section of Air Force F-16s. The changes in circumstances of this profession never cease to amaze me. You can be having the most uneventful few hours of your life on a holiday you never imagined missing, and in an instant, be called upon to flawlessly execute rigorous procedures to protect soldiers on the ground and kill those that would harm them. To turn it on and off, just like that – it certainly lends itself to fostering adaptability.

----

Upon waking up on Friday and checking my email, I got the report from the home front. In deference to my absence, the black pieces I traditionally used had been set aside in an observational status. The girls, Michelle and Sophia, took up the traditional mantle of the girl’s team carried forth for years, playing as the eponymous “Pinkies,” making their initial stand in my favorite base of operations, Australia. My brother, home unexpectedly from his Navy training in Virginia, managed to make a game of it. I got a running commentary from my Mom, and at the end of their day, she revealed my Dad won, his victory recorded in perpetuity on the back side of the game’s cardboard cover.

I’ve never missed a Thanksgiving with my family before. I hope I never have to again, even if it is spent with a personal hero doing a job I willingly signed up for. Sometimes, it’s just nice to be home.

God Bless,

Ben

Combat

2010-04-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

“Jackhammer, Spear One Three, One Four checking in, AR complete in Dakota at flight level two three zero requesting clearance to Tango Delta four five for fragged tasking with Knife Zero One.”

We had just come off our first tanker of the day, a large three engined KC-10, the equivalent of a DC-10 used by commercial airlines, replenishing our fuel tanks after the hour long transit from the ship into Afghanistan. Our air wing had been conducting these missions for a little over a week, but even in that short span of time, we were beginning to get a feel for the lay of the land.

Over the primary radio came an unusually urgent reply from the British female who was directing air traffic in the southern portion of Afghanistan that afternoon. Female controllers are always mesmerizing to listen to, especially the ones with exotic accents. Perhaps this is planned – I think we take in what they say and actually respond to it better than a male's voice. This may be why all the emergency voices within the cockpit – “Engine Fire, Engine Fire” “Bingo, Bingo” – are women’s. Anyway:

“Spear One Three, you have been re-tasked to support TIC Echo Mike in Tango Foxtrot Three Five, contact your JTAC, callsign Orion Four, on Indigo Seven Four. Elevator to flight level two one zero for your transit en route.”

A troops in contact situation had arisen, and as a result, the Joint Tactical Air Controller on the ground had requested immediate close air support to assist him in combating local Taliban and insurgent forces. As we looked on our chart, it appeared that the killbox we were directed to, Tango Foxtrot three five, was right on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Only in exceptional circumstances were we authorized to violate the red line drawn on the map.

My heartbeat hastened, and the first thing that popped into my head, much to my surprise as to its vehemence, was “those damn Taliban bastards…” I was leading a flight of two F/A-18 Super Hornets into combat for the first time, with the skipper of our squadron and our training officer on my wing, both evaluating my performance and preparing to help the guys on the ground if need be.

This was certainly not what we had been briefed about, nor was it in an area we were then familiar with. A relatively benign overwatch scenario near Kabul had morphed into a possible kinetic situation with live fire being exchanged between combatants near a politically sensitive international border. I had to take a deep breath as I quickly ran through the procedures for employing the weapons on board, should it come to that.

Ten minutes later, we checked in with Orion Four on our encrypted frequency. We passed him our check-in information, and got the following reply:

“Spear One Three, One Four roger that. This is what we have going on here. About fifteen mikes ago we had a mortar round fired on our position. The suspected target escaped on foot about one and a half clicks into Pakistan into what appears to be a cave. We need you to sanitize the opening and let us know what you see. You are NOT, I repeat, NOT authorized to engage in Pakistan at this time.”

Part of me was relieved as the situation had deescalated somewhat, but the adrenaline was still coursing from the urgency in the voice of the previous controller. Spring-loaded to bring overpowering firepower at one moment, at the next expected to wait while we figured out the situation and took a step back from rash decisions. This would be a tricky nut to crack. Welcome to Afghanistan.

--

A few days before we started flying combat sorties, our skipper and Air Wing Commander (CAG) spoke to all the aviators. Nearly a year in training for these few months ahead, it was time for the pep talk. They were pretty short and to the point, but a few things stuck out.

Our Skipper: “Final release of weapons lies with you in the cockpit. When it comes down to it, neither me nor CAG will be in a position to tell you what to do. You will be responsible for ensuring proper hostile intent and identification has been met. You have been trained to make the right decisions, and we trust you. Now go execute.”

CAG: “There are two reasons why we do this and have prepared for this day for over a year. The first is that we have the honor of defending our country and fighting alongside the men and women on the ground who are keeping the people back home safe. Secondly, we do this because each and every day we get to see if we have what it takes, if we meet the standards expected of us. If the trust placed in our judgment and tactical proficiency is indeed deserved. Prove you have what it takes.”

The day began early with the mass brief. A quick update of weather up the Boulevard, our transit route into Afghanistan, and then in country. A tactical update with current operations ongoing in Afghanistan, followed by discussions of what each element of two aircraft was tasked to accomplish that day. Political and cultural descriptions sprinkled throughout, giving context to the missions. Lessons learned from the previous days, and things to watch out for today.

We then broke off into our various sections. The flow was pretty standard: an hour and fifteen minute transit from our carrier operating area to the south of Afghanistan, hit an Air Force refueling platform, provide close air support for an element on the ground for about 45 minutes, hit another tanker, go back for another 45 minute period of CAS, hit our third and final tanker, then make our way back to the ship. All told, over six hours in the air.

As this was only my third mission, I was still trying to figure out a routine in order to ensure I wasn’t forgetting anything when we finally walked to start up our jets. I ran through everything in my mind. ID card and dog tags. Check out a 9mm Sig from the squadron duty officer with associated ammo. Check out my blood chit and evasion maps. Review my game plan if I for some reason had to eject; if I get captured, if I get rescued. Check for an extra survival radio battery. Grab a few Cliff Bars and Piddle Paks. Fill up my water bottle. Get a seat pad. Fuel card and T-handle from maintenance in case we have to divert. Night vision goggles with bracket, just in case we get extended into the night hours. Products the Ground Liaison Officer had given us for each JTAC we were fragged to support that day. Smartpack with answers to nearly everything that may arise in flight. My flight bag was stuffed – I wasn’t sure it would all fit into the cockpit.

I’ve found there is a strange sense of comfort in the snugness associated with strapping into these airplanes. All our survival gear hugging tightly and perfectly fitted to our heads and torsos. Four leg straps, two lap belts, two shoulder harnesses keeping us immobile within the ejection seat. Publications and maps and the necessities for survival stuffed into the cranny just to the right of the seat. During primary flight training, I remember some of the flight instructors who originally flew large airplanes with spacious cockpits brag about their luxuries. I liked having nowhere to move – it was as if the airplane was now a direct extension of my body. A 59,000 pound hunk of metal to be manipulated by a mere 200 pound man. Forty thousand pounds of raw and untamed thrust to be harnessed by mere fingertips and neural synapses. Talk about leverage.

Once we were started, we taxied to the catapult, awaiting the official launch to commence. All of our systems worked as advertised, the check-in with our wingman was uneventful, and we were a full up round. We waited for twenty minutes in silence doing nothing. Hurry up and wait.

I snapped out of a brief daydream to the yellow shirt on my right waving his hands, indicating I need to taxi forward to bring the launch bar into the catapult shuttle. He looked to his right, then his left, then shot his right arm out. Tension.
Throttles mil. Launch bar up, light is out. Flaps full, indicating full. Engine instruments look good, nozzles look good, hyd pressure looks good. Stick forward… aft…left…right…rudders full left…full right. I’m good to go. “I’m set in the back.” Look out to the left, the Shooter pumps his fist into the air three times. Throttles full afterburner. A deafening roar fills my ears, even encased behind the thick glass bubble of the canopy and double hearing protection. I give a snappy salute to the Shooter. He salutes back and touches his left hand to the deck while kneeling down. My right hand grabs the handle on the canopy bow in front of me, my left arm locked keeping the throttles at their maximum setting. A quick breath in, waiting in the instant before the impulse takes effect.

We are plastered to the seat. Instantly you know it’s a good cat shot and we’re going flying. A 59,000 lbs, asym 3 combat shot is simply astounding. Nothing in the world is like it. Your head pressed back against the headrest such that you cannot even move it. Planes and people and flight deck blurs as your vision constricts to the soda straw in front of you. Accelerating from 0 to nearly 200 miles per hour in 2 seconds. Finally released from the acceleration and free of the deck, it takes a moment to come out of the haze, but you do, take a quick check turn to the left, bring the gear and flaps up, and accelerate to 300 knots at 500 feet.

“Spear One Three, One Four you are clear to join.” The Air Boss comes over Tower’s frequency and informs us our wingman has been launched in tandem with us, and is a few hundred feet to our right. There sits a sleek grey jet skimming the blue water on a bright day, slowly snuggling up on my wing. I’m reminded of why I do this.
After those few moments of sheer adrenaline and exhilaration, the next hour is remarkable for its lack of anything remarkable. So too is the land we soon find ourselves flying over.

Pakistan is absolutely desolate. I’ve flown over the expanses of the Western United States, passing over the deserts of New Mexico and rocky vacuum of West Texas, but this is something else entirely. It is the visual definition of godforsaken -- endless sand amidst dark gray rock outcroppings, no water, no greenery. There are washes aplenty where in the rainy season it appears rivers flow, but not now. There are a few oases of civilization, but even these are mere dots of black in a sea of dust. A constant haze layers just...sits over the entire region, and the only time you are out of it is when flying above 20,000 feet. It’s like being over a different planet.

The demarcation between Pakistan and Afghanistan is only on our political maps. The landscape shows no mention of a “border.” One endless sea of barren soil gives way to the next. But psychologically – psychologically there is a shift that takes place. I’m over the Line. This is no longer a training mission over the desert of Nevada, but an incursion into another sovereign nation. Our bombs are real. Our decisions have consequences. There are people who would love to shoot me down.

--

“Orion Four, Spear One Three is sensor on that target. Looks to be a cave entrance with surrounding buildings, no movers seen. Confirm coordinate Seventy-Three Delta, Golf Quebec, 9-4-5-2, 2-6-1-3.”

“That’s a good read back Spear One Three, copy that entrance and no movers. Request you search around that area a report back anything suspicious.”

We kept our orbit flowing, skirting the border as close as we could stand without actually going over it. Once again the lay of the land gave no indication that there were different countries. Villages and paths flowed across the dotted black line on our moving map within the cockpit, and outside one mountain gave way to another valley. This was quintessential tribal land, the people and cultures not restricted by international agreements but rather centuries and even millennia of intermarriage and caravans of trade. Here we were, acutely cognizant over a line in the sand, adhering to it while the mostly neutral, and likely hostile, peoples below bore more allegiance to their village elder than either Islamabad, Kabul or NATO Frameworks.
Our enemies and adversaries, after eight years of running and hiding and causing havoc, know how to exploit these political requirements. My WSO, callsign Creature, and I ruminated as we monitored on the fact that the cave this insurgent escaped into likely had numerous exits far from this entrance we were glommed onto. These guys aren’t stupid. Tunneling and underground networks have been used against us to great effect in the past, Korea and Vietnam being the most notable. Run to where we can’t get them after a quick strike. They say in war, never accept a fair fight. Insurgents know this better than anybody.

Three missions in, and we had stumbled upon the classic difficulty of a war such as the one we face in Afghanistan. We are forced to respond to hostile situations rather than shape them to our advantage. Our superior firepower arrived too late to catch fleeing and savvy perpetrators. That and the fact that superior firepower doesn’t really matter in the long run. The bad guys look like civilians. The civilians are suspected of being bad guys. In either situation, months of hard earned trust can be lost from a misplaced perception leading to a misplaced weapon.
A few days later I was supporting a British JTAC, perhaps the most professional I have ever worked with. As we returned from our mid-cycle refueling, we got word from him that they had taken fire from five insurgents who had escaped into a wooded region next to a canal. He was revved up, the normally calm descriptions giving way to a bit of stress and faint sounds of gunfire in the background. We got our sensors into the suspected target area, immediately finding a “hot-spot” with our infrared sensor and what looked to be people running back and forth between it and a building. Artillery fire had been launched into the region; perhaps this was a round that hit something. The JTAC followed with interest. Our suspicions were high, we were ready to go kinetic if need be.

Soon though, things didn’t add up. There were these hot spots all over the place. As the sun set, little red specks popped up outside our cockpit on the darkening land. It turned out they were camp fires. Our suspicions were unfounded. Later on the transit home, in the hour of nothing but straight and level fight, we discussed this within our two man crew. The running could have been kids playing as they are wont to do around campfires everywhere. How do you balance the benign with the threatening? A similar situation a few days ago: one of the guys in our squadron was watching a convoy of Army vehicles transit down a road when all of a sudden one of them exploded as an IED detonated underneath it. Asymmetry at its most poignant.

After spending less than two hours in comms with the Brit, and knowing nothing but his tactical callsign, a bond and kinship was developed that I cannot explain. The protector and protected, seeking to accomplish the near impossible and quell a home-grown insurgency so that security can be maintained for countrymen halfway around the world, many of whom will never understand what is occurring on their behalf. He mentioned he is headed home in a few days after seven months on the ground, glad to be returning to the UK. What I wouldn’t give to spend an evening in some London pub trading stories with him.

It is bitterly ironic that the Twenty-First Century sanitized war of technology (Shock and Awe, Network Centric Warfare, etc) we were promised by strategists and politicians and military industrialists has instead given way to one where a culture far inferior to our own with respect to economics and development is in many ways neutralizing the greatest military power the world has ever known. The War of Necessity is the one we have no idea how to win.

But we are trying. In an upheaval of the Rules of War, it’s a good day when we return back to the ship with all of our weapons unexpended. It means that the troops on the ground had no need to bring a rain of fire from above. In that particular region, on that particular day, the strategy of pacifying a restive population and winning their trust has been accomplished, even if but for a moment. Success is not measured by the number of “kinetic events,” but rather the lack thereof. The easily exploitable political requirements we operate under are, interestingly, the very policies that stand the best chance of defeating this wily foe.

Despite the ambiguities, it’s good to finally be doing something that has been for me over five years in the making. When I’m not flying over the beach, I look on the scheduling board to see when I next get to go. When I’m flying over the beach, there is deep satisfaction in what we are doing, even if the long run portends uncertainty.

So while the debate rages in Washington, and our military and political leaders fight over what should be allocated and who should be supplemented, we fly our daily missions dealing with the ambiguity that nearly incapacitates democracies. Seeing if we measure up to what is expected of us. It is all we can do.

God Bless,
Ben

Liberty Call

2010-04-02T11:27:00.000-07:00

This was definitely something I could get used to. High atop the Park Hyatt hotel in Tokyo, I was eating dinner with two of my fellow aviators. Surrounding us was a panoramic view of one of the most densely populated cities in the world, and the points of light beaming from every direction left no doubt as to the statistic’s truth.

The place called itself “The New York Grille,” and while it styled itself after a very upscale western establishment, the characteristics were undeniably Japanese. My friend Fu had invited myself and Chainsaw to accompany him on this excursion (the names are real…), and since I had wanted to see the sights, I readily accepted. Plus, as a single guy with no financial obligations at home and nothing else to spend my money on, a lavish dinner was becoming more of a tradition than anything in port. Some guys liked to drink beers by the pool – a small cadre of us chose the opposite route.

Tasting menus, wine pairings for each course (to be fair, I just let Fu do the choosing – I’m far from a wine bon viviant), white linen tables while a jazz trio hummed in the background. Confident men and their well dressed ladies, business being conducted, celebrations being celebrated. After nearly a month aboard ship, with grease everywhere on the white walls, fried food being the norm, and the same flightsuits worn day in and day out, the contrast was stark. The bare necessities of shipboard life suddenly transitioning into the literal lap of luxury.

Our hotel was in the trendy Roppongi district, surrounded by gaudy displays of the elite of society: Prada, Gucci, Tiffany’s, Rolex. We had an American celebrity at our hotel passing through the lobby when we checked in, to be seen quite a few times during the four day adventure. Ferrari’s, Aston Martin’s, and even the occasional Rolls Royce greeted us in the hotel’s parking each evening.

That aside, it was relaxing and comforting to be in a place where life was normal. From my vantage point near the center of the restaurant, I spied a young couple on some sort of date – they had a table on the edge of floor-to-ceiling windows with a drop of nearly 75 stories. I was intrigued to watch this Japanese pairing – the late twenty something man accepted the check, and with a shy smile and near whisper, his female companion gave the thank you repeated universally throughout the world after an unforgettable evening. Across cultures and languages, it gave me pause to consider the emotions that are unwavering across the human race.

Tokyo was our first stop outside the United States, and perhaps an appropriate one for the mission we are on our way to undertake. The United States military still has a significant presence on the island nation, over sixty years after Japan’s defeat during World War II. I’ve been reading David Halberstam’s “The Fifties,” and I found it interesting that in the aftermath of that war, in what all elements of our society now believe to be effective techniques in nation building, there was significant political opposition to our now heralded saints President Truman and Secretary of State Marshall.

It seems that both sides of the aisle blamed them for “winning the war, but losing the peace.” The War was supposed to end the tyranny of fascism and bring about the democratization of Japanese society. And yet it didn’t go according to plan – at first. It would be hard to argue that Japan ever emulated the American version of democracy. For over fifty years, and until the watershed elections of the past month, the Japanese people were ruled by one party. But they prospered nonetheless, and have charted their own course under our benign occupation.

(As an aside, we arrived days before this momentous vote, and I noticed nothing that would indicate an election was happening. This may have been due my acute foreignness and lack of understanding of the language, but there were no signs, no overt advertisements, nothing like an American race. Perhaps that is the nature of Parliamentary elections, but I think it also was a reflection of the Japanese people themselves, and the subtleness with which they carry on with their society.)

I don’t really believe history repeats itself in an absolute sense, but there are certainly lessons to be learned that can generally be applied. The first and foremost of which is that it takes decades to truly discover the effect of foreign policy decisions, especially those that involve tens of thousands of troops in far off places. I think it would be safe to say that Truman’s stubbornness in the face of shortsighted political opponents paid off in the long run. And had far reaching consequences, both for good and ill, that we are seeing to this day.

The enlightening thing about being removed from your native land is that it provides a degree of perspective, and a wave of possibilities that open up if the traveler is willing to just observe. Moving on from the heady subject of Democracy with Japanese Characteristics, let talk about something a bit more entertaining: Baseball with Japanese Characteristics.

I’ve seen some fanatical sports fans in my life – but nothing compares to the Japanese. Most baseball games in the United States are pretty subdued affairs from the standpoint of fan interaction, except for maybe the World Series. In Japan, every game is like a college football game on steroids.

The first thing that caught our attention was that we could bring beer and food into the stadium. Wally the Beer Man was actually Yukio the cute brunette in a skirt (tasteful…), which was obviously a big hit. As soon as we took our seats, we noticed that the stadium was starkly divided: The Yellow and Black of the Hanshin Tigers along the third base side through left field, and the Blue and Black of the Yokohama BayStars (the home team) from the first base line to right field.

Pandemonium is the best word to describe every half inning. The fans of the team in the field, from the first pitch to the third out, chanted their team slogans at the top of their lungs. Everything was somehow coordinated, and the tens of thousands of fans knew exactly what to shout when. Each team sported a pep band (loud!) and huge flags that were flown in their section of the outfield stands. This went on for nine innings – constant noise and colorful displays. An amazing display of endurance if I’ve ever seen one. And there were cheerleaders. Our XO mentioned in passing that an enterprising junior officer should find out where they went after the games to hang out, but to my knowledge, we never found out…

It was a fascinating microcosm of their culture. Absolute devotion to a particular cause, individualism suppressed to support the common goal. Even amidst the chaos, politeness ruled – there were no violent outbreaks or vulgar feuds between the opposing fans. A culture built on hierarchy and honor. It was somewhat embarrassing as we Americans walked away from our section: littered throughout were the remnants of our evening while the surrounding sections previously occupied by locals were as if no one had even been there.

Tokyo was eclipsed not less than two weeks later, however, by Singapore. There is an old joke comparing Air Force and Navy fighter pilots. It goes on for some time, but the last line has something about Zoomies spending time at home with their wife and kids, while the single Naval aviator picks up the hottest girl in the bar – that bar, of course, being in Singapore. I understand the joke now.

Since I am by nature a political being, I’ll begin from that angle. Singapore is a benign dictatorship with a democratic process that is one of the most economically open and successful countries in the world. Utterly remarkable. I previously mentioned Democracy with Japanese Characteristics – Singapore has its own.

While America rages over health care and every other imaginable issue under the sun, the Singaporean people are apathetic – a native’s word, not mine. I met up with a very close friend of mine from college who I hadn’t seen in over two years, and since he now lives there, was able to see the city from a very unique perspective.

Its economic openness is reflected in the people that inhabit it and the languages it considers official: Chinese, Indian, Malayian and English. Immigration is highly encouraged, although the application process can be somewhat strict and drawn out. The market seems to rule everything, to great effect. Even the lower classes seem to be quite prosperous when compared to the rest of the world, and even American poor. It doesn’t hurt that Singaporeans save at a prodigious rate, and their adversity to risky investments has allowed their economy to miss most of the worldwide financial meltdown.

One party states are able to make decisions that are unpopular, but ultimately good for the society – in Singapore’s case free trade. They are also able to invoke unity that in adversarial democracies like America would never stand – the element that most stood out to me was a poster invoking “national unity to defeat terrorism” on many of the bus stops. Even after having never been attacked! Especially for one who loves the give and take of political discussion, it was interesting to see this single party government produce results without debate.

But autocracy does come with a cost. Laws and punishments that are, to put it bluntly, draconian by Western standards. Death by Public Hanging for drug distribution, caning for various relatively minor offenses. A press that is hardly free, and a society for which libel is frequently invoked by the government. The Wall Street Journal was recently successfully sued for defaming the government when it ran an editorial in its Asian edition critical of the ruling regime. Elections are held, and although there is an opposition, they are routinely routed – albeit fairly it must be said.

In discussing this one party system with my friend while walking down the very affluent shopping district – once again, with the Gucci’s and Prada’s and Tiffany’s and Rolex’s – we ran through the democratic Asian countries that this seems to be the case with. South Korea, up until the late 1980s, was basically an autocracy. So too was Taiwan and the Philippines. We’ve already discussed Japan. China and Vietnam have become increasingly capitalistic, increasing the wealth and prosperity of their peoples remarkably (with admittedly mixed human rights results), while maintaining the single-party grip on power. Prosperity, more than anything else, seems to prevent the inevitable uprising that would occur in America towards a ruling party.

The inclination towards engineering over politics is ever present as well. It was a sight to behold within the central library to see it packed with patrons reading in all corners and along every wall. I was most intrigued by their transportation infrastructure and method of attempting to keep traffic somewhat manageable – clearly with mixed results. To own a car, you must pay an annual fee that is set through an auction system. X number of permits are allocated, and the top X bidders get them for a set time frame. This greatly drives up the price of new autos, but there seems to be no lack of desire to possess them.

Additionally, much like the much publicized London system, there are various corridors throughout the city that cost a given amount of money at particular times of the day. So, for instance, a main thoroughfare may cost $1.00 to transit between 4pm and 8pm, but be free after that. This fee is deducted from a machine on each car that basically operates like a transportation debit card, and is also linked with the parking garage system. Many of the garages have sensors over each spot, letting potential parkers know which garages are full, and signs are posted throughout the city so you have an idea of where to go. All the garages are fully automated, and the debit system tracks when you enter and leave, deducting the appropriate (and remarkably inexpensive) amount.

Their housing plan is also quite intriguing. Public housing makes up a large percentage of living units, but instead of merely subsidizing rentals, the government forces its inhabitants to actually buy their property (subsidized based on income). After five years, they are able to sell it with no capital gains taxes. With the required ownership, public housing, at least what I saw, was remarkably clean and well kept – nothing like the projects that have beset American urban centers. To be sure, there are those that game the system, and make it work to their advantage, but for the most part, it seems to both incentivize responsibility effectively and provide housing to everybody who needs it. Real estate is such a hot commodity, that instead of asking a woman to marry them, a suitor may instead ask “will you buy an apartment with me?” (If you are under 35, only married couples can own real estate). Romantic.

The political, economic and transportation situations being what they are however, Singapore is a must see for any international traveler. The Night Safari, perhaps the only one of its kind in the world, was spectacular – lions, tigers, elephants, giraffes, rhino’s, and all the nocturnal animals from around the world you never get to see awake and active in most Zoo’s. Plus there was something sensual about the Indian woman in the precise British accent who narrated the tram tour that brought everything to life.

Clarke Quay is a mesmerizing array of clubs and shops semi-enclosed by a unique glass roof and boardwalk of the Singapore River. Lots of very late evening were spent exploring this and Boat Quay. The Raffles Hotel, a vestige of British imperialism, stands proudly in the center of the city at a mere three stories, but with a history as rich as any hotel in Europe. For a nation whose self proclaimed pastimes are merely shopping and eating (half the downtown district seemed to be one huge above and below ground interconnected mall), there is certainly a lot to experience.

Soon enough though, it was time to leave and continue on our way. Days within re-embarking, we were informed that our deployment has been extended by two months. This wasn’t entirely unexpected, as the rumor mill was in full force prior to the official announcement, but still gave us a bit of pause.

No doubt more ports will be experienced, but for now we have a new and pressing focus: our first combat missions are mere days away. With that, I bid you all farewell until next time.

God Bless,

Ben

The Transit

2010-04-02T11:26:00.000-07:00

Distracted. When my mind came to, that’s the first word that popped into my head. There’s an adage that gets repeated over and over, usually due to personal or near-personal experience: The Boat is always trying to kill you. In some way or another, the only way to keep yourself safe is to stay alert. So being Distracted sounded my internal alarm bells.

Not that I could really be faulted for it. During daylight man-ups, there are moments before each flight that allows for a few minutes of reflection. The Air Boss has yet to call away the start, we are snuggly strapped into our flying contraptions, and relative silence pervades the usually busy steel expanse dwarfed by the endless water surrounding it. There really is nothing to do but…chill.

Last year, when I first got to the squadron, these minutes were spent in fevered review of what was about to transpire. Making sure the jet was started properly. What would we do if something went wrong? And of course, the landing at the end.

But now, all these concerns are pushed to the side as I gaze out of my perch ten feet above the flight deck. I can start this plane in my sleep. I cant remember the last time I looked at the three pages of checklists attached to my kneeboard. If something goes wrong on deck, I just instinctively push the buttons to get to the correct display. Being Distracted isnt helped by the warm and humid weather; the sun high above over the deep blue of open ocean. Nor is it helped by the myriad of people in the rainbow of shirts moving and flowing like coordinated chaos through rows and rows of grey machines.

Yellow shirts walking alongside moving aircraft, the “grapes” refueling just landed jets. Green troubleshooters hooked up via small black cords into the nose of random jets talking to aircrew while the brown shirts prepare the planes for the next event. White safety officers ensuring that nothing untoward is occurring.

My mind thinks about my sister and her new baby. What it was like holding her and smiling when I think of all the work involved in the few hours I spent with her in my arms. Moments with old flames, walking the Mall, driving through the rain in Albuquerque, symphonies in San Francisco. Musing that my view of home is the entire United States: When a weather map of the country was shown on TV a few days prior, my eyes involuntarily flitted between Minneapolis, Lemoore, Houston and Washington DC. But when it snaps back to the reality of now and being Distracted, I convince myself to deal with this moment. My little part in the dance must go right.

Sometimes the innate, and unspoken, teamwork involved in this job stuns me. I remember a few weeks ago, I was the airborne tanker for the largest recovery of airplanes we had experienced thus far on cruise. It was an hour and a half long cycle, which to put it in laypersons terms, means we barely had enough fuel to cover our mission.

It also so happened that the Nimitz was in the middle of running away from a submarine during an exercise, and thus could not turn into the wind to catch airplanes, further extending our flight time. Many of the planes coming back had been airborne upwards of four hours, having refueled from Air Force Big Wing tankers to extend their endurance, but at this moment in time, many were low on fuel. As we were working Blue Water operations, meaning no suitable land based divert was available, my aircraft would be the primary go-to asset for gas if something went wrong and pilots couldn’t land.

Throughout the hour prior to the recovery, I was sweating the numbers to ensure we had enough fuel to give. It wasn’t looking good. The plane wasn’t running as efficiently as we had assumed, and we had to pad our own landing fuel numbers down to complete our primary mission. When we checked back in overhead, we heard the ominous call from our Skipper’s plane: “101 will be tank plus one on the ball.” Meaning that if he got waved off or missed all the wires, he would have to refuel.

Finally, the sub was defeated. The Nimitz turned into the wind, and from our vantage point overhead at 7,000 feet we watched the stack flush. The Case I day Visual Flight Rules, Zip-Lip pattern is something to behold, even on a stressful day like this one. Each squadron has an assigned altitude where they hold overhead, and watch the planes below them cycle down. Ideally, the first section is breaking into the pattern just as the port waist cats have launched the last aircraft from the next cycle. The off-going recovery tanker follows them down, starting from 7k, then going to 5k, 4k, 3k, and finally 2k as all the aircraft below vacate their altitude and break into the landing pattern.

Everything went seamlessly. All nineteen aircraft made it down without a single bolter, and almost no communication. I think I heard three or four words total over the entire 15 minutes it took to land everybody. Our reserve fuel didn’t have to be used by anybody, and we were the last to land. When I finally got on deck, it was an intense relief, but my mind immediately tried to grasp what we had just accomplished. This is just what we do on a daily basis, and so I dont think we always appreciate how complex these evolutions are, but the implicit coordination floored me.

All the aircrew knew exactly what to do and when, and executed to perfection. The ship kept the wind down the deck, and the deck crews quickly got the just landed planes out of the landing area so the next one could land 55 seconds later. One after the other, just like that. There is concern among the national security crowd that China is getting a carrier, and what its implications are for the Pacific – but there is something subtle about the finer points in carrier operations, and the experience of 50 years can’t be bought off the shelf.

But we aviators sometimes get wrapped up in the minutia of everyday aviation. Why are we here? Why do we fight? Does flying really, I mean really, matter in the big picture? Is it better to be executing policy, or making it?

These are the questions that have been burning within me since I first set foot in the Cradle of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, FL three weeks after graduation from college in 2004. They are the questions that make me go back and forth as to whether or not I want to make this a career. No answer is forthcoming.

Afghanistan. That’s where we are headed, even if we do spend weeks transiting the Pacific Ocean en route. The mission there has remained the same since 2001, but our tactical role has changed immensely.

The opening weeks of the war there were open season for our forces. If it moved, it was destroyed. But as the political situation has evolved, our role has necessarily become less permissive. That dreaded word politics gets thrown around, but it is in fact the heart and soul of warfare. Practitioners of our art are in many ways consumed by the movements of battalions, and the minds of generals. We are reluctant to asses the intentions of statesmen, because their decisions are not black and white; there is not necessarily an ideologically “right” answer, and for those trained to close with and destroy our adversaries, this presents a cognitive problem. Yet that is exactly the mindset being forced upon us. It is an appropriate one.

We will be fighting in such a way that our biases will be against employing weapons. It is better to let the bad guy get away than kill a civilian. Our tools are not perfect for this fight. We have jets able to break the sound barrier, evade enemy radars and weapons, link with forces around the world, and our job will be to be as a sentry, orbiting overhead watching. For men and women drinking tea with tribal leaders and building a society from rubble. Aviators may talk a big game, but that’s where the real action is. On the Ground is where Change and Historical Frameworks are being cultivated.

This is the modern face of war, and it is…surprising. Mountains of paperwork, endless legal jargon, new tactics that emphasize subtlety over subjugation. We revere the Chesty Pullers and Pappy Boyingtons with their chestfuls of combat accolades, but Lawrence of Arabia is our forefather in this battle. The guy who went native, and saw history as an interconnected, intercultural storyline not beholden to any one Time or Country. This is the hardest of all personalities to absorb and emulate, but do so we must. And our wartime leadership is beginning to reflect this reality.

Will it work? We shall see.

So during our transit we mix the mundane with the multitude of uncontrollable forces that inform our progress. We dwell on the home we left behind while attempting to shape a country that keeps ours occupied in thought and deed. It is a month that has blazed by, promising a future of unexplored foreign ports, firsthand lessons in international diplomacy, and the possibility of the unexpected every day.

Other than that, life is pretty boring on the ship.

God Bless,

Ben

Lost in Translation

2009-03-25T23:43:00.000-07:00

“But to do this he [the mute, invalid M. Nortier] must have spoken?”
“He has done better than that – he has made himself understood.”
-Exchange between M. deVillefort and the Count of Monte Cristo

One of the most difficult things I’ve found as a member of the military is translating what we do, and what we experience, into a form that our civilian peers and supporters can understand. In many ways, we live in a world completely detached and separate from anyone not in the know, and inadvertently further isolate ourselves because of our cultural language and codes of behavior. This does not seem to outwardly bother many of my brethren, but for me, as someone who clings to the concept of the “citizen soldier” (perhaps an anachronism at this point in history) it provides endless contemplation.

The element I now appreciate most about my college experience was my continuous interaction with an incredibly diverse group of individuals. This was most manifest in my fraternity, where aspiring doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, journalists, actors and musicians gathered on a nightly basis to break bread, get into heated arguments, then head upstairs for a friendly game of beer pong or caps (don’t tell IFC!). From this I was exposed to a world of endless possibilities, and one that opened my eyes to the interests that held other people apart from my single-minded pursuit of the military. It gave me an appreciation for the breadth of talent this great nation of ours has on tap.

Yet even amidst this multitude of future professions, I, and eventually my brother, stood out. It was rare at Northwestern to see our type, and as with anything unique to the human experience, people were intrigued. We were the first ROTC guys within our house’s walls in nearly a decade. I remember my first long conversations during the initial rush stages being about why I chose this route, what the future held, what my obligations were. These inquiries continued for the next four years. For someone who had grown up with an inherent understanding of a military future, and obsessed with anything to do with military history, this seemed odd to me.

Slowly I came to realize that what I took to be normal interests were anything but. And the misconceptions surrounding the choice were vast. I was and continue to be intrigued by the gulf between the protectors and protected, figuring out ways to coherently communicate what this culture contains.

Yet for all my professed interest in the military arts, and the undoubted truth that all of my friends and acquaintances would upon asking say I am a military man in body and soul, my own personal view of what I do is much different. The best metaphor I can muster is to say I feel as if I am a deeply embedded journalist. Except that the reporting is not to tell a story to the wider world, but rather to make sense of my experiences to myself and provide a visible window for those not privy to what goes on behind it.

Remarkably, the depth of mistranslation extends well beyond citizens with no ties to the military. This separation of worlds extends even to those civilians, particularly spouses and significant others, who are privy to our daily goings on. This was made evident to me last weekend as I tried to explain a flight I had gone on that morning to the wife of a fellow aviator who I have known since my flight school days.

It went something like this: That morning, I had taken part in an Air Power Demo over the USS Nimitz for the friends and family day cruise that the carrier (also our all too frequent home) was hosting. We flew from Lemoore down to the waters off of San Diego, did our little airshow, and returned back to the Central Valley.
The twist was that instead of a beautiful day with which to wow the crowd of thousands, we had terrible weather with incredibly low ceilings, casting the entire program into virtual chaos. In the end this was for the most part transparent to the crowd below, as we made the required adjustments. But my intention was to relate this adventure to her.

I began by talking about IFR descents, to 2,000 foot overcasts. How our pattern required 3,000 of clear air. I was losing her. I tried to tell her how as soon as we streaked by the ship at 500 knots and my lead broke, he suddenly and unexpectedly disappeared into the clouds, leaving me gasping in shock (trying to do the whole hand thing to demonstrate). An uneasy smile, and simple nod. She was trying, really trying to empathize and understand. It just wasn’t happening. Needless to say, my inability to vocalize what happened effectively brought this line of conversation to an abrupt halt.

I was reflecting upon this on the drive home. Mere hours earlier, I had been hyped up on adrenaline trying to keep track of all the airplanes beneath the low undercast, zooming around a ship with more flashbulbs going off than I had ever seen in my entire life, trying not to let my nerves get to me as I simultaneously tried to push my refueling probe into a bouncing metal basket mere feet in front of me with a slow E-2 trundling less than a mile in front of us as a Hornet coming by at nearly the speed of sound for a “sneak pass” called his position just across the ship from us requiring an immediate spin by us so we wouldn’t collide. Whew. Then remembering the serenity of the transit over where all of southern California and a large portion of the visible Pacific was covered by a fluffy white blanket as my lead little more than a mile away was sending contrails off his jet in mesmerizing streams of vapor. I’m not even sure I would have truly understood this even as a flight school student a few years ago. How was I going to tell those that were curious how my day was?

And so the things we find exhilarating and marvelous and terrifying get stuck in our throats as meaningless mumbles when we try to express what we believe to be seminal events in our lives. Most of the time, a “good” or “fine” suffices when untranslatable moments occur. (that being said, I heard the best description of a night carrier landing the other day: “You want to know what a night trap is like? Walk outside with a friend on the darkest night you can, blindfold yourself, then have your buddy kick you repeatedly in the balls.” Nailed it!)

But there are also those elements that are beyond memorable moments.

One of the more senior officers in the squadron lives about a block North of me, and almost every day I come home from work, I see him outside with his kids. He was the former football player who married the high school cheerleader, then joined the Navy in a fit of occupational uncertainty. We wave as neighbors and colleagues do in cities across America.

Yet that scene of the father playing basketball and throwing balsa airplanes with his little son, shepherding his blond daughter around the driveway teetering on her bicycle, normal to most observers, is filled with something so much more. It is the father squeezing every last moment of time with his beloved offspring before he has to leave again. This time it was two weeks between month-long detachments. The next time it will be ten days. Then a few more weeks home, and then six months away, literally to the other side of the world. After two years of similar workups and back to back deployments. The mother and wife bravely sees her love off, knowing he will be back, understanding why he must go, but deeply pained nonetheless. She too grasps at the fleeting time that all too quickly disappears.

How does one capture that in an understandable way to a society that sees a weekend apart from someone as ruinous? How do you relate that you will have missed your two best friends wedding’s, those you’ve looked forward to since high school and college, because a war is going on? How do you communicate the sense of detached acceptance when the vacation with your whole extended family (many of whom you haven’t seen in six to eight years) you’ve planned for months becomes an impossibility due to a command requirement to be tethered near the base prior to embarking on a combat cruise?

This is not a call for sympathy. All of these individuals made choices they stand by. It is instead the exposition of the realities that encompass the cultural divide that is increasingly widening between our military and our civilian world. A gap, that if left to widen, will invariably lead to a mismatch in priorities between two symbiotic elements of our society.

My mom has a picture of some of our Air Wings airplanes flying over the Nimitz on her desktop at her desk in the front office of my old high school. She gets a lot of comments and questions from passerby’s, and at times has referred them to one story of mine in particular when they inquire what the photo is all about. She tells what one woman told her while reading it:

I was just sitting there, when all of a sudden I heard a shout from the woman who I had sent the story to.

‘Carrie! How could you ever let your son do that? I would NEVER let my son do that; its so dangerous!!!’

I stopped myself from rolling my eyes, and tried to explain, ‘Well, they get a lot of training, and they have lots of good people making sure they get down okay.’
She still couldn’t believe it.

Thus, even after seven years of near round the clock reporting, there remains a lack of understanding between those on the front lines and those in the embrace of Lady Liberty. Especially in a democratic society where volunteers fill our armed forces and are directed by civilian policymakers, it is essential our cultures are communicating, and perhaps even more important, understanding the experiences of the other. Easily said, but the “how” in finding that translation still remains.

Mr. Lincoln

2009-01-25T21:57:00.000-08:00

“I wonder where he is looking…?” he thought as he himself stood looking across the Mall. What lay before him was the chill of a bright, cloudless afternoon, shadows long even though it was but two hours past noon. A mid-January day with the breath of Spring.

He stood on his tiptoes, trying to center himself under the massive chair, between the legs of the marble President. The Reflecting Pool, fountains of the Second World War, Washington Monument, Capitol, all in succession. Barren trees scattered on each side and a smattering of pre-inaugural tourists enjoying the spectacle. His eyes straining in the attempt to emulate the perspective of the figure towering above him, gazing off into the unknown.

The answer was not forthcoming. “I wonder if he is looking into the future, or the past maybe?” The solemn yet determined look that marked the long face gave no clue. An enigma, but a guiding light just the same. “What would he do in this crisis?”

It had been inevitable that the young man would end up walking those steps, silently stunned in that sacred cavern charged with the ever watchful vigilance of our Nation’s Capitol. The moments, and even days, leading up to this arrival were all tinged with this unavoidable rendezvous.

The journey took him from one coast to the other, flying over the marvels of human achievement and natural wonders, the latter putting the former to shame in sheer expansive magnitude. The desolation of the Sierras and vastness of Death Valley, over the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, across the magnificence of the Grand Canyon. From 32,000 feet, the cut of red earth in the panoramic view from a bubbled cockpit taking his breath away and silence seeming the only appropriate response. Making their way across Texas, with windfarms on one side, and oil derricks on the other, the landscape slowly changing from the rugged brown of the West to the green of the East. The Lands of Manifest Destiny giving way to those forged by Patriots and Revolutionaries. Taking off from Houston as the sun set, casting brilliant hues that slowly faded into a purpling, then black darkness. The lights of Memphis, Nashville, Durham and finally Norfolk marking the path of their aircraft through the night and to the completion of their expedition.

Then the drive through Virginia up to DC through the interstate tunneled in the midst of an endless forest. Paying respects to the First President, then the Greatest Generation, but always with the columned temple in the corner of his eye and back of his mind.
The circuit was not a new one, but one that never ceased to inspire awe. In the past, done at night with companionship, and at times alone in contemplation. But always ending at the same place.

Some things take your breath away. Some moments leave you bereft of thought, consumed only with the weight of the present. He was in a rush, even as a tourist with this sole purpose, but after reading only the last paragraph of the words carved in marble on the right side, he stopped himself, took a deep breath, and rooted himself in the middle of the cavern.

The Second Inaugural loomed overhead, chiseled expansively across his vision, and the world’s motion and noises stopped. He read.

“AT this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

When he was done, and stood there for what seemed like minutes, he found that his mouth was hanging agape, tears running down his cheek. This surprised him, and somewhat embarrassedly and quickly wiped away the evidence. But even more was the great peace within his soul. The understanding that whatever we face, worse has been confronted by generations prior, and that there are Great Men who appear at the beckoning of Providence in moments when we need them most.

So he looked to the author, and tried to see what he saw, appreciating why past Americans had sojourned to that spot seeking solace and advice. No answer to his question came, as of course was the inescapable truth of facing a stone. No answer, that is, but the abiding feeling that the resolution of the choices we have to make are of our own volition, and individual judgment the true exercise of responsible power.

And thus the pilgrimage ended, to be undoubtedly repeated, but presently fulfilled.

Foundations

2009-01-07T11:20:00.000-08:00

I sometimes wonder what the Forefathers would have thought of this twenty-first century incarnation of America. How far we’ve come, how much we have stayed the same, how much we have left to do.

As we approach yet another peaceful transition to a new President and his attendant administration, which we so naturally take for granted, I can’t help but reflect on how often and how close it all came to collapse. How precarious it still is. And how each generation of Americans had a chance to see their country spiral into the dustbin of history, give into the impulses of security at the hands of faction and self-interest. Yet here we stand, as divided, and united, as ever.

Our first President chose to leave office after eight years, establishing an unwritten precedent of two terms in office. He could have stayed on longer. He could have made himself dictator for life, or return America to a nation that followed in the path of every other government at the time and revert to monarchy. John Adams, his Vice President and undeniably ardent supporter of democracy, even for a time wanted the President to be referred to as “His Majesty, the President.”

Washington is regarded by many as the best President we have ever had. We all say this, but why? Do we truly understand the significance of his abdication of power? I’ve been reading the 46 Laws of Power, and the lengths and strategies people go to in order to obtain this elusive, yet seductive and addicting aspiration. The ability to influence and manipulate those around us with insinuation, deception, feints. Yet here stood a man, offered lifetime power, who recognized the futility of short-term individual ambition for the good of not only his generation, but those that followed. Fathom that for an instant. The ability to let it all go, and in doing so, gain a lasting fame and influence that resonates far beyond any other political leader. And planting a psychological seed that has blossomed into the rolling over of authority we are frequent witness to.

John Adams was then elected with 71 out of more than 200 electoral ballots cast. Less than forty percent support. He in turn, after being defeated for re-election by his political adversary, yet close friend Thomas Jefferson in one of the most bitter elections in American history (including charges of infidelity, secret children, outrageous slanders put forth by both parties that make our elections look civilized by comparison), handed over the reins of power without a fight. Jefferson received little more than 33 percent of the ballots cast, and only won after the 36th round of voting in the House of Representatives. Democracy in action. Yet for the first time in world history, political power had changed hands from one ideology to another without bloody conflict.

And far from setting a precedent, other now liberalized nations took generations more to realize the benefit of peaceful transition. The French Revolution that proclaimed Fraternity, Liberty and Equality through the guillotine was replaced less than a decade after the Bourbon removal by the scourge of Europe, the Emperor Bonaparte. Our brethrens in revolution spent most of the nineteenth century bloodily waffling between Empire and Monarchy. Even in the midst of a Civil War, we had an election, and the rightful victor remained.

I wonder what they would say to the splendor of the central parts of our Capital. A former swamp bought for a pittance lined with Classically-inspired marble structures, spires reaching high into the sky, cherry blossoms bursting forth every spring. And the motorcades – how different to be surrounded by armed men in black suits than to greet neighbors knocking on the unfinished White House doors as Jefferson did.

Though we live in a time of national plenty, we still face the same dilemmas, and the same historical foibles of human nature. What foreign entanglements to align ourselves with, regional interests in constant competition, political manipulations and transformations. A brutal and merciless press proclaiming the evils of the current administration, publicizing up every sordid detail and twisting every public pronouncement. Blowhard Senators wasting time and money, power hungry staffers salivating at the downfall of a once rising superior. These things have never, nor will they ever, be absent in the field of human political interaction.

And at the very top, the loneliness of command. The fate of the world, literally, laid upon your shoulders. Across generations and party ideologies, there is undoubtedly a bond that these leaders all share, and though their solutions often differ drastically, they alone bear the burden, together. One of the more remarkable photos I had during college was of Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton all together. Some villains, some incompetents, some transformational, some charmers, but all men charged, for a time, with upholding the tenants of American democracy and the perpetuation of the experiment forcefully designed by Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe.

It is sometimes good to look at where we have come from to see where we are going. Our roots and our evolution from them define the national culture. I think our Founding Fathers would be proud to see what we have accomplished, but fight dearly for what they believed in, aligning against each other with every ounce of their being as they did previously. And from that cacophony of infuriating chaos ensure the continuation of domestic Tranquility, promote the General welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty for ourselves and our Posterity.

Tears of our Fathers

2008-11-11T00:14:00.000-08:00

One of the images I remember best from growing up was a picture my mom had in a frame on a bookshelf. It was a cut out from the local newspaper published in the waning months of 1973 and featured two men. The years have faded from my memory its exact details, but this is what I remember of it.

The first man is a handsome, yet somewhat tired looking figure, perhaps in his early to mid forties. He is dressed in the blues of an Air Force officer, with a crutch below his left shoulder, and in the background a throng of people stand cheering. Yet while he was the center of attention for the gathered crowd on the tarmac of the Minneapolis Airport where the scene took place, it is the second, and older, man that catches your eye.

For in his face are the lines of deep joy mixed with long-suffering tears finally welling to the surface. He wears a brown plaid hat tapered near the front with a distinguished crease down the middle and nearly imperceptible ear flaps on the sides. The pattern of his long coat matches that of his hat. Beneath the lenses of his glasses are the tears, and the faint smile of relieved emotion just below them.

The two men are embracing, and an observer is struck by the feeling that he can actually hear the prayer of thanksgiving being extended heavenward as the older man grasps the younger.

A Father sees his son for the first time in over five years. The Son had been off at War, imprisoned in the Hanoi Hilton for the entirety of the period. The plane that brought him home sits near the crowd in the background. The Father kept the faith while he prayed for years on end for his son’s safe return.

The younger man is the husband of my great Aunt, the older his father. My mother is in the middle and high school band amidst the crowd in the background.

These family anecdotes, even if punctuated by a front page photo, don’t mean particularly much to a young boy growing up with baseball, Legos and airplanes to consume his energies and time. Perhaps the intrigue of the Air Force officer being a fighter pilot catches his imagination, but the impact of the homecoming scene that was so monumental evaded his understanding, at least in those formative years.

But even in the absence of understanding, the stories of those years between 1968 and 1973 were told over and over. My Great Uncle left to fight, and in his absence after being shot down and captured, his wife and children moved back to Minnesota to live with his wife’s mother. It was a stately home in Edina, adjacent to the still nascent Highway 100 and bordered by the Minnehaha Creek in the Country Club District.

My Mom and her brothers tell of those early years with amusement, and a tinge of sorrow. They had found new playmates in Frank, Peter, Liz and Bill, but the reason for their arrival was unwelcome at best. They were all children then, and managed to get into trouble, fight, make up, play make-believe. The seriousness of the adult world that plunged them into those circumstances was very real, but I don’t imagine they fully understood it. All they knew was that their Father or Uncle was painfully absent.

Meanwhile, as the children did as children do, the pilot’s wife, as all military wives throughout the centuries have done, waited and worried. She was surrounded by her brother and his wife. She had her mother and father to assist her with the children. She knew the plight of her husband, but was helpless to support him as she had vowed on their wedding day. She did all she could to keep her youthful and energetic family sustained amidst the absence of their father. She was lucky to get one letter a year from her husband. But She kept the faith on the home front.

Soon, a national organization of POW wives was formed, and She began communicating with and befriending the wife of then Captain James Stockdale, the senior American imprisoned in Hanoi. They fought their own government, and made the personal absence of their beloved husbands a national issue. Hearings were held, and even as America erupted into chaos on its college campuses and returning service members were spit upon and harassed, a subtle roar of support for the imprisoned pervaded its way through the national consciousness.

Half a world away, the hundreds of Americans captured by their enemies tried to build a society in the midst of unimaginable depravity and desolation. Their country was bound by concrete walls and iron barred windows. Their cuisine was moldy soup and rotten bread. Their culture created from the philosophers of old. Their character, tested and strained, remained resolutely American.

They devised ingeniously simple methods of communication to maintain human contact with their fellow isolated prisoners. Entire conversations were conducted by merely tapping on a wall – and in some cases the best of them could transmit upwards of fifty words per minute. Their deepest secrets and greatest hopes were passed sometimes between men who had never, nor ever would, meet each other face to face. They refused repatriation except for those cases allowed under the Code of Conduct, and endured terrifying tortures. All of them at one point or another broke, but their brothers were there to build them up slowly, empathizing with them as they too had broken. Some of them died, others went missing. All were physically broken, many mentally and psychologically so.

As only military men can do, they managed to recreate the rigid hierarchy and chain-of-command that they had known their entire lives. They assigned collateral duties to keep the men occupied. The leaders among the prisoners issued orders for conduct and defiance of their captors. The most effective of them were separated from their subordinates and placed in solitary confinement for their innovations. When faced with the prospect of being a propaganda tool for the enemy, their leader cut and deformed his face to such a degree that their captors finally understood their resolve.

At one point, a prisoner managed to sew an American flag out of bits of torn fabric. His brethren said the pledge of allegiance over and over. Upon hearing this, the guards came in, took the artisan and his flag, and nearly beat the former to death. Upon his return to the cell, bloodied and bruised, barely able to walk, the first thing he did was begin to sew another flag.

For a time, sickness ran rampant through the prison. As the prisoners were given only water to wash their cold metal plates with, sanitation was minimal at best. Yet, they devised a means to thwart illness spread through uneaten food. They simply licked their plates clean after each meal, rinsing them afterwards. Amazingly, the transmission of illness through insufficiently washed utensils ceased.

One of their most junior members, derided and then ignored by their captors, was ordered to accept release. He, despite his captor’s perception of him as having no intellectual acumen, had memorized the name and rank of every American in prison –over 750 in all. His return to the United States was the first many families had heard of their missing loved ones – and the extent to which Americans were being held prisoner in unimaginable conditions.

Yet throughout years of such treatment, in some cases surpassing seven and eight, the men kept the faith. And then one day, their unconditional release came. They, representing every branch of the Armed Forces, were headed home.

Even in their release, they gave no quarter to their enemy. Hoping to gain the good will of the world through the image of jubilant prisoners being released, their captors had cameras ready to record their elation. However, the now free Americans remained stoically silent and stone-faced until their freedom bird had lifted from the ground. Once safely airborne, they cheered and cried. They really were, finally, free.

Captain Jeremiah Denton, one of the senior commanders, and prisoner for over eight years, penned the following on the flight home:

"We are honored to have had the opportunity to serve our country under difficult circumstances. We are profoundly grateful to our Commander in Chief and to our nation for this day. God bless America."

Soon after, similar scenes of homecoming as experienced by my family were repeated around the country. The war may not have been won, but the men who fought it and their families who lived it remained faithful to the end.

Lost in the lexicon of civilian life are the tales of bravery and heroism that pervade every corner of military tradition. It is the men that precede us we pay homage to, and to whom we strive to match in standards of integrity and character.
We are an imperfect profession, populated with imperfect people, defending an imperfect nation. But intertwined with this very imperfection are the complimentary traits that lead inexorably to the innovation and spirit of liberty that has perpetuated our nation’s greatness.

It is the very tears shed at the homecoming of our heroes that make valid their sacrifices for our freedoms. Sacrifice is not sacrifice unless borne by the best of what we have to offer. To this, and them, we owe a debt of profound gratitude.

Living History

2008-06-15T22:37:00.000-07:00

Date: 25 May 2008
Location: USS Nimitz; between Wake Island and Hawaii, Pacific Ocean

Dear Friends and Family-

When I was a little kid, I was obsessed with World War II, specifically the Pacific theater. I presume this comes as no surprise to anybody reading this, as the contemplation of all things military, Navy in particular, seems to catch my interest and inform my musings. My favorite movie was "Midway," about the eponymous battle in June of 1942, which I must have watched every weekend throughout middle school. My eighth grade history project was on the "Great Mariana's Turkey Shoot" and the recapture of Saipan and Tinian Islands in the Mariana's chain from the Japanese in 1944. Heck, last summer my mom found some of my Kindergarten papers, and on one that asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I wrote "Air Force pilot." (disclaimer – I was unaware the Navy had an aviation arm at the time!)

So throughout my life, these histories have reached almost mythical proportions, only to be reinforced by my current profession and the role Navy fighter pilots played in each. I could point out on a globe where each of these chains were, and the path that was needed to get there by Halsey, Nimitz and MacArthur. But until I actually saw these islands for myself, as I recently did, the full impact of this written history was far from apparent.

In my past three months aboard this ship, the one thing I have come to appreciate more than anything else is how incredibly vast the Pacific Ocean is. We can take off, climb to 30,000 feet, and on a clear day, as far as the eye can see, view uninterrupted shimmering blue water. No land in sight, save a few scattered volcanic specks. Off the coast of Japan, its color takes on a more grayish hue, but its beauty becomes absolutely mesmerizing near Guam and other tropical islands. The deep blue of the deep ocean is just that. Its beauty belies the desolation it represents, but is compelling nonetheless.

Among this vastness are tiny oases of human activity separated by thousands of miles. It is surreal to fly over the island of Saipan, see that it is a mere few square miles of area, then glimpse the light shallows on its Western side. When I first saw them, I almost forgot to keep flying as it suddenly hit me that this was the very coral where thousands of Marines waded hundreds of yards to reach their landing beaches because their amphibious craft didn't have the draft to take them further. The coral upon which the landing and one of the lynchpins of the Island Hopping strategy was almost stopped in its tracks as many were cut down before they ever reached dry land. The coral upon where thousands of GI's, and tens of thousands of Japanese, died for a seemingly small piece of land in the middle of the Pacific.

A week ago, we passed by Wake Island. Unlike Saipan, accompanied by her sisters Tinian and Guam that comprise the major players of the Mariana Islands, Wake is really an atoll, and she is all alone. In what ended up being my last flight of this cruise, we took a section of Super Hornets to check the island out, and discovered that there is exactly one airstrip, and one golf course on Wake. That's it. In her midst was an emerald colored pool that took up most of her land. In my minds eye, I could see the thousands of landing ships surrounding this interruption of ocean, and almost feel the terror of the defenders as they saw the approaching armada on the once perpetually empty horizon.

And tomorrow, we will pull into Pearl Harbor, setting foot on American soil for the first time in months. The Nimitz will have her rails manned around the flightdeck with sailors and officers in whites, rendering honors as we pass the memorials to the sunken Tennessee, Nevada and Arizona. It is fitting that this coincides with Memorial Day, in perhaps the most sacred of all places for the United States Navy.

Yet while this cruise has for all intents and purposes been a peaceful one for us, with the only inkling of actual warfare being the aforementioned living history (and a few cheeky Russian bombers), it is the changes and refining process that I have undergone that will undoubtedly shape me for the rest of my life.

One of the things that continues to be the most significant for me is conversing back and forth with friends from flight school, some of whom I hadn't spoken with in ages, who are on assignment throughout the world. It seems like yesterday that we were all struggling through the same simulators, complaining about the same instructors, and dreaming of the day when we too would be shot off the front of a perfectly good ship. It is one of the characteristics peculiar to myself (I think) that I become closer to people through absence and subsequent reunion. Perhaps the reflection of hardship shared or revelry fondly reflected upon is the thing that solidifies brotherhood in my mind. But it is there nonetheless when I hear about passage through the Straits of Hormuz, operating off the coast of Australia, or making a port call to Marseilles. We may be separated by thousands of miles, and countless time-zones, but the empathy and understanding is universal.

This has not been an easy cruise, psychologically or mentally, by any stretch of the imagination. Especially as a Nugget, I've lost track of how many nights I've gone to bed tossing and turning in my rack, wondering if I will ever cut it. One too many one wires, the frustrations of life at sea coursing through my brain when I know I should be sleeping. After a bad landing at the boat, the hardest thing I have ever done is get up again the next morning, and convince myself to climb in the jet to try it again – wondering what the skipper is thinking still trusting me. Every time taxiing to the catapult at night, musing that I still have a chance to stay on deck – all I have to do is not flip that switch, controlled merely by my pinky, turning on all the aircraft's lights indicating I am ready to be hurled into the darkest blackness I have ever experienced. That's what a sane person would do. Yet every time, I for some reason flick the switch on anyway, meaning that at some point I will have to come back and land – and it will probably be even darker.

Cursing the fate of having nowhere to blow off steam because no matter where you go, I am still on the ship, able to be called back to the ready room at a moments notice. Sometimes the only solace being to close the curtains across my tiny cube of personal space, put on the headphones with a Beethoven Symphony and read through the latest issue (it being from Sept of '07, but still refreshing) of Smithsonian magazine stopping on an article about the homes of the founding fathers – in an attempt to take myself as far away from this place and the Navy as possible.

Then sometimes I get up in the air, things go right, and an unexplainable feeling of euphoria envelops me. The sun setting, orange and reds brilliantly bouncing off the clouds as another section of Hornets passes below me. I catch the three wire on a rails all the way, center ball pass, shut the jet down and smile as the plane captain asks how my flight went, the adrenaline keeping my spirits up at least through midrats (midnight meal). I've once again made the world safe for democracy, and CAG has nothing to be mad about. Yet I still wonder what life is like with trees and plant life, the beguiling smell and saunter of women, and good food. Mythical things we have all heard of, and maybe even experienced at one point in our lives, but seemingly out of reach.

Somewhere, some place, gas prices are apparently going up. Mortgages are being foreclosed on. I even hear there is an election going on, with a barnburner of a campaign and the associated meaningless commentary from self-important talking heads. Universities are graduating a new crop of lawyers, businesspeople, doctors, financers. The things that used to consume my daily life are merely echoes in the reality I occupy on cruise, and somehow they just don't seem that important. One day at a time, one more day, then maybe a time will come once again where life exists outside these metal walls. At least this highly concentrated environment has one up side – it puts into perspective what really matters.

When I first came to meet my squadron in Japan, I remember sitting in the waiting room of Narita airport in Tokyo, looking around, thinking of how great it would be to spend time getting to further know that culture. What it would be like to then spend subsequent years in various parts of the world just learning and living their different cultures. But as this cruise has gone on, and I have had the chance to visit quite a few other places, it has become apparent how much I miss the States and how incredible it really is.

When I fall asleep at night, it is not the rest of the world I dream about, but memories of my home. The rolling hills of Virginia horse country in the summer, exploring and discovering out of the way taverns amidst slowly settling mist. Experiencing the museums of Chicago, and the bustle of Michigan Avenue. Absorbing the magnificence of the Washington Mall at night, seeing Mr. Lincoln on one side and the glowing Capitol building on the other, then solemnly walking the Vietnam memorial as tears slowly well up being in the presence of fallen compatriots. Driving though Bel Air gawking at the mansions and gaudy displays of wealth, but loving the palm tree lined boulevards and falling in love with California. Running the Lakes of Minneapolis and stopping at the Bandshell to hear whatever concert happens to be occurring, then getting a scoop of ice cream from Sebastian Joe's. Driving through the Sierra's to ski Squaw Valley and catch a glimpse of Lake Tahoe shimmering on a cold winters day. Hearing from friends who have just led their first ER operation, taking about the shenanigan's of their kindergarteners, what the first year of married life has held. Most of all, the freedom to do whatever we American's please, whenever we please. The cacophony of opinion, both left and right, the marketplace of religions, the innovation of free markets and free peoples.

I am almost there, and for that I am grateful. My friends are still scattered throughout the globe, and though I will be back for the time being, part of me will remain with them, often in situations and environments more serious than any I faced in the Western Pacific. They will not see home for some time yet, but perhaps the history they are making now will one day inspire a young boy to dream, and see with his own eyes what the history books were really talking about.

Thanks for all your support -- it means the world.

Ben

Leadership

2008-06-14T21:58:00.000-07:00

Date: 25 April 2008
Location: USS Nimitz; North of the Mariana Island Chain, Pacific Ocean

Dear Friends and Family:

A few weeks ago, I received a letter via snail mail from a cousin of mine who is in middle school. After relating some of the various adventures that girls of her age undergo, none of which, I might add, I had any inkling of as a shy, nerdy boy when I was her age, she mentioned her attendance at a leadership camp she had been selected to attend. As only a young mind could so eloquently put it, she summarized the experience by noting that "nobody really brought back any mental leadership ideas or effects on people if you will." The moment I read this, I burst out laughing at its precocious honesty. Only Heaven knows the number of leadership courses and camps that I have been to that hardly imparted anything of value to me. Here is someone, as a young teen, who has seen through the bureaucratic morass of the school of thought that believes leadership can be taught through seminars and bookwork.

One doesn't really appreciate this truth until observing the crucible of uncertain situations and how those assigned to leadership positions react. And while the military is obviously well known to have a plethora of crucibles to choose from, I think the same can be said for nearly all professional civilian pursuits as well. An MBA, JD or PhD does not confer upon the bearer's inherent experience that time and again proves to be the greatest teacher. But since a wise mentor once told me to only speak of those things that I am personally knowledgeable about, I will attempt to convey some of my acquired musings within the confines of naval aviation.

The first thing that comes to mind is the position that I hold. It is literally at the bottom of the tactical hierarchy. And even our skipper, who within a squadron is the final arbiter and dictator (in the most respectful sense) of policy, is at best within the middle regions of national policy. To grossly, but still somewhat accurately, simplify things, I am the junior aircrew in a two seat aircraft, the second plane of a two ship section of fighters. Above us is a division lead, in charge of two sections. He is tasked by the operations department who in turn reports to the skipper. Above our CO is CAG, the carrier air group commander, in charge of all the battle group's air assets (typically seven squadrons). He reports to the battle group commander, usually a one or two star admiral, who in turn is tasked by in our case, PACCOM (Combatant Commander for the Pacific Area of Responsibility). He in turn reports to the Secretary of Defense and the President. When one contemplates this organizational chart, I really am just a cog in the machine. But still one piece of many that makes theoretical policy a reality. We jet guys tend to see the world as revolving around us and our particular squadron, but the Big Picture is far from that perceived reality.

One of the unique things about "leadership" in the fighter pilot world is that when we are leading, we are leading other independent operators. It is the ultimate in mission control, where directives are passed down by higher authority, but must be executed without supervision. The most fun flights I have been on are large force strikes, where 20 or more airplanes are in the sky, all with various roles, simulating an attack on a significant target, including air intercept assets as well as the ground attack elements and other players with very important suppression of enemy air defense roles. There is a strike lead in one aircraft, but as soon as the fight starts, he necessarily must immediately delegate general authority to various component leaders. He has given a general directive during the brief, but has to trust that when he sends them on their way, his element leaders will execute appropriately. There are times when all of us are acting independently based on evolving circumstances, making split second decisions without consultation that may affect the entire strike package. Even all powerful CAG can be at the mercy of an inexperienced pilot who chooses the wrong course of action at a pivotal moment (not that this has happened in my case! Thank goodness for the WSO in my back seat…but theoretically… ;-) ). This is in the tactical, dynamic world of combat. Fortunately, we often do not face situations like these for real.

For more day to day operations, the face of leadership, no matter where the directives originate from, is our skipper. If we get news we are extending our cruise, our skipper tells us. He has nothing to do with the orders, but is responsible for their execution. In our case, I will unabashedly say his leadership is remarkable. In the two months I have been here, I have seen more good leadership traits, and nuggets of wisdom, that are worth emulating than in my entire life. This is a man who gets it, especially one who has successfully led men into combat, arguably the greatest test of leadership acumen. This is a man who is spoken of with reverence among both the officers and enlisted, not because of his rank, but because of his example. At the heart of this lies taking responsibility for all actions, and being honest with both successes, and especially, failures. What you see with him is what you get.

Perhaps one of the lessons that has had the greatest impact on me is his mantra that all decisions ultimately originate with a person. This may seem obvious, but we in the military have a tendency to depersonalize things. "The Pentagon is sending us here." " The Nimitz screwed me again." "I can't believe the Navy is doing this." His standard response is, "wait a second guys, lets look at this. Somebody made this decision, not an amorphous entity. If its wrong, blame them personally. If its right, then don't complain."

Most of the guys have been gone from home for 10 of the past 13 months, this current "Surge" cruise accounting for the latter half of that. Complaints have been rampant, understandably, and lots of invective directed towards Big Navy. The skipper sat us down one day, and said, "guys, don't blame this entity 'Big Navy.' If you want someone to blame, lets look at the guy who wanted us here, PACCOM. His name is Admiral Keating. For those of you who know him, you know he doesn't mess around, and knows his stuff. If he says we need to be out here, then we do." For me personally, that was enough. That doesn't mean being away from home is any less stressful, or living on the boat any less uncomfortable, but there is a method to the madness, and someone at the top who knows what he is doing. I personally met Admiral Keating at my brothers commissioning two years ago, and he gained my instant respect for what he said and his impressive track record. There was pretty much unanimous, if somewhat disgruntled, agreement within the ready room. Adm Keating was a fellow fighter pilot, has made more deployments and lived in more places than many of us have years in the military, and can be trusted. End of story. Same with Congress (not necessarily the trust part…)– as an amorphous entity, it doesn't make military appropriation decisions, individual congressmen do and they each have names with personal histories. They may be wrong, but there is always someone responsible, not the impersonal entity.

By the same token, his command philosophy is to make sure people come first. He isn't here to increase retention or drive his troops into the ground. His belief is that anybody who serves has done their part, and a career isn't in the cards for everybody. He just doesn't want anybody to leave because of the squadron atmosphere…leave that exodus to the individuals who set deployment schedules. It is rare to find a leader who knows when to push people to their limits, and when to stand up to higher authority to make sure they his people keep their sanity. When our squadron (sans me of course) was in the Gulf last summer, the skipper rightly drove the Aces to exhaustion by the end because our mission was to employ in combat, supporting the boots on the ground. This time around, our mission is different, and knowing where the breaking point is, he has specifically asked for our squadron to be tasked less. In raw numbers, a CO looking to promote to something higher doesn't do this. But a skipper who knows his people, and holds their welfare as paramount in a non-combat environment, is one that will get the best from them when the flag goes up, and their full devotion is required.

For many in the Navy, there is a prescribed career path, and jobs along the way, that are "highly encouraged" (note: that phrase in militaryspeak means mandatory) to rise to the upper echelons. It is something subtle, but noteworthy nonetheless, that our skipper tells us time and again to make the decisions about our job choice for us, not the Navy. Do what makes us happy, not what the detailer would have us do. This, for me especially, has been a great encouragement. I think it speaks highly of someone who truly wants the best for his subordinates, and gives them as much information as possible to make informed choices.

I was recently reminded of a quote in a speech given by the current Secretary of Defense that I believe is appropriate in describing our Skipper, and has many other general applications as well. It is from the late Air Force Col John Boyd (a man I have mentioned before):

"One day you will take a fork in the road, and you're going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go. If you go one way, you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises, and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club, and you will get promoted and get good assignments. Or you can go the other way, and you can do something, something for your country and for your Air Force and for yourself. If you decide to do something, you may not get promoted, and you may not get good assignments, and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors, but you won't have to compromise yourself. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That's when you have to make a decision: to be or to do."

I believe there are cases where you can both "be" and "do," but are only possible when the latter is the focus, and the former just works out. Anyway, my point is that character counts, and in some commands the party line is encouraged, and in others, commitment to principles is. Ours exhibits the latter.

The philosophy of the skipper trickles down to the rest of the squadron, as the philosophy of any leader, good or bad, tends to do. I'm not sure I have ever been in such a tight-knit group of men, with virtually no personality conflicts. In a group of over 30 highly type-A ultra-competitive personalities, confined to the same piece of real estate for 5 months, this is nothing short of remarkable. Part of it may be the fact that we are the only two-seat tactical squadron in the air wing, are constantly (in good fun) assaulted by the single seat guys in the daily air wing cartoon, and thus band together to defend ourselves, but after so long away from home, it is much more than that.

In large part, I think this overall philosophy comes from his experience as a humble enlisted sailor responsible for waste management maintenance (that's the polite way of putting it...) prior to getting his commission and flying Tomcats and Super Hornets. It was those incremental learning experiences wrought from difficult situations, and many failures, that enabled him to lead what is now a remarkable organization. The squadron isn't perfect by any means, and there are always areas for vast improvement, but there is something significant going on. Experience counts, and those that take it to heart make their subordinates effective in their jobs.

Being in the Navy, deployed, is not the easiest thing in the world. But someone was truly looking out for me when I was quite literally randomly assigned to this squadron. The Department Heads, who have all been in other squadrons before this, are constantly amazed at the environment fostered by the current front office.

The squadron, however, is in for a quick evolution. The core of combat proven and experienced junior officers are all finishing their tours in the next three months. We have had five new jacks (myself included) since last January, with more slated to come once we return home. The current skipper is turning over with our XO in July. Our most experienced department heads are about to leave as well. So as with anything in life, change is on the horizon, and with the advent of a new administration, it will be interesting to see how the culture and atmosphere of our little band of brothers adapts. Chaser (outgoing) and Wimbo (incoming) have known each other for a long time, since going through Top Gun together. But they are very different in their approach to situations and people.

I think it will be fascinating to watch this evolution. Organizational change and cultures have always been an intense observational fascination of mine, and it looks like I will be directly exposed to yet another case study (wow, there comes the uber-analyst in me). I will be at the heart of it, probably taking on more responsibility than I am prepared for sooner than I think. I suppose however, that is where the real learning will occur, and I only hope that I will be able to absorb and implement lessons learned from the mistakes that are inevitable.

As always, I appreciate the thoughts and prayers that have been diligently sent my way. We are (hopefully) on the final leg of our journey, and I can't wait to take some R&R to see some of you in the coming months.

Yours,

Ben

Band of Brothers

2008-06-12T23:26:00.000-07:00

Date: 26 March 2008
Location: USS Nimitz, East of the Mariana's Island Chain, Western Pacific

Dear Friends and Family-

Deep in the desert of Arizona is an aircraft graveyard . Relics of past eras of aviation sit row upon row upon row for literally miles and miles. Scrapped 747s next to gutted B-52 bombers, what were once state of the art F-14s next to ancient DC-3s. A virtual timeline of technology is evident , and the march of ever increasing obsolescence apparent. For an aviation enthusiast, it is a cornucopia of history embedded in one location. Yet, if you want their real stories, you need only go to any number of VFW's around the country and talk to the men who flew them. Some piloted piston driven prop behemoths amidst flak storms in Germany, some single engine jets over the clear skies of Iraq. But one and all, they are men who, in the words of Robert Heinlein, "voluntarily stood between the desolation of war and civilization."

Though the ages passed and innovations evolved, the daring spirit of the men (and in modern times, women) has remained the same regardless of the technological changes around them. It is the conscious choice of thinking men that makes Heinlein's statement possible, not the massing of industrial might and technological marvel.

I recently read an article in a conservative magazine entitled "The Military We Wish We Had." It laid out a laundry list of future technologies that the author, a former undersecretary of Defense for President Reagan, believed were a requirement for future success in projecting American power. New ships, new airplanes, new network integrated body armor, all while extolling the virtues of recent acquisitions of high cost items like the MV-22 Osprey and the F-22 Raptor, both aviation related, gold plated projects that have yet to find a modern practical use (my opinion, of course, but yet another discussion for another day). It was not an unsurprising view, and a few years back, I would have wholeheartedly agreed. Indeed, the conventional wisdom is that bigger, better, more costly widgets makes for a better military. But experience is the greatest teacher, and something changes when you actually deal with the people behind the rhetoric. Perhaps the piece should have instead been entitled "The Armed Forces Defense Contractors and Congressional Contributors Wish They Had."

This is not to say that I am opposed to technological advancement, as indeed the platform I fly in on a daily basis is equipped with the latest and greatest in whiz-bang technologies, providing situational awareness that would otherwise not be possible. Its ease of use and effectiveness is far beyond what was available to even an aircraft one generation prior. But it is to say that for far too long, and in too many defense circles, technology, versus people, has been the silver bullet. This mindset, though increasingly entrenched, is increasingly too one-dimensional. This is one of the obvious conclusions to be drawn from the protracted conflicts in both Iraq and Afghanistan; for a time, insurgents with little more than homemade explosives nearly drove the most expensive military in the history of the world away. Ingenuity and necessity defeated technology, and only when we turned to the human element, emphasizing interaction and personal engagement while reassessing what mere science could accomplish, did the tide begin to turn.

Being onboard the quintessential artifice of American hegemony, a nuclear powered aircraft carrier, has given me a unique view of the benefits of technology in the military world. But even more importantly, it has shown me that at the heart of it all lay the souls and hard earned efforts of men. Every day when I walk in the ready room, I am reminded subconsciously of an adage uttered by one of my favorite philosophers, the late Col. John Boyd: "Machines don't win wars, men do. And they use their minds to do it."

This was made apparent to me at a recent all officers meeting (AOM…we love our acronyms). As is the tradition at the beginning of these sessions, the junior most aircrew stands before the assembled wardroom, and gives us a bit of squadron history. VFA-41 has a particularly rich past, dating to the Korean War. Throughout it's over 50 years of commissioned service, the Black Aces have flown nearly every type of fighter aircraft in the Navy's inventory. Such venerable platforms as the F-4 Phantom, the F-14 Tomcat, and now of course the F/A-18 Super Hornet have carried the emblem of the Ace of Spades. But when we talk about where our squadron has been, it is always about the men that carried the torch before us, not the machines they flew.

On this particular day, Flounder (the aforementioned junior aircrew) gave a presentation on a young lieutenant (j.g) (the rank I am now) who just checked into then VF-41 in the mid-1960s. Soon after reporting aboard, he was sent on a combat mission into the heart of North Vietnam, and was shot down. He spent the next several years of his life in captivity, finally being repatriated to the US at the end of the war. His words after his release can be summed up in the pride he expressed at having served his country honorably next to brethren of equal character and fortitude. This man was no longer just a statistic or number, but his story was now part of my story. It was the horrors he endured and the spirit of returning with honor that defined his role in the squadron, not the effectiveness of his bombing during that fateful mission. At first, I thought it a rather depressing way to begin the AOM, but as I sat and pondered this, it became apparent that while somber in nature, it was the Truth, a history that really was. This business isn't just Dress Whites and setting our hair on fire going mach 2. The very imperfection and potential for tragedy of the profession is what makes it real and challenging. And even for those who did their cruises uneventfully, it was their willingness to stand at the precipice of potential calamity and do so because they believed in something greater than themselves. All their individual stories, both happy and sad, are an element to the spirit of the squadron, all a vital part of what gives us the bond that keeps us sane amidst the dreariness and difficulties of cruise. It is what has made me, after only six weeks in their midst, an integral and unquestioned part of this family.

While each squadron has its own lore and history, this one is particular to ours. A fierce sense of pride and competition that has been honed over the past six decades of service. The strange thing about this is that I will never know 90 percent of the people who have sat in the chairs that make up the rows in the ready room, but their esprit de corps is ever present. They are the giants, most hardly known beyond their friends and family, whose shoulders we now stand upon. Their prior service, whether it be in wars popularly supported or not, effectively carried out or not, is what gives us the basis for the present which we have inherited. Their machines took them where they needed to go, but the men who coerced them into flight were and remain the deciding factor in making usefulness out of electrons and finely shaped metal. The lessons learned, and rules literally written in blood, are what makes us the Black Aces of today.

To be sure, this is not just a characteristic among aviators or even a single squadron, but one that is prevalent in every branch of the armed forces. The modern Marine and those who stormed the halls of Montezuma, the Soldier and the forces at Thermopolae or Valley Forge, even the Aegis ship-bound warriors and the seamen aboard John Paul Jones' wooden frigate during the Revolution have a common heritage that transcends time and innovation. The tools of their trade may have changed, but their spirit and warrior ethos have remained steady for millenia.

One of my dear friends asked me, "what are the men who you serve with like?" Perhaps the most relevant answer is that the men I interact with on a daily basis are not infallible, and as such far from what recruiting ads portray (save the Marines), yet their ordinariness is what makes them special. In some ways they are the most human of men. They make mistakes that have consequences, sometimes seriously life altering, and have successes that go to their heads. They are prone to emotional and physical stressors. There are brilliant men and those missing more than a few screws. Some are aggressively arrogant, and others silently humble. Some are devious pranksters, some dourly serious. Some want to lead men, others only care about flying. Most of their ambitions end at some stream at the foot of a spectacular range of mountains fishing for trout. They can and do lose, but pursue victory as tenaciously as any professional athlete. Being away from their families and loved ones saps their strength, and most good military men have mastered the art of complaining about this. Most just want to be home, but press on anyway. In all these things, they are a reflection of our greater society. They all have stories as varied and fascinating as the characteristics they encompass. Most of them are vastly different than me in temperament, ambition and intellectual pursuits, but it is this variety that makes them representative of the country and philosophies that they are defending.

Most significant, however, and the thing that sets them apart, is the character of citizen soldiers still doing their jobs after months at sea and cancelled port calls, with rumors of extension. Missed anniversaries, birthdays and constant disappointment from an always fluid schedule mark their days, yet here they are, voluntarily, day after day. As CAG put it during our Line Period Awards a few weeks ago (be sure to add a curse word between every other word!) – "This sucks, we know it sucks, but when it comes down to it, you guys made it happen, when the men at the top were watching, despite everything else going on, and you did it flawlessly." And it is quite true – even when morale hits rock bottom, these men suck it up and do their jobs anyway, often very well.

Thus no matter what tools or equipment Congress may or may not see fit to acquire for them, it is these Americans who are the heart and soul of our military. Our Skipper's command goal for this cruise is stated as such: "To bring every sailor and airplane back home safely…in that order." Take away the airplanes, and you still have a fighter squadron. Take away the men, and you have heaps of very expensive metal, nothing more. People are everything, the rest is just details.

I continue to do well, if not occasionally weary of daily life on the ship. Thanks for all your well wishings on this most intriguing of adventures.

Yours ,

ben

Day of Days

2008-06-11T14:53:00.000-07:00

Date: 12 March 2008
Location: USS Nimitz, off the coast of Okinawa

Family and Friends-

Sometimes this job is just ridiculous. Like the attached picture (which has nothing to do with this story, but is still pretty cool, our squadron jet keeping up – quite unexpectedly -- relations with the Russians !). You look back on the day you just had, not really comprehending it actually happened. It seemed so real, TOO real, at the time, but when you sit down in the comfort of your own room (and you don't really appreciate the comfort of your own room, even if it is shared with 5 other dudes, until a day like today) to sit and ruminate over it, you can only imagine that it must have been a dream. And thus I write to understand it.

The day started out normally enough. Get up, grab some chow, roll into the ready room an hour before the brief. A few changes that we weren't aware of – namely that this would be the first time I would be flying the re-tanking jet so I could get familiar with the systems involved in air-to-air refueling. We were scheduled to do a low level, section (2-plane) bombing mission against a random point in the ocean. From the outset, we realized this probably wasn't going to happen, because a quick glance outside showed that there are broken and overcast cloud layers at about 2000 feet, and this means we don't have our requisite weather minimums.

We launch anyway as scheduled to get the tanking familiarization out of the way, and maybe practice some GPS guided munitions practice up high. Before we launch, the actual tanker who launched 45 minutes before us comes over the radio with a pilot weather report and tells all concerned that there are very few pockets of clear air between the deck and 23,000 feet.

The launch, however, goes off as planned, and we are the first off the deck. We had initially briefed to rendezvous with my lead aircraft at 16000 feet, but passing that altitude and still in the clouds, we audible a rendezvous at our backup of 23k. Finding this clobbered as well, and knowing our mission is probably not going to happen anyway, we keep climbing to see how thick the clouds are. We finally break out on top at 31k. When we get up there, I amusingly tell my WSO, "Wow, this is the highest I've ever been before…" He later relates that once he hears this (he being a LtCmdr with 15 years in various jets), silently tells himself, "oh, boy its gonna be one of those days…"

We finally locate our lead and surprisingly enough, he has found a patch of clear air about 40 miles from the ship in the mid teens, so we make it over there and rendezvous with him. On the way over, a flight of three Hornets from the Marine squadron pass in front of and below us, which didn't seem odd at the time, but later we would unexpectedly be meeting up with them in a place far from the boat. Anyway, we manage to get my re-fueling tanker stuff out of the way, dive through the layers to see if anything below is workable, and unsurprisingly, it isn't.

Checking in with the ship's approach controllers, they marshal us Case III, which means that the weather is pretty bad near the ship, and stack us at unusually high altitudes. They did so thinking there was clear air for us to hold in while we waited about 30 minutes for the launch before us to complete. This was not the case, and we start hawking our wing lines and canopy to ensure ice isn't accumulating on the jet (ice can only form where moisture is present, and this is especially true at higher altitudes where the temperature is below freezing and in clouds). Fortunately, we push at our assigned time, and make our way down.

When descending out of the Case III marshal stack, the controllers use two discrete frequencies depending on where we are from the ship. As we got closer and further down, they requested the usual switch. We went to the frequency we were directed to, and all hell was breaking loose. My windscreen was awash in rain, and even though it is 2 in the afternoon, I have to dim my displays and put up my tinted visor because it is so dark. Both of our precision approach methods are down, so the pilots coming aboard are being directed over comms as to where they are on glideslope and azimuth. Additionally, the ship keeps turning to chase wind such that the direction of our runway literally keeps moving in a circle. You are on centerline one moment, and the next instant an invisible line drawn from you to the ship (granted 10 miles away) has you coming at it perpendicularly.

Anyway, I've never seen conditions this bad. Over the freq we hear guys ahead of us with the dreaded "CLARA SHIP" call when they are on final approach to the boat. Clara, in naval aviation terms, means you don't see something. A simple "clara" means you don't see the ball telling you where you are in terms of altitude, and is somewhat common. The Landing Signals Officers (LSO) can talk you back into a position to see the ball, and execute a landing. Clara Ship means you cant see the ship. At all. You are three quarters of a mile (in todays case, even closer), flying 140 mph, descending into the unknown, trusting only the instruments in front of you and the calming voice of God coming through your headset. Imagine driving in the worst thunderstorm you can imagine, and you cant even see the lights of the cars in front of you. That's pretty much what it is, except three dimensional, with that third dimension (altitude) being the most critical element. But like I mentioned, Paddles (our nickname for the LSO's, from the days when they literally used to wave paddles around to let pilots know where they were on glideslope – which is why we call their job "waving a pass"…anyway), is talking us down as he can see our lights cutting through the rain and mist.

My first attempt at this I get waved off (meaning I have to go around) as soon as my WSO calls CLARA ship. The winds were out of limits for landing, so they just sent me around. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but since I'm flying a tanker platform, and oh by the way we are carrying the unexpended practice bombs and their associated rack too, the amount of fuel I have is a lot less than it usually is (we have a max weight with which we can land at, and the more things you put on the jet, the less fuel you can have when you land, as the weight of fuel is the only variable that can be altered. You start out with a lot more fuel, which is nice, but in the end there is always a tradeoff). So basically, the next pass its either trap, or divert to a nearby Air Force base.

The guy ahead of us got waved off as well, and he makes it around. He happened to be on of the Marines earlier mentioned. Except at the last minute, they change the final bearing on him by 30 degrees. Imagine coming into a commercial airport and all of a sudden the runway shifts to the right. He manages to make it over to his perceived center line in time, and has a great approach going, considering he cant see anything. We can hear Paddles telling him in their most relaxed voice, "you're on glideslope, a little come left, on glideslope, on centerline…" and then an exasperated, but calm "waveoff, waveoff, winds." The guy had the approach suitcased, and then bam, at the last minute, he gets sent away. From Tower: "311, you signal is Divert." They aren't even bothering with in flight refueling at this point because the weather is so bad, so they just send him off to the Air Force base 150 miles away.

And then it is my turn. This is the point at which the out of body experience begins. They talk about training taking over, and you don't really appreciate that until it actually happens. Your body just does what it has been seasoned to do time and again. It felt eerily like a simulator, except we never hear the reassuring "okay, you're on freeze now, you can come on out," Anyway, I admit I really didn't consciously know what was going on. My hands just moved. I tip over at 3 miles, and descend. The controller tells me to take 600 feet (in retrospect, this was a bad move, because as the later talk on indicates, when I heard the first low call, I became spring loaded to put on power when I didn't necessarily need to). I descend. The instruments that give us instant lineup and glideslope are still down, so Im doing this all based on rough numbers. My heart is racing, but I am consciously trying to control my breathing and wiggle my toes, which actually really helps. The controller tells me to call the ball. My WSO responds "CLARA ship" again. I hear the paddles talk on. "You're LOW…you're LOW coming up…good correction…you're a little high…lined up left, right for lineup…call the ball when you have it…you're a little high…right for lineup…" "Ball." I have a ball, but I cant see line up…for all I know Im going to hit the Paddles shack on the left side of the ship or the superstructure on the right. "Roger ball…a little high, easy with it…EASY with it…come left…right for lineup" (at this point I can hear the collective silent prayers as I see the ball zoom off the top of the lens and I desperately try to will it back on – a stable ball means you will more than likely trap)…"power back on, bolter bolter bolter. ARRGGH!!! I missed all the wires.

"113, your signal is divert, take heading of 120, climb at your discretion, contact Strike." I guess I actually expected that to happen, and whaddya know it did. I was going to Japan.

The only time I had done an emergency profile was in the simulator in a jet that was relatively clean of external stores. This time I had a lot of extra drag, and a 100 knot headwind at altitude. We are at a fuel state of 4,300 lbs, burning 7,000lbs per side per hour during the climb. I know that we will make all this up when we eventually descend, but it's a bit scary to see your fuel march down, with most of the distance left to travel. We make it to 40,000ft (a new altitude record again!) bring the power back to idle (fuel flow, 800lbs per side, whew!) and descend. That part was uneventful except for the icing we got and the associated caution which makes life exciting, but soon enough we were back into warm air, the air base was right as advertised, and we landed uneventfully. We landed with 2000 lbs of gas, and after flying out at the ship for so long, being at an airfield with 12,000 feet of runway as opposed to the 850' we have to work with felt extremely strange, and luxuriously long. Two of the Marine hornets were there, as well as another Navy hornet who had tried to tank, didn't get any flow from the hose after numerous plugs after miraculously finding some clear air to do so in, and made the quick decision to call uncle and head our way. He landed with 800lbs of gas. That, to a jet guy, is pretty much the scariest thing ever. We also had a Prowler land after us.

Of course, the Air Force wouldn't give us gas at first because we didn't have our credit card or authorization in hand to get fuel. I kid you not. It took an hour of haggling to finally convince them we were who we said we were, we didn't have any documentation because we planned to land on THE BOAT!, and at one point they even hooked up our jet, started fueling it then promptly stopped because higher authority wanted something in writing. I mean, we are on the same side right??? Defense appropriations are for the whole DoD, right? (I know better than this, as indeed the whole pie approach is about as far from the truth as the truth lies, but its fun to hassle the Air Force for being quintessentially and painfully bureaucratic every time they get the chance).

We eventually get our gas and take off for more excitement. Its somewhat telling that I actually feel more comfortable in the cockpit than I do on dry land at this point. Maybe it's a sense of control, or reverting to what we know we can handle. I dunno, but it was a very brief and interesting feeling that came over me. We check in with the boat, and they want to recover us right away. I guess the weather had gotten so bad, they canceled all the other launches for the day, so the deck was clear for us to land. This is a surprise to us, as we expected to wait for about an hour. We zoom down from 33k to 2k in a matter of minutes, dumping about 9000lbs of gas (about 1,500 gallons…i.e. about 9 months worth of rent for me, yet somehow when you work for the government, all concept of money seems to go out the window) on the way to get below max trap (wouldn't that extra fuel have been nice to have, say three hours ago…but water over the dam at this point, one of the many ironies of this job).

The first time around the second try is again a repeat of the last fiasco, except we finally have the misnamed "needles" (a boat controlled vertical glideslope and horizontal lineup indicator, which is actually a little circle that looks like a target, and its counterpart "bulls eye" which are no kidding needles, go figure), and the comm channels are silent with only us out there, which is a blessed respite from the cacophony of sound that made up the last recovery. Thank the Good Lord!!!! Something is finally going right finally. Now I actually know where I am in relation to the ship. Still cant see the darn thing until in close (maybe 1000ft from the back of the boat), and its still raining like you read about but I get to a good start and Paddles talks me down.

I see the ball…and can see the ship, but have no idea where centerline is, once again.

"Little right for line up..come left…good correction, on centerline."

One ball high, need to bring it down, but keep it energized, oops not enough power off

"a little high, Easy with it."

Right before I touch down, I think, ive got this. The ball is two balls (of five) high and ever so slowly trending down.

A slight tug, then unbelievably I see the end of the ship approaching and its not slowing down…YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!! I race off the end.

"Bolter bolter bolter, hook skip."

I later find out my hook came down EXACTLY on top of the three wire (the ideal wire to catch) and knocked it around a bit, dragging it for about 10 yards, then slipped off. Literally two inches either fore or aft and it either would have landed before the three and caught it, or just beyond it and grabbed the four. This is just not my day.

Regardless, I am in the air again. Food is down there. And suddenly I'm not nervous anymore. Probably because I used up all my adrenaline in the past three attempts, and have none left to spare. This last attempt starts out the same as the others, CLARA everything until the last few moments, a few in close lineup calls as I still cant see centerline until im about to touch down, and then that blessed blessed deceleration. The world has stopped moving around, I hear a "nice pass, dude" from my WSO, and as has only happened on the carrier, my left leg is shaking so bad I can hardly control the brakes and nosewheel steering the legs movement is responsible for.

An hour later, we are down at chow, as the other pilots gather around to hear our story. They want all the details. They add their own complaints about the ridiculousness of the Air Force. They talk about craziness behind the boat and commiserate. And for a few moments, Im the new guy who got aboard, who everybody wants to hear from. I talk more in that hour than I have probably my entire time here. I slap the back of the Marine who diverted with us when I see him in the officers mess, and Slugz, my WSO, gives me a surreptitious high five, and another "well done." I guess this is how a ready room becomes cohesive, the accomplishment of difficult tasks successfully.

I read somewhere yesterday ("Moneyball", actually, great book) that commercial airline pilots and baseball players crave places of sensory depravation. This now makes sense to me. I'm pretty sure all the boredom associated with this job is to compensate for the moments of mind-boggling action doing things that shouldn't be possible, but are done anyway, because they have to be. Crazy.

Hope you all are well…I truly miss you all, and as I put each of your names to this letter, truly and fondly remember the impact each of you have had on me. I love these guys, and this profession, but there really is no place like home.

Yours,

ben

Heroes

2008-01-06T21:24:00.000-08:00

*DUNHAM, JASON L.

Rank and Organization: Corporal, United States Marine Corps

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as Rifle Squad Leader, 4th Platoon, Company K, Third Battalion, Seventh Marines (Reinforced), Regimental Combat Team 7, First Marine Division (Reinforced), on 14 April 2004.

Corporal Dunham's squad was conducting a reconnaissance mission in the town of Karabilah, Iraq, when they heard rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire erupt approximately two kilometers to the west. Corporal Dunham led his Combined Anti-Armor Team towards the engagement to provide fire support to their Battalion Commander's convoy, which had been ambushed as it was traveling to Camp Husaybah. As Corporal Dunham and his Marines advanced, they quickly began to receive enemy fire. Corporal Dunham ordered his squad to dismount their vehicles and led one of his fire teams on foot several blocks south of the ambushed convoy. Discovering seven Iraqi vehicles in a column attempting to depart, Corporal Dunham and his team stopped the vehicles to search them for weapons. As they approached the vehicles, an insurgent leaped out and attacked Corporal Dunham. Corporal Dunham wrestled the insurgent to the ground and in the ensuing struggle saw the insurgent release a grenade. Corporal Dunham immediately alerted his fellow Marines to the threat. Aware of the imminent danger and without hesitation, Corporal Dunham covered the grenade with his helmet and body, bearing the brunt of the explosion and shielding his Marines from the blast. In an ultimate and selfless act of bravery in which he was mortally wounded, he saved the lives of at least two fellow Marines.

By his undaunted courage, intrepid fighting spirit, and unwavering devotion to duty, Corporal Dunham gallantly gave his life for his country, thereby reflecting great credit upon himself and upholding the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.

Arlington

2007-11-12T22:39:00.000-08:00

The day was cold and dreary. A slight fog hung over the proceedings on that November morning, and the breath of the participants was tinged with barely perceptible vapor. The gathering was somber, yet respectful.

Before the gathered assembly stood a casket draped in an American flag. It had been delivered to Arlington earlier that week, in preparation for its internment on the present morning. The man inside had been a veteran of both the second World War and the subsequent Korean Conflict. At the head of the coffin, near where the field of blue began, and the stripes of blood red and satin white ran concurrently together, was the shining gold of aviator wings.

In the front row was a white haired woman bedecked in clothes of mourning. A simple black veil covered her head, with a black coat over a dress of equal darkness draped across her shoulders. A single red rose lay across her lap, embraced by the black gloves worn on a trembling hand. Her sons and their wives stood behind her, one in the dress blues of a Marine officer, the other in the coifed suit of a Wall Street trader. Surrounding them were various friends and acquaintances of the deceased.

As the proceedings progressed, the Navy Chaplain stood before the wreath at the head of the casket and read from the Psalms, from the Gospel of John, from Corinthians. He himself, endowed with the only white visible in the entire assembly from the ceremonial shoulder wrapped clergyman’s sash, had just returned from a tour in Afghanistan ministering to deployed Marines. The setting could not have been more different, with the bustling sound of DC traffic, both road and air, wafting through the proceedings, than what he had just returned from. But the gathered mourners were of a same mind as those deployed Marines, and the physicality of the setting soon faded from his mind with that understanding.

The deceased was a decorated veteran, flying missions both over the stifling heat of the South Pacific and frigid barrenness of North Korea. As a newly minted ensign, he had provided close air support in Navy F4U Corsairs during the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, dropping endless bombs on the volcanic hell of the former island. The later invasion of the latter was a lesson in incongruity, as on cloudless days on sorties to and from the ship, the beauty of the coral reefs surrounding Okinawa stood in stark contrast to the death and destruction reining down on the nearby landmass. He had done his duty, and returned stateside to his home back in Minnesota.

Six years later, President Truman called upon those able and willing to serve into the Asian nation of Korea. Well settled into his life as a Minneapolis businessman, he nonetheless returned to his former profession, with an unexplainable urge to fulfill yet another call to duty. He was a citizen soldier in the truest sense, and he knew better than anybody that the peace he enjoyed as a civilian was only made possible by his sacrifice as a soldier. The war he found over the small peninsula was far different than the one he endured less than a decade before.

His transition has been to an F9F Panther squadron, the first jets to fly off Navy carriers. Whereas his Corsair had been more than enough to combat the enemy Zero’s, the Navy Panther was far inferior to the newly furnished MiG-15s the North Koreans had been given by the Chinese. The weather was insufferably cold, and more than a few missions began and ended with frostbitten hands as the carrier pitched back and forth in the choppy Yellow Sea. The carriers still were in the teething stages of transitioning from prop driven aircraft to the more modern jet propelled variety. More than a few of his fellow aviators and friends died during night recoveries. Yet the mission went forward.

These details were related to the assembled crowd with stark brevity. The deceased had not spoken about much of his service, and although it was well known throughout his community and among his family what he had done earlier in his life, he spoke more often of the heroes that never returned rather than of his own exploits. The Distinguished Flying Cross and two Silver Stars adorning his uniform were the only manifestations that he had indeed been remarkable during his tours. The old boys at the VFW may have been privy to those tales, but his family didn’t know. And so they summarized his service as best they could.

As the Chaplain handed off the ceremony to the Honor Guard, the white haired woman couldn’t help but look back into her own past and remember her husband. They had come to Arlington many times before, but as tourists, not occupants. Silence usually accompanied their reverent walk through the rows of fallen soldiers, occasionally stopping to read the grave marker of some fallen American who served on the battlefield of Antietam, or the Somme. Yet, for all the solemnity, she was drawn to a brilliant day nearly four decades prior when they had first started dating.

He was by that time well out of the service, and they had just concluded a wonderful vacation to their nation’s capitol. Their plane had been delayed, and since Arlington was only a train ride away from the National Airport, they decided to get one last glimpse of a National treasure. It was late January, and uncommonly warm. The sun was bright, but a thick layer of snow remained. Instead of tracking through the usual military burial sites, they decided to attend to former national leaders.

She gaily led them to her favorite part of the cemetery, that area with more than a few passed-on Supreme Court jurists. As they hurried to the site of Oliver Wendell Holmes’ final resting place, she remembered her then-beau amusingly chiding her for wearing sandals amidst the snow, especially given her frequent complaints about always being cold. Their respects paid, and musings about 18^th century lawyers complete, he carried her out of the cemetery because her feet were, unsurprisingly, too cold. As if ever they were that young, she nearly laughed to herself…

She was snapped out of her reverie and reflections of a time long past amidst similar, but far more subdued, surroundings by the sounding of taps in the background, and the crisp snap of the flag over her husband’s casket being picked up by six Navy petty officers. She watched with misty eyed solemnity as they slowly folded the flag into thirteen triangles. The Chaplain read as the folds progressed:

THE FIRST FOLD OF OUR FLAG IS THE SYMBOL OF LIFE.

THE SECOND FOLD IS A SYMBOL OF OUR BELIEF IN THE ETERNAL LIFE.

THE THIRD IS MADE IN HONOR AND REMEMBRANCE OF THE VETERAN DEPARTING OUR RANKS, WHO GAVE A PORTION OF LIFE FOR THE DEFENSE OF OUR COUNTRY AND TO ATTAIN PEACE THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.

THE FOURTH FOLD REPRESENTS OUR WEAKER NATURE; FOR, AS AMERICAN CITIZENS TRUSTING IN GOD, IT IS IN HIM WE TURN TO IN TIMES OF PEACE AS WELL AS IN TIMES OF WAR FOR HIS DIVINE GUIDANCE.

THE FIFTH FOLD IS A TRIBUTE TO OUR COUNTRY, FOR IN THE WORDS OF STEPHEN DECATUR, "OUR COUNTRY, IN DEALING WITH OTHER COUNTRIES, MAY SHE ALWAYS BE RIGHT; BUT IT STILL IS OUR COUNTRY; RIGHT OR WRONG.

THE SIXTH FOLD REMINDS US OF THE SIXTH BATTLE-WEARY FIGHTERS WHO VIGILANTLY STRUGGLED TO THE TOP OF THE MOUNT SURIBACHE ON IWO JIMA DURING WORLD WAR II. ONCE THERE, THEY PROUDLY RAISED ABOVE THE BATTLE. OUR FLAG, THE SYMBOL "THAT WE ALL HOLD THE DEAR," THE SYMBOL OF "FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY, GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, AND FOR THE PEOPLE." IT IS OUR DUTY TO DEFEND THE FLAG WHICH STANDS FOR THEM ALL.

THE SEVENTH FOLD IS FOR WHERE OUR HEARTS LIE. IT IS WITH OUR HEARTS THAT WE PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND TO THE REPUBLIC FOR WHICH IT STANDS, ONE NATION, UNDER GOD, INDIVISIBLE, WITH THE LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.

THE EIGHTH FOLD IS A TRIBUTE TO THE ONE WHO ENTERED ONTO THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH, THAT WE MIGHT SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY, AND TO HONOR MOTHER, FOR WHOM IT FILES ON MOTHER'S DAY.

THE NINTH FOLD IS A TRIBUTE TO WOMANHOOD; FOR IT HAS BEEN THROUGH THEIR FAITH, LOVE, LOYALTY, AND DEVOTION THAT THE CHARACTER OF THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO HAVE MADE THIS COUNTRY GREAT HAVE BEEN MOLDED.

THE TENTH FOLD IS A TRIBUTE TO FATHER, FOR HE, TOO, HAS GIVEN HIS SONS AND DAUGHTERS FOR THE DEFENSE OF OUR COUNTRY SINCE HE OR SHE WAS FIRST BORN.

THE ELEVENTH FOLD, IN THE EYES OF A HEBREW CITIZEN, REPRESENTS THE LOWER PORTION OF THE SEAL OF KING DAVID AND KING SOLOMON AND GLORIFIES, IN THEIR EYES, THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC AND JACOB.

THE TWELFTH FOLD, IN THE EYES OF A CHRISTIAN CITIZEN, REPRESENTS AN EMBLEM OF ETERNITY AND GLORIFIES, IN THEIR EYES, GOD THE FATHER, THE SON, AND THE HOLY GHOST.

WHEN THE FLAG IS COMPLETELY FOLDED, THE STARS ARE UPPERMOST, REMINDING US OF OUR NATIONAL MOTTO, "IN GOD WE TRUST."

Soon, a clean-shaven, youthful face stood before her and whispered, "On behalf of the President of the United States and the Chief of Naval Operations, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your husband’s service to this Country and a grateful Navy."

The ceremony had ended, and as the crowd dispersed, she lingered. Her children stood off in the distance waiting next to the limousine, and most of the rest of the assembly had already begun their journey to the reception. She gazed down at the casket, bent over and placed the solitary red rose under the wings of gold. She had never really appreciated his unspoken service until that moment. She thanked God she had been blessed to be married to a man such as he. With a sad, but prideful face, she turned and walked towards her children, seeing the Marine uniform of her eldest despite the fog and her failing eyesight. We are in good hands, she thought, and gave her husband into the arms and companionship of his brethren that had gone before him.

Wedding Reflections

2007-08-14T21:52:00.000-07:00

He awoke with a start, coming to in an odd, yet familiar place. The night before had been a late one, traveling to the hotel with his future brother-in-law and brother to drink some brews and celebrate one last night of bachelorhood. Far from being a sad farewell however, it was a celebration of a life to begin the very next day.

He was back from pilot training for a four day stint to see his baby sister married off to the man of her dreams. How strange it was to suddenly be tranported 1500 miles to the north, sleeping in the basement lounge he had grown so accustomed to after 18 years of residence. His room was being used by one of the bridesmaids, but the couch was comfortable enough.

Indeed, it had been a whirlwind two days. Shortly after arriving from the airport, he was whisked away to the rehersal dinner and the throng of families from Iowa and Minnesota that had descended upon the small suburb of Edina. Eating ribs in the pot-luck style dinner, while chatting with his adorable 10 year old cousin brought him endless joy. Being around the family that had nurtured him and surrounded him with love for the entirety of his upbringing was a far cry from the near absence of friendly faces in South Texas that he had endured with a Primary student. The bride and groom to be delirious with love. Marvelous.

The week had started auspiciously enough. The newlyweds car was broken into, with pictures of the couple, gifts and other lynchpins of the wedding stolen out from right underneath their noses. A mad scramble to file a police report, but to no avail. Yet as disappointing a set back as it was, the wedding rings had been removed moments before, and love is rarely stopped by mere petty theft.

Reflecting on this as he prepared to assist on that beautiful August day, he recalled the transformation he had undergone in the past years in relation to his sister. There were a few years in which nary a word was passed between them. Sure, they would be at dinner together, and even see each other in school, but something (a thrown stick perhaps...) was a block in communication. Slowly though, as their college years progressed, and she met Nick, something changed. Now, he couldnt ever imagine not seeing his sister as he did now: a beautiful, intelligent woman about to marry a man he inherently saw as a second brother.

His task for the day was to be a chauffeur for the girls as they got their hair and nails done. He amusingly reflected on the fact that 15 minutes before heading to the Rose Garden for pictures, he would scramble to shower, shave and slip into his Chokers. Yet, here the women-folk were, hours before the actual event, priming and prepping themselves. There was some boredom as he sat in the hotel room watching his latest charge get her hair curled and toes painted, but he was happy to do it.

Soon enough, the last of the bridesmaids had been sufficiently prepared, although to a woman, they continued to mutter under their breath about how poor they looked. To his quite untrained eye, he felt they all looked rather stunning, but he knew that such platitudes would undoubtedly only cause further trouble. Such were the quixotic ways of girls -- especially on a wedding day. So he silently transported them back to the house where the cars sat waiting to take them to the Lakes.

He quickly put on his whites, and as always seemed to happen, grew about three inches. Although merely an ensign with a solitary red and yellow medal, something about that uniform transformed him into a different, more confident person. Walking out, he saw one of the bridesmaids and attempted a bit of humor by commenting on her tan. Getting the immediate look of death and sincere hurt at the same time, he attempted to backpedal, but to no avail. The damage had been done, and soon the three inches he had grown were chopped back in chagrined silence. Lesson learned...don't joke around with girls about appearance on wedding days.

Notwithstanding that unfortunate and thoroughly humbling experience, the rest of the day went off without a hitch. You couldnt have asked for a more perfect day, and combined with the location of the photo shoot in the Minneapolis Rose Garden, along with perhaps the best wedding photographer in the entire state, who happened to also be a family friend, the joy that filled the air was palpable. Army soldiers and Navy officers arm in arm with beauties in elegant dark blue dresses caused more than one family to stand and watch in awe.

After the pictures, it was off to the Church. The men split off into one part, and the women to the other.

Soon, something incredible happened. The pastor came down to spend time with the men, and in that small room, the married men began to bless the bridegroom. An outpouring of marital advice, stories of the wonders of marriage. The struggles, yet endless joy their marriages had brought them. And soon all the men surrounded the young 2LT. Forty pairs of hands were laid upon him, and prayers said for his leadership, his stewardship and his marriage. He would not be in this alone. The Holy Spirit, and a family of men were behind him, prepared to accompany him in his journey.

At the same time, the women were doing the same for the bride. Not an eye was left dry, not even those of women who never cry. The young Naval Officer walked over to his sister, the bride, soon after the breaking up of the women, and wished her well. Then leaned in to hug her, and whispered to her, "I'm so proud of you." Much to his surprise, she started to cry the cry of one unexpectedly admired. And although he was chided for making her tear up before the ceremony even started, in some strange way, a siblings-bond was from that moment forward was forever forged.

The ceremony was simple, yet a testimony to the faith of the young couple. More than a celebration of a union of two people, it was the bonding of two souls before the Almighty Creator, a reflection of His glory and praise for his gift of Marriage to mere humans. Further details would hardly do justice to the event.

Soon after they kissed, and the recessional was played, the Naval Officer gathered up his motley cadre of Army and Navy personnel, and they made their way to the front of the Church for the traditional military sword arch. At the end of the arch was Uncle Mark, the cheauffear for the newlyweds, prepared to drive the decorated White Subaru that was to be the transportation to the reception.

Slowly, the attendees gathered on the outskirts of the arch, and the excited chatter erupted into applause as the Army 2LT and his new wife came out the doors. The crowd however was soon silenced as the young Navy officer shouted "ARCH SWORDS!"

The couple moved through the first two sets of sabres, delirious smiles on their faces, when suddenly they were stopped by the last set of swords barring their way. The bride's brothers had intentionally impeded their path, and with mock impatience reminded the Army Lt, "well, aren't you gonna kiss her???" The crowd laughed appreciatively, and the reddened Soldier took his wife and kissed her. They were then allowed to pass, but not before the bride was swatted by her twin brother on the butt by his sword to formally welcome her into the military fraternity. Mark got the couple into the car, and drove away to wild cheers.

As soon as the guests arrived at the Country Club for the reception, they were greeted by a grand ballroom. The dining area had been decorated with streamers and stringed lights, as a 25 piece live Big Band played softly in the background. Dinner was served, and then the party began.

There is nothing quite like the romanticism of a jazz singer backed up by a full jazz orchestra on a beautiful summer evening. Set after set of standards were played. Couples in their 60s were joined by young college kids. The groom danced with all the little cousins. His grandma dressed in a clown outfit made animal ballons and painted faces. A circle was cleared as the grandparents of the bride took the dance floor and relieved their courting days of the late 1950s. Dress Blues, Choker Whites, Tuxedos and Suited gentlemen all mingled with the ladies in elegant dresses.

The young Navy Officer found a back room and began to teach his little cousin how to swing dance. At one point, one of the bridesmaids had been sidelined with an injury from dancing, so the older uncles grabbed her chair as she sat on it and danced and twirled around as she screamed in mock horror. Friends of the navy officer crashed the wedding, and livened up the scene. The bridesmaids had all traded their heels in for soft, pink sandles that matched remarkably well with the rest of their outfit.

Soon, too soon, the evening hit its bewitching hour, and the newly married couple left. The immediate families lingered, the elder ones getting in one last dance before they too decided to call it a night. The guests slowly left, and by midnight all the remained were those responsible for taking home the gifts and stashing the flowers. Happy exhaustion filled the faces of those left behind.

When he finally got home that night, the Naval officer reflected to himself that perhaps that August the 12th was the most happy and fun night of his life. He had gained a brother, and experienced a day like no other. His joy was complete, and for a weekend anyway, life was as beautiful as it had ever been. He now knew what he hoped his wedding, and subsequent marriage, would look like....

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Dedicated to Nick and Michelle Bonifazi on their second wedding anniversary. Two weeks after their wedding, Nick was deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He returned on 23 Jul 2007 after nearly 23 months away from his wife. And to Michelle, "I still am so proud of you."

Dupont

2007-05-08T21:32:00.000-07:00

The old man sat at his table. He walked with a cane now, and the slightly greying hairs of a decade past had turned into the snow white of an octogenarian. A calm smile was on his face, and the red bowtie his most distinctive feature. Even though the temperatures touched ninety, he insisted on wearing his tweed jacket. Mostly so that he could wear the daisy from his wifes garden in its lapel. Across from him was seated a familiar stranger, one of the many men who congregated here throughout all hours of sunlight during the summer to play chess.

Like many such scenes in big Eastern cities, the dichotomy of the people bustling and sleeping and living was a vivid reminder of the diversity present within even a few block radius. The woman with the overfilled shopping cart muttering to herself, stooping to pick up a forgotten copy of the Washington Post. The young couple gazing happily at one another as they tromped past the sparkling fountain. Cars and trucks and mopeds zipping around the park in the odd circular pattern that made up this confluence of major thoroughfares well north of the Mall. The commotion from the nearby escalators bursting forth from the ground as the Metro let out its rush hour patrons.

As his newly found partner slowly set up the white pawns that had remained from the previous game, the old man glanced at the row of benches to his left, and stopped. A well-dressed, coifed young woman sat chatting away on her cell phone. Something was clearly amiss. A mischeduled lunch and overlapping meeting; a flight being delayed. Ah, thought the man, the worries of youth...

He himself had once been caught up with the activity and expectation of ambition. He had attended the Ivy League schools of his Father and Grandfather, pursuing the almighty dollar and a sophisticated way of life. He had spent beautiful summers toiling away for 90 hours a week at the posh New York law firm. His wardrobe had once been filled with Armani's, and Brooks Brother's, and the finest fabrics from the Far East. His evenings were full of social engagements at the best restaurants with Highballs on tap and haughty executives smoking their surreptitiously-imported Cubans. Business had been conducted, emails composed, Blackberry's incessantly going off. They, he being among the They, were going to change the world.

They were lonely days. Not that they ever told you about that during your 2L summer while they wined and dined you. Taking you for leisurely lunches, games at Yankee Stadium, opulent events at the Met. Paying you like a prince, mostly because you happened to go to the right school. One definitely saw the young associates toiling away, but life was too good to dwell on what the coming years really had in store. Even when he was working on the big cases, there was a cost. One that was, of course, shifted to the back of his mind. He was still young, and the sacrifices of a personal life seemed insignificant.

Once, while walking home from a Torts class in the dead of winter, a girl caught his eye. She looked lost, and despite the throng of people between them, he managed to tap her on the shoulder and give her directions. It was one of those moments though that you always see in the movies. Something clicked. They started seeing each other more and more often. He was madly in love, but there was an inkling of doubt. An Irish girl from the Southside, whose father was a fisherman. The cliche of it all! Of course, after he moved to New York and started working, he had to let her go. It just wouldnt do to have that kind of woman in the circles he would be required to traverse. Except that he always missed her. Something about the simplicity and stability of that life. A world so foreign, yet beguiling. Something his Lincoln's Inn brethren probably wouldnt understand. Yet he made the choice and moved on.

As he reflected upon this past, he amusingly thought of what he would say to the girl if by some odd chance she happened to catch him watching her. Not that this was likely to happen of course, because for this young starlet, an old man's wandering eye was not enough to break her focus. Undoubtedly a press secretary to some department or young lawyer at Holland & Knight or maybe a Hill Chief of Staff. But then what could he say?

It's not that he regretted what he had accomplished, or the time he spent doing it. He had been well compensated for his work, and he was in the City he loved more than any other. But the wisdom of old age had descended upon him, and he certainly thought he finally had figured out where the joys and priorities of life lay. He had found a wonderful wife, and they were still married after 53 years. They had a brownstone a few blocks away, and had been there for years. He had retired after serving as an Assistant Secretary of Commerce in the last administration.

Soon, the young woman hurried away, still engrossed in her conversation. He wondered what she did here, again. If she had a beau, where she went to school. Always in a hurry to get somewhere. Would her ambition kill the suppressed desire for a family he just knew she had...He sighed and smiled that smile that comes when someone knows only experience can teach that lesson. I guess age gives you perspective and a patience unexplainable to youth. He thought that having seen the slings and arrows of life, somehow things always work themselves out, even if you have to wait five or ten years.

His unknown friend tapped the clock, and moved his queens-knight. The third game of the day began. Around them the birds sang loudly, the sun was high in the blue sky above. More people had filled the park, the Starbucks to the North was overfilled with patrons. He saw a few ambassadors from their nearby consulates make their way through the Circle. And in that moment, he relished the relaxation of no more obligations, no more requirements on his soul. The young woman had once been him, but he had finally found a different path. Somehow the fame of his past positions no longer mattered, and the anonymity of this pastime was sufficient. He was content. But really, he now loved life.

Angels

2007-04-21T20:45:00.000-07:00

Today in the city of Beaufort, SC, home of a Marine Corps Air Station, a Naval Aviator died in a plane crash. He was a member of the Blue Angels. Details surrounding the crash are sparse.

A mere three months ago, I flew into Pensacola on a solo cross country flight. As I taxied off the runway, the six Blue Angels were given clearance to taxi onto the taxiway right in front of me. I was dumbfounded with awe. Here I am a twenty-four year old in a puny training jet, and in front of me is the finest precision aerobatic flight team in the world. Perfect staggered taxi, making my orange and white training jet look incredibly amateurish behind the gleeming blue and gold of the Blue's Hornets. The pilot who died today was in one of those jets. An unexplainable sadness weighs down my heart.

It is somewhat sobering to sit back and think over such an event. Especially from the perspective of being a naval aviator and pilot of a close variant of the plane in the crash. The past week, I have been traveling on the East Coast on leave, visiting friends. Invariably, the conversation turns to my current profession and the work involved.

Most of the fellow conversants look on with awe as I describe taking off from a carrier, flying low over the mountains, or getting caught up in some aerial tussle. Yet lurking behind the description of bravado is the reality that sometimes things go wrong. Even if we do everything within our human capacity to prevent a mishap. There is danger that is ever present.

And while the Blues are the most visible participants in the world of Naval Aviation, men and women strap in every day to these high performance machines to serve their country far from the eyes of cameras and admiring crowds. Thousands wake up, put on body armor and brave the streets of Baghdad and Kabul with little more than a few inches of metal between them and radicals who would like nothing better than to end their lives. Death is a pervasive and very real element to the profession of arms.

We who fly and come as close to touching the face of God as any mortal often become desensitized to the dangers involved, and the precision engineering that keep us on the survival side of flying. We put out of our minds the potential disasters that could at any moment catch up with us. Yet they are still there.

Part of our fraternity and family has been forever lost today. And as the military has always done after a tragedy, we will go back to work and try to figure out how to mitigate a similar incident in the future. We must mourn while we continue our work, and while the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, that vigilance is often tempered by pain and too little time for sufficient reflection.

But I guess most of all, in spite of attempts to explain death away using patriotic rhetoric, such tragedies are unexplainable. Lofty slogans and ideals will do little to ease the pain of the family that must bury a son, husband and father. Yet it was a risk freely taken on, one faced with courage and consistency. Very little has changed in the past thousands of years of human warfare, even if the machinery and strategies used have. I never knew him, and dont even know his name right now, but I have truly lost a brother. It hurts.

Perspective

2007-04-10T16:33:00.000-07:00

Amidst confusion, horror, and despair,

Examin'd all the dreadful scenes of war:

In peaceful thought the field of death survey'd,

To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid,

Inspir'd repuls'd battalions to engage,

And taught the doubtful battle where to rage.

So when an angel by divine command

With rising tempests shaks a guilty land,

Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past,

Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;

And, pleas'd th' Almighty's orders to perform,

Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.

-Joseph Addison, "The Campaign"

Perhaps one of the trickiest things in life is objectively analyzing the events of your life and those that surround you, while simultaneously attempting to make correct decisions. I once read somewhere that the only way to effectively critique and observe a system is to do so from without. Yet paradoxically, change can only come from within. Thus, necessarily, the agent of that change is subjectively within that given system and required to proceed forward without the benefit of clear guidance.

It is interesting to look back at history and see the changes that have occurred in the analysis of those events. I recently finished a biography of Ronald Reagan, and it always fascinates me to hear of the fights and insults he had directed his way. As time has progressed, particularly since his death, the general consensus seems to be that he was one of the Great Presidents. I have no doubt that this will only become solidified in the American consciousness as future generations grow older. The sniping and nitpicking that occurred over some of his more enduring policies seems utterly absurd from the distance of two decades, especially when the criticism of his policies has been utterly repudiated by their effectiveness.

And although nothing has changed throughout history in the application of human psychology, it never ceases to amaze me as to how incredibly myopic most people are about events, both personally and historically. They can barely see past their own biases and preconceived notions. There is not even a pretense of patience or retrospection. I fall victim to this sometimes as well, and indeed, it has become one of the greatest internal battles that I face. As I have grown and matured, I think the mantra of my life has taken on a "wait and see" attitude, but when it comes to the nuts and bolts of life, I often can't see past the tree directly in front of me.

Thus the paradox has manifested itself in my life. I know where I want to go, and I even know where I have been. Sometimes I have been able to bounce up above the fray and see that I am on course. But as soon as I land back on solid ground again, I am faced with the same anxieties and struggles. The split second decisions that will have a resounding impact. How do I respond to this particular person? So what if I don't work out today? I am back within the system, floundering around.

I've always found the reading of military history to be absolutely fascinating, particularly the Battle of Midway. The history books point to it as the turning point in the Pacific campaign, and laud the Pacific Commanders for their foresight and magnificent leadership. But the chaos in the details belie the "simplicity" of the victory. Our carrier forces were stationed where they were on a hunch. We managed to sight the Japanese carrier force by pure dumb luck, and we Americans were saved from utter destruction because a single Japanese surveillance plane was delayed due to maintenance. Yet sometimes the better part of valor is being in the right place at the right time, and not being afraid to exercise the openings of Providence. Being within that battle, or any battle for that matter, would undoubtedly give the participants a first hand view of the chaos of decisionmaking.

Within that exact time frame, in those few square miles of the Pacific, the sailors and airmen on both sides of the battle could hardly have imagined the significance of what they were engaging in. Only the Angel in the Whirlwind was there to direct that Storm. And we humans were only able to discern its aftermath far removed from participation in it. How true this is of other wars, the rise of nations, the confirmation of ideologies, and even the reflection on a life well or ill lived!

We Americans especially yearn for immediate information. Instant gratification. Getting the scoop before anybody else. Having the newest technology. Yet how often has the first explanation of an event been completely and utterly wrong? How many bugs must be worked out? Even in the past few months, I can't begin to count how many times a news station has trumpeted some Exclusive! only to retract the initial claims as more information becomes available. What is the obsession with having everything right now? What kind of society do we live in where incorrect, instantaneous information is more highly valued than accurate, somewhat dated information? The facts almost always come out...its just that sometimes they take a little longer to manifest themselves than others.

Yet we insist on making political and personal decisions based on this instant information, before all the facts are in. Before the dust has settled, and the initial chaos has been subdued. Maybe it is our societal arrogance that leads us to trust our first instincts, but I've come to find in my own life that even though initial gut feelings seem "right," they often are not. They change with the introduction of new and amplifying information.

Therefore, one would hope that the maturing process actually leads to increasing thoughtfulness and analysis. That a sense of perspective and understanding based on past experience would lead to wiser decisions and an increase in the correct application of information even though events surrounding us may be chaotic.

Then again, perhaps the truest understanding only comes when we submit to the realization that despite our best efforts, we can't control everything. There will be unanswered questions. There will be unexplained occurrences. And it is in those moments when we press forward, hoping and trusting that that Angel really is there, guiding we who are blind amidst the Whirlwind. Hoping beyond hope that as the clarity of the past becomes evident, we really did make the right decision.

Fragments

2007-03-20T23:42:00.000-07:00

I've been having a real hard time coming up with the right words to say in relation to the things I want to write about. So while I attempt to recage the flow needed for good commentary, I think it would be interesting to look back on some of my unpublished musings. These are in their draft form, and as such "incomplete." With fragmentary paragraphs and uncompleted sentences. But take from them what you will...

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This was the first post I ever started to write, and never finished or published. Dec '05:

One of the more glaring things that has come to my attention over the past weeks is the general ignorance I see between civilians and the military. This ignorance seems to be increasingly pronounced as one travels up the socioeconomic ladder. And at the top lie those influential elites in academia that formulate their opinions on national security from an outdated model of how the military operates.

There was a time when Ivy League schools turned out a similarly proportionate number of commissioned officers as their public counterparts. After Vietnam and the rise of the liberal intelligentsia within these institutions, such a career path was frowned upon, and commissionee's from among our most outstanding undergraduates precipitously fell. This has had unfortunate consequences for both society and the military as a whole.

For while the military officer corps is still considered to be an "elite" calling, if I may so use the term, it hardly compares with a 22 year old being able to graduate from Brown and pull down a 6-figure consulting position. It seems to me that we as a society have lost something quite important when service to our country has become subservient to the materialistic desires of youth. Part of this may be the unintended backlash of the Vietnam generation and their disgust with anything to do with promoting American interests abroad, but the "Me" generation hasnt gotten its name for nothing.

Indeed, a career, or even short stint, in the military is a sacrifice that is unquestionable. Yet, somehow we must reinstill in our societal fabric the moral imperative and inner compulsion to give back to a nation that has given us so much.

Even more so, many of my civilian peers have no conception of what the military does, and more specifically, what I do. For instance, the vast majority of my friends think all naval aviators are fighter pilots, which those of us in the know understand to be grossly inaccurate. And while I am not an overtly arrogant person, it would be nice for my friends to think I actually accomplished something noteworthy in making it to TACAIR training.

Even more important than that, of course, is that as the United States military has become a highly competent, professional, all-volunteer force, the level of understanding among the general population has dwindled. Sure, the American public is overwhelmingly "supportive of the troops," but very few know from firsthand experience what it is like to serve, either from personal experience or a through a relationship with someone who has served. Thus, while I understand that misconceptions and a lack of knowledge is much more understandable under the current structure of the military, I see no reason why we in the armed forces should not be educating our countrymen about what it is we do.

As other commentators have noted,

By the same token, I have found that the officer's corps, especially in aviation, has a distinct anti-intellectual bent. And it may be too institutionalized to be changed, but the thought of further education seems anathema to many of my compatriots. I understand why the Navy wants and needs warfighters, unwilling to give them the time to pursue less rigorous (at least from the perspective of the warfighter) academic pursuits --especially in the social sciences -- but some of our greatest military leaders have been academic giants, and to me the current threats we face from amorphous enemies cry out for experts in the fields of economics, philosophy, psychology and political science. Furthermore, these experts, having been trained in the arts of warfare, and committed to the military as a career would be able to be of great benefit to our efforts both militarily and otherwise.

It seems to me that
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This post was originally entitled "A Tale of Two Worlds." I think I was really wrestling with God at this moment a lot, and trying to figure things out -- still am. Dec 31, 2006.

The past four months have given me the opportunity to struggle with deep-seated truths in a way that I have not been subjected to before. Central to this has been the dichotomy I see in the world we live in, divided as it is into the spiritual and secular realms. This is the first in a series of posts hashing out the thoughts related to this topic that have been churning through my head.

A civil war seems to be raging in my mind and around me. I feel as if an epic battle for my heart is in full swing. As of late, monumental decisions have been difficult for me to make, as I want to straddle both sides of diverging roads. In my past life, I was decisive and certain in making a decision, sticking with it and moving on. Not so presently. The roads not taken and possibilities of alternatives haunt me, pulling me in numerous agonizing directions. Whereas in the past I was certain about my future and the path I was on, all I see now are the greener-pastures of lives others live and the things I dont have.

The logical, rational part of me urges me to remain calm, stay the course, and trust in the Guiding Hand to direct me along as It always has. But an insidious voice keeps scoffing and pointing to those things I dont have or have lost, most of which are the things I desire most for my future. A terror of self-doubt and uncertainly constantly nibbles at me. The voice tells me that I haven't yet attained them as a result of my ineptitude and the resulting abandonment of God. I know this to be patently untrue, but yet it persists. It is these two opposing influences that are warring. At times, I feel like a cloud of something encircles me.

The most prominent of these is, and obviously so, a sense that I have a choice to make about the direction of my life: pursue secular success or spiritual success. As hard as I have tried to reconcile the two, my musings have led me to believe that one almost necessitates the abandoning of the other. The whole "one cannot serve two masters, for either he will love the one and hate the other," etc.

Directly related to this a probabilistic expected value computation that hinges on the reality of a world unseen and the potentially empty promises of a world shouting its purported virtues for all to see. It is as simple as either trusting God or striking out on my own because His timeline doesnt match what I think it should be. For as much as I believe my ambitions and drivenness is ultimately of God, it is a thin line to pursue for it is so easily corrupted by the mechanizations of Satan. I guess my present reality is such that by pursuing, or even dreaming - for my pursuits have often been in vain - of gaining power and prestige, I would be doing so for self-glorification and not to the glory of the Almighty. I am not in a place spiritually where I would be able to successfully face the onslaught of arrogance and pride that would inevitably lead to a ruinous downfall.

This was evident to me yesterday as I finished a John Eldridge book entitled "Waking the Dead" and then moved on to peruse the Northwestern Alumni magazine. For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Eldridge, his most famous work is "Wild at Heart," a mainstay among the Christian men's movement. Both deal with issues of taking back your true, God-given heart and desires while also reinvigorating the Biblical doctrine of an untamed, wild masculinity that is sorely lacking in today's culture (a post for another day). He, of all authors, speaks to me the most in the everyday struggles that I face and the imagery he uses in which to convey his ideas.

And so it was with a sense of calm resolution that I was determined to pursue those passions of my heart that were so instrumental in shaping my quiet determination prior to graduating from college. But in the next instant, I was reading with rising angst about the accomplishments of my peers at NU. It wasn't so much that I was jealous of their accomplishments or accolades, but rather that I wanted to be in a place that enabled me to have an immediate substantive impact on the world around me and garner the respect of my peers. Thus it was back to seeking after the ultimately unfulfilling trappings of the secular world. The pursuit of money that will never be enough, "success" that can never quench a desire for more, and the endless drive for affirmation from a fickle human population that moves on once your 15 minutes is exhausted. It is such an empty pursuit, and yet somehow I feel as if accomplishing something of worldly significance will validate my existence.

In the next moment.

I have always been enamoured with the history of warfare, and perhaps it is because of this that it so easy for me to accept a worldview in which spiritual warfare is a very real, if unseen, phenomenon. And as crazy as it sounds, I attribute much of my erratic emotional behavior to a direct assault from the Enemy.

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This was my first attempt at a posting on Love. I have since written two. Nothing remarkable about this one, but here it is (Jan 9, 2006):

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

Most of us learned these words somewhere along the line in Sunday School. They were presented in a nice, comfortable, feel good way. This amorphous, happy conception of what caring for another person would be like. Because as one of the most inspiring emotions, love conquers all, right? And then the Church stopped talking about it, except at the occasional wedding. Which I find to be quite unfortunate, because our current cultural climate is telling us a completely different story about what it means to love somebody.

American culture, and especially my generation, is one that increasingly expects nearly instant gratification and self-fulfillment. No less in the arena of love. We try to manufacture love to suit our needs of the moment.

I wonder at times if I was born in the wrong century. The way I view the world, my perspective on events, and ultimately how I live my life has always seems out of kilter, a little bit off, from what I see occurring around me. Something seems amiss. I feel like a foreigner traveling through a strange land, trying to assimilate myself, and yet being unable to remove myself from my nature.

In no other arena is this more evident than my perspective on love. I guess on a foundational level I am what you would call an "idealistic romantic." I've never been one to be comfortable with the rules and tricks and games and flirting associated with "successful" dating techniques. It seems so artificial and uninspired. And yet, this is how our generation conducts the finding of a mate.

We go to bars, or church single's groups, or company social events hoping to find "the One." We make lists of things that we "require" in a mate, and if we can't put a check in each box at the end of a
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Well, thats it for now. Maybe more later, but we will see.

Berkeley

2007-03-13T08:21:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege of spending the past weekend with a good high school friend of mine. She is a history PhD candidate at UC Berkeley. We spent Saturday evening having a marvelous conversation that caught us up on the past five years of each others lives, and then made our way to see a performance of the San Francisco Symphony.

It is always a treat to see one of the country's finest orchestra's, and they did not disappoint. At one point in the evening, Megan asked me how many times I had gone to the symphony in the past year, and after thinking about it, realized it had been quite a few. I've managed to see the Atlanta, Chicago, Minnesota and now San Francisco Symphonies. I guess I just need to see Boston, New York and the DC one to have made the rounds complete. This just kind of happened by accident, but kinda neat nonetheless.

The next morning, I awoke to a stunning display of California brilliance. A clear, sunny day with a cool breeze off the ocean and a balmy 75 degrees. After partaking of a quite tasty breakfast of eggs, toast and an apple in Megan's small one-room apartment, I set off to explore the surrounding area. I looked the part of the tourist, albeit California style. Sandals, map, intellectual tome under my arm. I wandered to a nearby park, and observed the activity.

It wasn't much different from your average college campus during the height of spring. Except this was at the beginning of March. Girls sunbathing (some, it appeared, in lingerie), couples cuddling, a group playing croquet. Little kids running around on the playground equipment while their parents amiably chatted nearby. A few homeless people off under the chalet pontificating on some issue of the day. Ultimate frisbee between lounging undergrads.

After reading a few pages in my book (which will come into play later...), I grew restless and decided to make my way towards the Berkeley track. It has become increasingly apparent to me over the past week that I have explored the California countryside that flat road maps -- even those with topographical coloring -- are incredibly deceiving. The walk to the track seemed easy enough...but in typical Bay area fashion, an incredibly steep hill appeared before me. Up I went, sweat beginning to bead along my neck. Halfway up the hill, I looked back, and could see the mountains in the distance, and the shimmering of the Bay over some of the Berkeley houses. This only gave me more motivation to get to the top for the view that waited.

When I finally reached the track, the image before me was spectacular. A panoramic expanse encompassing the hills south of San Francisco on one side to the vistas of Golden Gate national park on the other. The skyscrapers of the city in the center, dwarfed by the landscape surrounding them. The Golden Gate bridge providing a backdrop to innumerable sailboats and other watercraft occupying the deep blue water under a brilliant sunshine. And in front of me, a small ladybug slowly making its way up the winding metal of the chain link fence preventing sightseers from stumbling down the sheer face mere feet away. A peaceful and serene existence. Almost overwhelming to the senses.

As I made my way back, as well as on my initial ascent, I came in touch with the pervasive liberalism that San Francisco and Berkeley are famous for. It wasnt oppressive by any means, but certainly palpable. Stop signs with red and white bumper stickers attached amending the official "Stop" with either "Driving" or "Eating Animals." Many cars having some variation on anti-war and peace themes. I found this more amusing than anything, but tried to determine why such an environment thrived in this particular place.

The answer became increasingly clear as I continued my exploration. This was a place, for the most part, lacking in want. A place where peace and beauty were evidently manifest in the surroundings. In such an environment, how could anybody be angry or come to blows with such serenity in the air?

We as humans have a tendency to project whatever environment we find ourselves in upon the rest of the world, even if we intellectually understand that diversity of surroundings is the truth of our existence. Over the past few weeks, I have felt this in my own psyche. Those environments that invigorate me, namely intellectually curious ones, give me a sense of hope and optimism that I feel must be present in all of humanity. Being in places that are more restrictive in fulfilling my "dreams" gives a sense of foreboding, in which no one must be having fun. In the broader sense, those cultures where strife and hardship are only distant concepts tend to have More idealism in their conceptions than those that are daily beset by the depravity and violence of man.

In a place where infrastructure and ease of living are givens and unquestioned, it makes sense to assume that if only the rest of the world would embrace their ideology, so too could they enjoy the fruits that they have. It seems, however, that this chain of causality is incorrect. Indeed, the ideology seems to be supported by the environment, and not the environment by the ideology.

And this is where the aforementioned book comes in. I began reading Winston Churchill's "The Coming Crisis" -- the first of his six volume masterpiece on World War II. I have recently become enraptured with the underlying causes of that war, and the years preceding it much more than the actual combat which consumed my interests during my more formative years. The contents of his analysis, particularly regarding the pacifism and complete rejection of the truth regarding future German aggression by domestic politicians, provided a stark contrast to the environment my eyes were showing me.

We forget that despite our well-manicured society, there are men and ideologies that have not had the blessings we have had, and as such, have a much different worldview. And while peace and tranquility are certainly objects to be sought after, the realities of the world outside the beauty of Berkeley require policies that may disrupt the idyllic society we aspire to. There remains the necessity to remove ourselves from the beauty that surrounds us in order to protect that bastion of hope from being utterly destroyed.

The unpopularity of the truths of the outside world spell doom for those politicians within those small communities who are willing to unmask the idealism. Even amidst undeniable evidence, the British still refused to increase their air power even when Berlin matched and then surpassed the RAF. America pulled back into her shell to deal with the Great Depression, and the other Allies of World War I did not have the courage or domestic political capital to stop a German menace before it could really become a sledgehammer.

One of the unfortunate political aspects to "action" is that its impact can never truly be measured against another option. Only well after the fact can a strong case be made that "something should have been done to prevent this atrocity." Yet, had that action been taken when it could have prevented a potential disaster, the degree of the disaster would never have been known. Often pre-emptive action requires a decision maker to potentially wreck his reputation. Even the current instance of Iraq shows this to be the case. It has gone wrong in innumerable areas...yet, had Saddam Hussein obtained nuclear weapons 15 years down the road and somehow detonated them in a populated American city, books would have been written about the stupidity of the Bush administration in not invading when they had the chance. This may well never have occurred, but I think you can see my point. Which may imply that in a democracy, only reaction to disastrous events is politically viable. The costs and benefits to preemption are so amorphous that political capital from the electorate's perspective is unnecessarily wasted when it is undertaken. And prescient warnings are drown out by naysayers who can only see to their own borders and next election.

The allure of embracing, and removing, ourselves into such a tranquil location, however, is incredible. Why not merely cling to our ideologies as long as they are reinforced by the small enclave in which we live? We in America have had the luxury throughout our history to be able to retreat to these bastions, and even in the midst of worldwide conflagration, be safe from having these places turned upside down. The rest of the world has not been so lucky. The blind optimism in international relations and finger crossing that assumed Versailles would hold were replaced not five years later by shortages of food, displaced civilians, and unmitigated bombing. War is a reality.

The Iran's, North Korea's, al-Queda's, and Venezuela's of the world will not be less threatening or less militaristic because we believe that peace at all costs will work. A view of the future that seeks tranquility and peace must also contain the pragmatic realism of militarization and the use of force when absolutely necessary. It is an unfortunate truth of the world in which we exist that while superior force does not necessarily lead to war, demilitarization in the face of ambition and brutality will always be exploited.

And so I left the Bay area incredibly perplexed. At the core of my soul, I wanted to believe that one can live free and without obligation in idyllic surroundings. Yet every intellectual impulse and piece of knowledge grated against this desire. The pull of obligations and duty to a profession that will induce discomfort, loneliness, despair and uncertainty versus the enticement of a life where ease of living would lead to ease of mind. Is endurance and hardship really valuable in a society that has moved beyond such paradigms? Does the development of character really matter? Thoughts to further flesh out another day...

Road Trip

2007-03-08T09:54:00.000-08:00

Its pretty funny how one’s hobbies can affect the way they look at the world. When I first started this blog over fifteen months ago, it was in an attempt to alleviate immense heartache and try to make sense of a world that had seemingly spun out of control.

Prior to that winter, I was privately retrospective, and never to more than one person. My musings were my own. But something psychologically changed, and the written word has become my means of communication to the outside world. Never a loquacious person, I had finally found my way to translate the musings rattling around in my head.

But interestingly, as the months have progressed, so too has the way I think about things. Instead of merely mindlessly analyzing them and subconsciously storing the conclusions for some heretofore unknown future, I now think of everything in terms of “how would I blog this?”

This may come as a surprise to many, as the frequency of my updates belie the fact that at least three or four times a day, I meander into extended monologues, in the shape of potential blogs, about a myriad of topics. Even when thinking about my relationships – good, bad and complicated – I analyze them as if I were writing to my reading audience. What the introduction would be. What pithy aphorism I would conclude with. How I would explain the mix of emotions that are usually impossible to fully convey.

And thus, this was the mindset with which I set across the country on the most remarkable of roadtrips. The Navy had given me six days in which to leave a place which I literally cannot come to name for the utter revulsion it holds in my mind for my new duty station here in Lemoore, CA. To digress somewhat sardonically, I felt myself growing increasingly merrier as the miles mounted between myself and the aforementioned place. And while there are immeasurably deep friendships that will happily be with me the rest of my life, they seem distinctly removed from the contempt I feel towards…

Anyway, my first day brought me into Houston to stay overnight with the parents of a former girlfriend. To be honest, it was incredibly surreal to be staying at a place that held so many intense memories, and to hardly have felt as if any time had passed since my last visit to them 16 months prior. Nearly everything as I had seen it last. In the same bedroom I always used to stay. Her father and I have always gotten along quite famously, and I think it is fair to say mutually and greatly enjoy our sailing outings. Very strange how every change of duty station I have ever had happens to go right through their house. I had forgotten how beautiful Houston is. The green trees, impeccably manicured grass, the fresh smell of flowers. Driving through horse farms in their idyllic landscapes, thinking, “I could really settle down here and be a happy man.” A thought that would repeat itself quite frequently over the next few days.

After we finished sailing and my hosts graciously took me to a great lunch, I trekked on to my cousin’s house in San Antonio. A mere three hour jaunt. When I arrived, Liz, mother of three and graduate of the Cordon Bleu Culinary School, had two racks of lambs waiting to be cooked. Absolutely marvelous. Following the fine dinner, we (Liz, her kids, and I) crowded around the floor to play our family favorite – Spoons. Chaos ensues. Crying, laughing, pouting, deception, frustration, all of it wonderful. The kids wrestling with their 8 month old black lab, wrestling with each other. Unadulterated joy in those unscripted and messy moments. It was then that a pang of sorrow swept through me, as I realized the wait I had until such moments would fully occupy my time. When a family of my own would be boisterously under my care. Trying with varying degrees of success to make houses of playing cards as we did that night after Spoons had ended. This is a great job, but incredibly lonely. I’m not sure one can fully appreciate the loneliness of being in a profession where every red-blooded male in America envy’s you, yet the only companionship one has is to Duty and Country. All well in the academic sense, but the head can only cover for the heart for so long.

I woke up the next morning for the longest portion of my trip. A twelve hour trek through the heart of Texas and on into Arizona. I can see how traveling through I-10 in West Texas can become mind-numbing, but as it was the first time I had done it, I found it hauntingly beautiful. Something enticing about the desolation. Yet deadly too. I happened to be listening to Bizet’s Carmen while traversing the desert, and couldn’t help but think that hundreds of years ago, as that paragon of culture was being performed in the magnificence of the Paris Opera House, there were men exploring the depths of Texas. Lacking water in withering heat. What juxtapositions humanity presents itself with on an ongoing basis. The diversity of pursuits and interests. How insignificant the desert makes you feel – that despite our advancements as a species, we are still flesh and blood, subject to the dictates of harsh and uncompromising environments.

I stopped in a town that had been marked on the road signs hundreds of miles out. Fort Stockton, Texas I think. I was shocked. This was a small shanty town, a few restaurants here and there. Truly West Texas. I remember the local family walking into the Pizza Hut I was eating at. Cowboy hats, tight leather boots, grim expressions on their face. Fascinating.

As I passed near and through El Paso, I began to call my family and friends. El Paso was a lot larger than I thought. A friend up in Boston asked me how far away I was. “Well,” I said, “Texas is 880 miles across…and you’re in the Northeast!” Giggles ensue. Girls are funny. Anyway, good conversations.

That evening, as I neared Tucson, my destination for the evening, I experienced the most breathtaking sunset I have ever had the privilege of seeing. I was going through the Eastern mountains of Arizona, and suddenly there were rays of red bouncing off the faces of every rock around me. I tried to take pictures, but they hardly do the scene justice. Expansive beauty. One of those events that you really really want someone to be there to see with you – if only to convince you it really occurred. Also, because spectacular surprises are best when shared. But regardless, the scene and excitement I felt will forever be etched in my memory.

I spent that evening at the home of a close mentor and his wife who was himself a Navy Hornet pilot. They live at the base of the Cascades. I now understand why people are flocking in droves to Arizona. Lots to talk about – life in the fleet, careers in the Navy, politics, opportunities in the future. Hearing stories of their 8 years living in downtown DC above the Shakespeare Theater, going to lectures at the Smithsonian, and meeting the most interesting of people. How does a shy boy from the Midwest end up with friends and acquaintances that have had experiences like these? Is this really my life?

Almost to Lemoore. Through Phoenix for lunch with my Great Aunt who is vacationing down there with her neighbors. Then onto LA. As I make my time calculations, I realize I’m going to hit the outskirts in the midst of rush hour. Wonderful.

But before that, I cross from Arizona into California. After about half an hour, I almost run myself off the road three or four times. I just cant help but look at the mountains, and hot air balloons, and wind farms. I thought Arizona was beautiful. There is greenery amidst the heights. Little towns tucked in the valleys. Little, of course, being absolutely relative. Four lane highways in the middle of the state. This isn’t Mississippi anymore.

Fortunately, aside from a bit of stop and go traffic, I get through into LA relatively unscathed. Except that 60 miles from the center of the city, there are cars everywhere. All going 80. On four lanes of traffic on both sides of the highway. I’ve never seen something like this. Off in the distance is downtown LA…way off in the distance. Seemingly little towers in a sea of urbanity. Like a scene from a science fiction movie where the Earth is covered in housing. Amazing.

But it gets better. The guy I’m staying with just found out he has been invited to a posh fundraiser for Edwards in a Beverly Hills mansion. So that night we go. Travel past the Beverly Hills Hotel, up the mountain to a home that overlooks a good deal of the city below. Enormous. The cars along the driveway, a veritable mass of luxury and expense. John Edwards is 25 feet away. And I’m dying because after every part of his stump speech I want to tell him why he is utterly and completely wrong. But, I do have some manners…ha. I refrain from asking anything that may turn the decidedly liberal crowd quickly against me. I politely listen and enjoy the ambiance. And the hypocritical opulence around me as the candidate talks about sacrificial energy reductions and tackling poverty. No doubt all candidates, right and left, say the same things in Hollywood, but still. Especially when I think back to Fort Stockton. Two Americas indeed…and I guess we know which one John Edwards belongs to. What a surreal, indeed quite fun all in all, near end to my travels. Jordan and I have a great conversation that night. I once again realize that joining a fraternity was the best decision I ever made.

I arrived in Lemoore on Tuesday afternoon. We ain’t in Kansas anymore Toto. This is the big leagues. Grey jets, no more trainers. The Rough Riders, Gunslingers, Blue Diamonds, Black Aces, Black Knights…this is for real. Guys walking around with Naval Fighter Weapon School (TOPGUN) patches. State of the art facilities. A jet doing a solo airshow off to my left as I drive onto the flight line. I didn’t even know a jet could do that – it just flipped around in mid air! Mouth agape. Wow. Somebody pinch me.

Love (pt. 2)

2007-02-27T20:09:00.000-08:00

Well, this sequel is long in coming. I believe the first iteration occurred sometime back in May '06. I first intended to write a mock letter in the way John Adams would have written to his beloved Abigail. But such an attempt would undoubtedly have failed, as without a true object of affection written towards, genuine heartfelt prose would be replace by a forced, contrived one. Oh how I long to put pen to paper once again and compose something imbued in warm affection and unreserved prose proclaiming an undying devotion to a Princess of unparalleled magnificence. But such letters remain only a dream. Plus, as romantic as "Dearest Friend," Portia and Lysander are, they are best left to their original creators. That, indeed, is what gives those letters their magnificence -- from a different time and place, but with a transcendency that touches the most tender parts of any feeling beings soul.

Then yesterday I began to muse about two schools of thought related about love first contrived after I read a retrospective of the economist Milton Friedman's life written by his mentee Ben Stein. Just so readers aren't completely confused about the connection, Stein related how Friedman consoled him after the loss of a college love by referencing statistical analysis. Namely, that strictly speaking, if there was only one man for every woman, the exact pairs would never find each other. Dubious reasoning when the elements of Providence and the uncanny ability for humanity to randomly run across people are considered, but a commentary best saved for philosophers ruminating under a more sober title than "Love." Logic may be useful in discerning whether the One exists or there are a myriad of suitable mates for everyone, but at best it speaks to the head, and not the heart.

Which only proves that if someone is going to write about love, academic and intellectual thought processes must be thrown out the window. Which is pretty much why an exchange I had this evening was so perfect:

A******1: BOYS ARE SO DUMB
ben4prez: GIRLS ARE SO DUMB

Both comments were said in relative seriousness/frustration, conveyed to the sex being conversed with about their respective genders in general. This from two well educated, academically inclined people. Who now sound like fourth graders. Now, without going into too many details, as this is a public forum, clearly this is the best detente that the genders over our thousands of years of existence have been able to come to. Both she and I just happened to be dealing with the vast unknown world of the uneasy communication with former intense flames, attempting to maintain our own sanity while also wondering...what if? and then trying to see beyond that relationship to a horizon free of such an encumbrance. Or at least keeping our emotional options open.

And at its core is miscommunication, deception, perception and facades. Thus while both sexes remain utterly and hopelessly incomprehensible to the other, our common ground rests in the bewildering games we each play -- and the heartache we give and experience because of them. Sometimes playing them while we ourselves have absolutely no idea how things will play out. Then coming to the conclusion well after the fact that our intended results were far from the actual results, and not only that, but we ourselves havent truly moved beyond where we started either. Because much like in chess and war, the best laid strategies fall apart in the face of unexpected moves and reactions from an opponent who thinks much differently than you.

Thus, when the initial gambit is made by one person or the other, a cautious tendril is put forth to test the waters. Not the best way to facilitate reconciliation (of course, best implies there are other alternatives...i cant think of any other), even if just in the name of friendship, for a relationship that was once a whirlwind of unreserved emotional fervency and immeasurable happiness. Logic slowly seeps into the uninhibited and pure naivety that met the two future lovers at their initial rendezvous. And logic leads to hard questions, challenges, suspicion and calculation. A friendship built on calculation and self-imposed guidelines...one doomed from the very beginning. A trust once so effortlessly built up and maintained, shattered in an instant with the only possibility of reconstruction occurring over time and with great effort. Perhaps well worth it, but painstaking in relation to the ease with which it once came.

Because as cynical and hardened as we all can potentially become after a distressing breakup, deep down it seems like we want to regain that lost idealism about love. We fear that the brokenness of the world has unsurprisingly manifested itself into even the most sacred of emotions, yet we want to hold onto the naivety we experienced when we had our first kiss without thought to consequence or the future. To merely live in the moment with that special someone and be content, not caring for one instant what else is occurring in the world as long as she is there next to you feeling the same thing. To be unfazed by the past and optimistic about the future. To experience that innocence that so happily manifested itself in us when we first actually realized we were in love, and loved equally so back.

Why the fear about being ourselves and letting our true emotions be known? Why put up facades of resolution and "strength" while just below the surface is a storm of sorrow longing to burst forth at a distressing loss? Sometimes relationships dont work, and it is best for the parties to be forever split. Sometimes romance devolves into a true friendship completely removed from romantic attraction. But sometimes a romance once uninhibited is dually closeted, and true feelings become stubbornly encased in a lockbox out of sight from the world. And it never works, because you cannot live life, I mean really live it, by pretending to be someone you arent. By pursuing something that seemed fulfilling only to find months, or even years later, that the heart never really healed an a deep seated longing for something long repressed remains.

Can we as men and you as women not agree to just be honest? A transparency of intentions, an airing of genuine uncertainty. A desire to truly want what is best for the other, even if it means subjugating our own being and being vulnerable. I'm sure we would all be surprised at the frequency of compassion and empathy that would emanate from what we were once sure would be a brick wall. We shouldnt have to ask ourselves what intentions are truly behind a seemingly innocent reconnection email, and tailor our responses to hedge our bets -- leaving the door open while protecting our hearts.

The world we live in is not one in which a man will (normally) just show up on your doorstep, whisk you into his arms and gaze longingly into your eyes as he passionately kisses you. This probably should happen (watch out ladies!) for the sake of romanticization, but boy if it isnt gutsy. It is more likely that complications will arise, and the "Happily Ever After" you always wanted will have to flex. It is telling that the most remarkable recorded exchange between Lovers (the aforementioned Adams') occurred only because the two Friends were separated for much of their married life requiring some outlet of affection in the midst of unrelenting loneliness and sorrow from their mutual absences. Absence may make the heart grow fonder, and solidify love on paper, but boy is it hell in person. Even so, it is the adversity and ensuing perseverance that makes it that much more heavenly once Providence has allowed an extended reconciliation.

All this is to say that the genders have much more in common than we commonly believe -- at least when it comes to relational problems and dealing with them. We tend to project the actions of an individual with their associated sex, when in most cases, it is actually a characteristic of humanity in general. This isnt to say there aren't proclivities uniquely inherent to either men or women, only that upon hearing the same complains from both men and women regarding the other, it hardly seems fair to write off an entire gender.

That being said, a woman at our Bible study said to me this evening, "Don't bother to ever understand women....you never will." Of course, she is absolutely right, and I've happily resigned (are those two words allowed to modify each other?) myself to that conclusion. Its just that my idealism gets the best of me sometimes, and I think that for an instant I will be granted a divine wisdom able to penetrate the blessed fog that most likely exists for our own protection...

Leadership (pt. 3)

2007-02-21T20:19:00.000-08:00

I believe that a general theory of American political leadership should be the starting point for an analysis of any candidate who runs for elected office. I have a "work in progress" theory of both government and its participants that informs my general political ideology and perception of our elected leaders.

Far from there being a general ideological litmus test that determines which people are better suited for our republican (small "r") government than others, it rests on how they view their place in the edifice of governance. Not surprisingly, the more expansive their view of our society, and thus the smaller their own role, the more aligned philosophically they are to me.

Self-aggrandizement seems to be the clarion call of our elected officials, most auspiciously at the national level. The height of ambition is the Presidency and selfish arrogance seems to be at the root of many Senator's personalities. This isn't to say that all President's are haughtily arrogant, merely that the pursuit of the position is for the wrong reason in many instances. Instead of the Union and its constituency being something elected officials can humbly serve, a false humility pervades their rhetoric that instead intends to promote their own individual elevation.

A passionate interest in politics is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it leads to being well informed and well suited towards pursuing leadership at the highest levels. But it also leads to an elitism and skewed perception of society. A political junkie assumes that because he is so enthralled by the latest in policy and wonkish gossip, so too are the rest of his society. Thus when he discovers that he is in fact part of a very well informed minority, elitism and paternalism for the lesser informed sets in. Thus the "game" becomes his life, like a drug. He can't imagine anyone living without the constant flow of information and analysis and opinion. Yet he sees people plodding happily along without a care in the world. They then become the self appointed saviors of society, charged with ensuring that their superior knowledge perpetuates the society.

This warped view of self ultimately convinces them of their own indispensability, even under the weight of the inevitable historical paradigm that society endures after the death of everybody. Not once has the whole of humanity ceased to exist or advance after a mere man returned to the dust from whence he came. Even the death of revered American Patriots hardly slowed the advance of our nation.

Under our Constitutional system, the only perpetual (up to this point in history) link from generation to generation is the Constitution itself. It alone provides the framework that enables an ever changing country both demographically and ideologically to endure through both prosperity and despair.

And that, ultimately, is what the Constitution is. A framework and foundation for a society. It is not the be all and end all of our society, but merely the stable edifice upon which it sturdily built. As such, those people chosen to serve as public officials are merely the maintainers of that framework, nothing more. Those maintainers are temporary at best, and cycled through on a regular basis. Even the most influential eventually step down, and the philosophical momentum of our system ensures that government remains solvent.

The true essence of America is the 99 percent of Americans whose daily lives rarely bring them in direct contact with those who govern over them. Our essence is contained in the baker who makes the cakes for weddings. The barber who listens to endless complaints from a customer of 20 years. The engineer who designs a bridge to facilitate interstate commerce and a better commute. The chemist attempting to make high-blood pressure less taxing. The teacher who imparts knowledge to the next generation. And the mother and father who provide the support structure for the all important family. This is what makes and has made our country successful. The rhetoric of political leaders may inspire us, but the blood and sweat of inspiration is of the men and women who then carried the burden, of their own free volition, to make that inspiration a reality. The honor and privilege we often bestow upon our leaders is utter nonsense outside the context of the average people who make this country truly run.

A single man or woman does not this country make. Nor does a party or political persuasion. No politician who tells you they are the solution to our nation's ills is telling the truth. Such arrogance, and worse --actual sincerity -- is the height of folly, and sure to precede a catastrophic downfall. Empires have universally crumbled when focused around one man or a group of men. Only a society structured on principles beyond the scope of mortal humanity can endure.

Thus, public service is truly that. It is service to ensure that our country's perpetuation is made possible through a vigilance of the skeletal structure, and not building the edifice itself. Enabling the man on the corner to go about his daily business implicitly trusting that those he himself has chosen as the Guardians of Society will not be overly obnoxious. And as anyone can attest to from own personal experience, those people who are the quietest about their deeds and most shunning of attention are the best servants. Government officials should be the one's making sure the pipes, metaphorically, don't leak -- not building the roof and repeatedly tearing it off with the whim of the hour.

It has been said that the government that governs least governs best. But in my mind, the government that governs quietest governs best. The empty bluster and calls for reform where none is needed hardly are for the benefit of society as a whole, and instead only seek to puff up the rhetorician. They draw away attention away from where it truly belongs -- on the people themselves. Government should be ready to react when needed. They should be ready to pounce to solve big problems and serve as an intermediary until a robust society inevitably takes care of itself. But its efforts should not have names attached. There should not be a McCain plan, or Obama plan, but rather an American plan.

The candidate who realizes that he alone cannot solve the nations problems, and must work in concert with not only his fellow representatives but the people he came to serve will have my vote. The candidate that understands the fallibility of man, the price of conceit, and the necessity of Truths beyond human manipulation will be well suited to serve as required. Because that is ultimately what our Constitution and Declaration of Independence proclaim: agreements among mortals that there are immutable universal Laws that govern the dictates of man. As such, no one can be above them, and can only work to ensure their recognition and application. From this understanding of their true place in the world will come humility, and perhaps a reasonable chance at working towards policies where getting the credit really isn't all that important, as long as the American people as a whole are better able to live their lives under freedom and liberty.

This does not and should not preclude inspiration and visions of a grander society. Leaders are required to give their constituents goals and aspirations they would otherwise not have envisioned themselves. Rallying for unification in the face of attack, literally shooting for the Moon, or focusing effort on those who cannot speak for themselves is to be commended and encouraged. But it should be done in a manner that motivates the heart and soul of a society, not just its mind. It should be in such a fashion that the speaker is less than the idea, such that when history looks back upon the venture, they speak of the accomplishment and not the man who inspired it.

Such a conception likely grates on the ego's of our nations "best." Those with the education and intelligence necessary to ensure the effective maintenance of such a precious thing as our Constitutional system. Paradoxically though, their very skills necessitate a concerted effort towards humility, lest their talents lead them down a path that corrupts and gives them more esteem than their fellow non-government citizens. It is in those able to conquer this paradox that the best and most enduring leadership of our nation will be found.

Partisanship

2007-02-19T22:21:00.000-08:00

"The more things change, the more they stay the same." This phrase repeatedly resonated through my mind as I read and finished David McCullough's "John Adams."

From our own myopic historical perspective, we as humans, particularly Americans, have a tendency to look back at the past with a generally idyllic outlook. We talk of Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Hamilton as if they all had the same vision, and their unified action created our "more perfect union." And compared to our rancorous political landscape today, we can't help but bemoan how terrible the state of affairs in our country have become. How "divided" we as a nation are; right v. left, blue states against red states, religious zealots v. secular atheists.

But the truth of the matter is that things in our country have always been contentious. Despite the warnings of our generally revered first President, factionalization was the modus operandi of our political system before he was even out of office. Lies, slander and innuendo were part of the game.

It was somewhat shocking to read and be reminded of the cane beating one Congressman gave to another on the floor of the House in the late eighteenth century. How President Adam's cabinet conspired against him to install a more palatable alternative. How, in the words of Abigail Adams, Hamilton became a modern day "Cassius." The duel between Vice President Aaron Burr and the just mentioned former Secretary of the Treasury. The vileness of the election of 1800 between two former best friends. Rumors of infedility, hidden out-of-wedlock children, and irreligious tendencies. Rebellions, threats of succession. Far from civil, our Founding Fathers were even more bitterly divided than Washington's elite today.

The more I read of older literature and essays, the more it occurs to me how like us they were. I picked up a book called "The Oxford Book of Essays" last month, and in perusing some of the greatest English writing philosophers since the fifteenth century, it is astounding to realize how much their thoughts could have been written today.

Not just about politics, but about life. Lost love, theological conundrums, the rights of man, dealing with parents, mourning the loss of loved ones. Whether they composed by quill, pen, typewriter or computer, the words echo the same themes. The same questions -- the same conclusions.

We as a species proclaim "progress," but most of it is merely of the visible type. Sure, we get around now flying fancy airplanes in leather seats as opposed to a carriage-and-four, but how far have we really come societally? Death still has us confounded. We can see into the depths of the universe, but the hilarious "10 Rules for a Happy Marriage" written 300 years ago still elicit deep chuckles because understanding relations between the sexes has made absolutely no progress.

It's rather funny to consider that in our youth, myself included, we look to our elders often with disdain, just as they did to their elders before them. What do they know? How could they possibly grasp the changing technological environment when they are so stuck in their ways? Yet we fail to realize that they dealt with the exact same emotional issues! Sitting by a dying, cancer-riddled relative. Having a heart broken and silently, desperately weeping while putting on a happy face for the world around you. Wondering if God really meant what He said He meant.

It is telling that at the end of their political careers, the shattered friendship of Jefferson and Adams was once again reconciled. The backstabbing and undermining that had gone on while each was President somehow seemed...so petty. After over a decade of cordial hatred, a simple letter elicited one of the most remarkable ongoing exchanges of American history. Common ground was discovered where none had been thought possible, and philosophical rifts riven deeper, but only academically so.

People wonder why President Bush (41) and President Clinton have become such good friends. They can't agree on anything! the saying goes. But perhaps in their partisanship, and shared beating they each inevitably took while leading an unpredictable Superpower, the worries of Party became less important. Their common goal was the perpetuation of the Union, and aside from any other considerations, reasonable men could differ if they both believed in an ideology of freedom.

While visiting a close friend this weekend, I had the opportunity to attend some of his law school classes. Now, for most people voluntarily attending a class of any type after college would be self-inflicted punishment, and hence I recognize my...uniqueness. But I thoroughly enjoyed them, and it left me yearning for more.

Anyway, I was sitting in an introductory Constitutional Law class taught by a young woman who was one of Justice Scalia's law clerks a few years ago. We were analyzing the 14th Amendment and what role, if any, the Congress has in determining the Constitutionality of given statutes. In the middle of her quite engaging lecture it hit me -- I realized what an incredibly robust and amazing system of government we have.

Now I find it more than coincidence that I should be personally reading about the formation of our system of government through the "voice" of the Constitution (John Adams) and then be dropped into the midst of a Separation of Powers issue. But regardless, all of our partisanship, disagreement, and dare I say hatred, is safely contained within this relatively short document written nearly 250 years ago, with only about 18 changes made since its development.

Despite all the change and historical turmoil, the rise and fall of world empires, the creation and destruction of American political parties, this document remains very nearly the same as when it was first written. We may argue about its interpretation and debate whether it is "living" or "static," but there it still sits, providing the framework for the most remarkable government ever known to man.

From the crucible of diverse and nearly irreconcilable ideologies emerged a document that still resonates with a population generations removed from its writers. Based in part on a document written nearly seven centuries earlier. Oh how different the world looks, yet the same self-evident truths remain.

And it all boils down to what we as a country, beyond the conventions and bickering, stand for. Freedom and liberty. After all is said and done, I guess that's where the partisanship ends. Thats where enemies like Adams and Jefferson can spend the last two decades of their life in devoted friendship. And how a nation beset with internal argument and disgust persists throughout the ravages of time. Remarkable.

Leadership (Pt. 2)

2007-02-16T11:50:00.000-08:00

Outstanding article. I miss the imperfection of reality. I'll leave it at that.

Leadership

2007-02-08T12:24:00.000-08:00

I was listening to All Things Considered on my way home from base last evening, and a segment on Rudy Giuliani's impending Presidential candidacy came on. At one point, the commentator played a clip from a writer for The Village Voice who has written two books criticizing his tenure as mayor of Gotham.

The writer mentioned that just prior to September 11, Giuliani's political fortunes were nearly sunk. He was faced with low and dwindling approval ratings, fatigue with his effective, but grating, tough-guy leadership and was going through a messy and very public divorce. He had dropped out of the US Senate race the year prior under a cloud of doubt. Then tragedy struck the city, and within a day, he was America's Golden Child.

He could do no wrong, and rallied New Yorkers, and indeed, all Americans in a remarkable display of determination and focus. He was in the trenches with the rescue workers and consoling grieving families. In the span of a few hours, his political troubles vanished. Given this exemplary performance, it is no wonder that he leads all potential Republican Presidential nominee's in the early polls.

This lead is sure to collapse as the conservative base that crowns GOP nominees comes to learn more about his liberal social record and somewhat sordid personal life, but when it comes to picking a President, I wonder if inspiration is (or should be) more important than fulfilling check boxes of requirements. I wonder if there isnt some bit of attraction to a candidate with a bit of muck surrounding him, but when crunch time came was able to buck up and be a man.

It seems that in recent years, the most success in Presidential politics has come not from those men who have the perfect resume and are free of any political skeletons. President Clinton had his womanizing accusations, Bush 41 had Iran-contra hanging over his head and snipes about his ambition, Reagan was a converted California liberal on his second wife.

Looking at the polls today, it is telling that Giuliani and McCain far outpace Romney in the GOP race. Romney has the perfect resume. MBA and JD from Harvard with honors, successful GOP governor of an extremely liberal Massachusetts. Rescued the Salt Lake Olympics from corruption and overbudgeting. Successful businessman and multi-millionaire many times over. Married to the same woman since his early twenties with a flock of beautiful children. Engaging speaker, devoted family man, chiseled figure. Picture perfect. Almost too perfect. As if his entire existence's purpose was to be President. The man most Americans want to be, but aren't.

Contrast this with the hell-raising, anger-prone McCain. Finished near the bottom of his Naval Academy class, boozed his way around aviation until he became a POW, was divorced upon returning from Vietnam. Overshadowed by two outspoken and influential Navy Admirals who happened to be his Father and Grandfather. Then found his place in Arizona taking up the torch of Barry Goldwater, bucking his party from time to time and being labeled a Maverick. Marrying a woman at least 15 years his junior and indicted in the Keating Five scandal. Got battered and bruised by the GW Bush machine in 2000, only to become a leading figure in the Senate on matters related to foreign and military affairs. He has bitter enemies and loyal friends.

We've already briefly hashed out Giuliani's resume. All three get or got things done. But the latter two have been on the ground and found their way back to the top. They have battled, and endured, and taken advantage of changing winds to genuinely speak to the hearts of the constituents they have been selected to lead. Romney just doesn't have that, from what I can tell. Where was his breakdown and recovery? What seemingly insurmountable odds has he overcome? He may still get my vote, but he almost seems...too manufactured.

It's early, nearly a year and a half away, and I will be the first to say that Chaos theory is best applied to Presidential elections. But it seems that there is some resonance with the voting public of the ability to overcome adversity. Even if the person overcoming it happens to be arrogant, ambitious and pompous. Because the average American has faced failure and heartbreak more often than they would care to admit. They can empathize with a recovering alcoholic or a man who's wife happens to invite fortune tellers into the Oval Office. It is messy and imperfect, but so are the voter's lives. Seeing inspiration from a sordid past may, somehow, resonate with a population craving for hope.

Because the thing is, for as morally important as the issues of abortion and homosexuality are, it is unlikely that more than a few days of legislative wrangling will occur on either topic for the span of the next Presidency. And perhaps support for those practices is a proxy for other leadership traits that are undesirable in a conservative candidate. But the issues our country will face are the ones that are not currently at the forefront of public debate.

How to respond to North Korea? Is a nuclear Iran acceptable? To what extent should we open our borders? What is the best way to respond to unanticipated energy price spikes? The things that affect the daily lives of Americans.

True leadership is that displayed then there are no answers and soundbites are only rhetoric. When an entire culture stands around in shock at something unexplainably horrific, and a single person stands up and says "this is what needs to be done. Follow me, I have a plan." The plan doesnt even have to be right, as I've learned in basic aerial dogfighting: " A bad plan well executed is better than a good plan poorly executed." A view of the bigger picture with the ability to adapt based on a lifetime of trial, error and lessons learned. A vision for the future, that while it may not come to fruition, is viable given the experiences endured by the man laying forth its tenants.

These are the things we should be looking for in our leaders. That dirt and muck speaks to experience, some of it ill-gained, but always imparting a lesson. Look for those men who have been in the depths and hit rock bottom. Who have failed and failed, but then finally figure it out. Who inspire a cold and hungry militia from Valley Forge. Who hold together a nation as it tears itself apart over slavery. Who speaks to the hearts of his constituents as poverty and hopelessness sweep an entire nation. Far beyond the single issues that lock us into a dogmatic pursuit of ideological perfection, the ability to substantially inspire should be sought above all else. But I guess the only times when those men reveal themselves are well after the time of decision has passed.

Prizes

2007-02-01T16:53:00.000-08:00

One of the hallmarks of modern economic research has been in the arena of incentives. What makes people do things? How are they motivated? Unsurprisingly, one of the most effective incentives is in the form of cold, hard, cash.

Ever since I heard of the X-prize -- a $10 million prize given to the first individual or group to successfully build and launch a man and the equivalent of 400kg of baggage 60 miles into the atmosphere twice within a two week period -- it has been remarkable to me that more such incentives havent been offered.

Prizes have been awarded in the past for developing consistent, shipboard navigational systems in the 1700s -- and won by a clockmaker. Charles Lindberg flew across the Atlantic to win a monetary prize. Mathematicians spend countless hours attempting to prove obscure, but remarkable, theories in the pursuit of the prestige gained by winning the prizes associated with each theory.

Especially in the economy we currently have, where innovation drives nearly all profit, it would seem plausible that the government would be the first in line to take advantage of such an opportunity.

Take space travel. Estimates for a government sponsored Mars mission range from between $10 billion to $100 billion. But what if instead of pouring in endless monies to the bottomless bureaucracy known as NASA and the International Space Station, the government offered a $1 billion prize to the first private company to build, launch and land a manned mission to Mars? The expiration date could be set 50 years in the future, and the prize indexed to inflation.

While the technology may not yet be available to complete such a task, the resulting innovation in its pursuit would be remarkable. While only one team ultimately won the X-prize, many more tried their best and came up with some pretty revolutionary and inexpensive models. Some are even contemplating going into the space tourism industry against Richard Branson's winning SpaceShipOne entry.

Its like the American Idol effect. While only one person wins every year, usually the top four or five get record deals. These are talents that would otherwise not have been recognized by the record labels for whatever reason. But now they are -- all in the pursuit of a prize.

The New York Times ran an article today about the recent efforts of NetFlix to develop a new predictive analysis tool for recommending movies to their viewers. At first they failed to develop it in house, but once they offered a prize of $1 million with specific requirements, hundreds of ideas began flowing in. Only one will win, but the software developed by individually motivated actors will likely spur on innovations not before imagined.

The federal government could streamline its federal budget by unleashing the creative talents of millions of Americans. What if instead of pouring out tens of billions of dollars in failed bureaucratic attempts to "fix" education, the federal government offered up a $100 million prize to the group that creates a school system readily adaptable to preparing our youth for the onslaught of globalization? They would still expend money to try their methods of red tape, but once someone created a system to eliminate the need for endless funding -- hopefully in the form of more effective funding -- they would pay out the prize and save billions in the long run.

What if instead of a $1 trillion drug entitlement program, we offered $10 billion to the first pharmaceutical company to create a new way of developing cheap drugs? Let them fight, and innovate, all on their own dime. And it may never be achieved. But tinkering and failure often lead to the most unanticipated results.

The Times article mentions the potential role of prizes in developing alternative fuels. It is no surprise that for all the billions expended in ethanol subsidies and Hydrogen cars, nothing has been created. The incentive to think outside the box isnt there. But if the government said, we will pay $1 billion for the first company to develop a viable renewable energy source, I guarantee that the floodgates of ideas would be opened. Some wouldnt pan out. Others would. And some would lead to solutions to problems that have nothing to do with energy Independence.

This isnt to say the government should cut off funding for status quo grants, and focus only on prizes. But it is to say that with both in combination, once the prize is awarded, it may eliminate the need for those endless, oftentimes fruitless grants.

The beauty inherent in prizes is that they do not micromanage a process. They give requirements, but the paths to that end is not preconceived. The money isnt paid unless there is success. The willingness of people to pursue something that is a passion to them in the hope of a one-in-a-million discovery would surprise most bureaucrats. Which is ironic, considering how many people try to win the lottery every day. We are in a singular position with the technology around us to solve seemingly insurmountable problems. Given the chance, unleashed ingenuity is one of the most unpredictable and powerful elements of humanity.

And ultimately, winning the money associated with the prize is far from the final goal of the innovator. SpaceShipOne cost upwards of $20 million to develop for the $10 million prize it received. Along with the cash, it received endless press, a stake in future commercial space travel, and celebrity status among technologists. It has spawned new excitement in discovering outer space, and companies are looking to develop better versions of their creation.

It is costless to have hundreds, even thousands, of government sponsored prizes. If every dollar of Congressional pork-laden earmarks were devoted to such a scheme, the efficiency of government would be astronomical. Again, unless the technology is developed, no prize is given out. And if the technology is developed, it is likely that its development is worth far more than the prize-foundations expenditure anyway.

It would likely disrupt established bureaucracies and insider deals. But the key to ending corruption is to open a system to the light of day -- and no greater light exists than the collective free will of a group of people in pursuit of prestige and a cash prize. I mean honestly, look at the ridiculous lengths people go to to get on game shows. Lets just take advantage of those selfish impulses and translate them into something beneficial for all mankind!

Time

2007-01-30T18:50:00.000-08:00

Without being too overdramatic, there comes a point in the pursuit of a goal when all logic is thrown out the window and the investment already committed is sufficient to propel the pursuit. Time ceases to mean anything, as one day melds into the next. You've committed to it, and you refuse to give up.

One of the most common things I hear from my friends and family is that they are constantly busy. Barely able to move from one activity to the next without being exhausted or stressed out by the next event. How I wish I could experience that.

When we are kids, we complain about being bored. A refrain that must annoy parents to no end. At that age, one hour of non-activity leads to impatience and getting quite antsy. As with everything in life, things seem much more significant than they actually are. If I knew then what I knew now, I would be counting my blessings.

Over the past two and a half years, I have experienced something akin to depraved boredom. An indescribable boredom that is surprising in its intensity. And despair inducing. To think that men have gone to war and back and gone again and returned. Yet here I sit.

The numbers and a relation of a given day can hardly tell an accurate story. Its like trying to explain a deep, impassioned first love...unless you've experienced it, you cannot fully understand it. And yet the attempt to describe it may provide some outlet for the well up of something that cant be otherwise gotten rid of.

I was a busy-body throughout high school and college. This relative norm for which I became happily adapted was painfully shocked as soon as I got down to Pensacola. For nine months, I checked in to work for 15 minutes in the morning. And then had nothing to do.

Its hard to describe what having nothing to do really does to the human soul. No purpose, no drive, and nothing to do about it. The people closest to you see you withering away. They can't see the battle raging inside. Complaining and negotiating with the powers that be being fruitless, but something to expend time on. But really, only making the uncertain wait worse. Weekends become meaningless. Entertainment and leisure lose all allure. Relaxation only becomes another word for a monotonous, purposeless existence.

Finances squared away, no maintenance to do on the car. Renting an apartment, so no maintenance or renovation to pursue. I would go to the mall and aimlessly wander. Volunteer for meaningless jobs on base that lasted at most an hour. Trying all the while to secure some sort of full time naval job elsewhere in the country and being stymied at every turn. Utter helplessness.

This would maybe have been fine had I been in a place where my other interests could have been fostered. But it was not the case. For endless hours, endless weeks, and seemingly endless months, my only options were to read or watch TV. I started working with Habitat building houses around December because I was going crazy. But even continuous days of that was only a partial solution, as I was still not any closer to beginning what I had come to do.

After a brief six month respite in Corpus for six months, I found myself in Meridian. I find that my social circle has greatly expanded. I have things to do in the evening most nights for an hour or two with friends. But the days...you've read every book on your shelf, and the mere sight of words makes you want to puke. Daytime television makes you want to gag even more. You can't nap because you have already slept for 10 hours. For a few hours a week, you are exposed to adrenaline inducing excitement, but as soon as you get off base, the question looms: what do I do for the next seven hours? No girls to meet, no concerts to attend, no museums to peruse, no bars to relax in.

And so one week turns into one month. And a month into a year. Meanwhile every email you get from someone apologizes for not responding sooner, but they were occupied with life -- and more than anything, that is what you envy. You respond instantly because you have nothing else to do. Finally forcing yourself to wait at least two days before responding to give the perception that you have some semblance of a purposeful life. January is the same as July which was the same as the last January. The grass is a little browner, but not much else is different. You look at your life to see if you have made any progress at all. You can't even write the true words to the people you want to write to. You have no ability to change any of it. The inherent introversion of your nature doesnt help.

Your entire existence is defined by a big board with little magnetic pucks moving from left to right. And at times, for weeks, the pucks dont move at all. Your life is on hold. There is nothing you can do about it. You have no responsibility. No accountability. You question the existence of God in your spare time, and relationships and love and politics and obscure economic theories and drive yourself crazy with metaphysical mumbo-jumbo because without an ongoing commentary, you would literally run around screaming. The inspiring debates you used to have with your roommate slowly run down, as you are rehashing the same things over and over again. The world seems so insignificant, and you think that the real world is merely a figment of an odd past. No one to focus latent romantic yearnings on. No more flowers to send, no more loving handwritten notes to compose. Something you vaguely remember as providing contentment, but in the haze you really arent sure if those things in your past, those things that you daydream about, really happened.

How do you relieve the stress of never being stressed? How can you discern pleasure from pain when there is no relativity to distinguish between the two? How do you account for your existence when you are an insignificant and meaningless number to the organization you have pledged allegiance to? How do you live in reality when you just want to sleep again because at least your dreams are exciting and rife with activity? How can you appreciate biting intellectual insight when there is no possible manifestation of your current reality in which to apply it? A flash of inspiration, but then it doesnt change anything.

There are a million hobbies you could take up. Learn Tai-Kwon-Do. Take apart and repair engines. Learn to cook. Spend an intense year analyzing the stock market. But you know deep down they would only be a veneer. You can't live like that. So you don't so anything.

Thus time ceases to lose meaning. Every week is defined by the monotony of the week before. There is little to differentiate between one and the next. But deep down in the soul, something kindles, knowing that this has to be, must be temporary. If you can just get through the next week, at the end of the tunnel, at some point, has to be something to take your mind off the monotony and utter boredom. But instead of emerging into the world in your early twenties, you will be midway through that decade. That decade of inevitable change, of shaping who you are for the rest of your life. I expected it to be inspiring.

But perhaps perseverance is what has come of it all. Perhaps a patience that manifests itself such that you don't get angry anymore when it takes a week to fix your car. Or you dont get so depressed about not seeing your best friend for a year. Perhaps it makes the wait for the love of you life that much more bearable. Perhaps. I guess only time will tell.

Observations

2007-01-23T17:56:00.000-08:00

I'm going to try something new today, and instead of writing about some brooding thoughts, will attempt to convey spur of the moment observations on the 2007 State of the Union address.

I started out by watching Fox, but am now on C-Span. Mostly to get rid of the annoying bar most news stations have at the bottom of their screen.

As I begin, it is minutes before the beginning of the address, and the camera is now panned on the first female Speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi. She is beginning with all the pomp and circumstance befitting the United States Capitol. For all the rancor on the op-ed pages of our country's newspapers, civility still prevails in the conduct of the Rules of Order. She and the Vice President, two enemies if there ever were any, stand side by side, sharing the duties of moderators.

Silence as the chamber awaits the President's imminent arrival. Perhaps the only time tonight.

Chief Justice John Roberts and his fellow Supremes have just entered the Chamber. As the President's cabinet enters, the Vice President looks bored, and the Speaker of the House has that smile of hers pasted to her face. Chit chat amongst the members, mostly Democrats, with the cabinet members as they make their way down the center isle.

Back to Fox, as C-SPAN, for all its silence, is getting boring. I think I just saw Tom Daschle! That makes no sense. Apparently Rep. Hastert has thrown his support behind Gov. Romney of Massachusettes for President.

The President enters, and the only one in view not applauding is wearing a red outfit. I'm not sure she realizes she is on camera. And that wasn't Tom Daschle. Just some other rep who happens to have a similar hairstyle. Whoops.

Back to C-SPAN. And of course, Laura Bush looks radiant. No surprise there. Trent Lott is sitting down amidst the standing ovation.

Standing ovation by all 535 members for the President...who has an approval rating of 32 percent. Politics at its best. Quite a tribute to Ms. Pelosi. Appropriate no doubt, but to begin with such a recognition? Followed by condolences for absent members of Congress. Perhaps a signal of a new course to work with Congress???

Call for bipartisanship. Congratulations to the new Democratic majority.

"Not with more government, but with more enterprise." Nice.

Balancing the federal budget without raising new taxes. The President looks amused. Every earmark to the light of day, and the vote of Congress. And cut earmarks by half by the end of this session. Preaching to the wrong crowd, mon capitan. Good to shoot for the stars though.

They just flashed to Margaret Spellings, the Education Secretary. She is wearing a pink outfit with a broad grey stripe across the body. I'm no fashion expert, but weird. Call to reauthorize NCLB. Everyone deserves affordable healthcare. Affordable insurance plans: deductions. Wily. Tie tax cuts to health insurance. Innovative. Way to take that one away from the Democrats. Unsurprisingly, Madame Speaker isnt buying it.

An African-American, female Member of Congress, in a red outfit no less, is reading a book. What's with outlandish red outfits?

Amusement from the speaker at the rostrum once again.

This is pretty boring. Lets get some meat!

Well, there is the applause from the ethanol lobby...no doubt the loudest clappers being the Presidential wannabe's as they prepare for Iowa. Wait, did he just say he wants to reduce gas usage by the US by 10 percent over the next ten years? Mandatory fuel standards? It's gonna reduce our dependence no doubt...but how much will overall energy costs go by? Technologies are best developed by the market, not government action!!! You can't mandate where innovation will head. Thats the whole beauty of innovation...it follows its own sweet, unanticipated path. When was the last time a government mandated and directed program came up with something revolutionary?

There's the smile again. After calling for concern over global warming.

Terrorism is bad. Unclassified stoppage of terrorist plots. Standing applause by the Joint Chiefs. Probably the only topic they can legally applaud tonight.

Wow. Three more Democrats reading books, all in the same shot. I wonder what they are reading...seriously. Looks like at least one of them is reading the SOTU transcript. But clearly, some are reading chapter books.

"Decisive ideological struggle." True 'dat. "What every terrorist fears most is human freedom." Lots about what happened in 2005 in the march towards freedom in the Arab world. I guess 2006 wasnt such a great year...ah, here it is. 2006 = "The [terrorist] Empire Strikes Back." I actually like that. "It would not be like us to keep our promises unkept, our friend abandoned." "it is still within our power to shape the outcome of this battle." The true character of men is what they do when all the chips are down... Why are the Democrats not standing up for the call to shape this "towards victory"??? You may not agree with the war, but hell, at least support American victory!!

"Chaos is their greatest ally in the struggle." Once again muted response from the Democrats in response to "sparing America from this danger" of terrorism. Oh, he said support the troops! Now I can stand and shout and applaud. My handlers told me that was acceptable.

Increase in the size of the Army and Marine Corps by 92,000. Volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. "To serve on missions abroad when American needs them." Interesting. Wonder what the interest in that would be. Surprisingly, I'd bet pretty high, or enough to make it viable. I know quite a few adults who wish they could utilize their skills abroad, just not in a military capacity. Good idea.

Widespread applause to save the people of Darfur...but will we actually do something about it? What can we do? Its been all talk for the past few years, and yet we still do nothing. "Never again" we cried after WWII. "Never again" after Rwanda. "Never again" after Bosnia. As long as I dont have to go outside my comfort zone and disrupt my life...

Here we go, "Heroes in the Gallery." I was wondering when this would come. Dikembe Mutumbo. Holy crap. He is HUGE!!! Literally twice as tall as the Asian lady next to him. He's a great guy...good choice.

"The Enterprising Spirit of America." Innovative woman. I love it.

Wesley Autrey: rescued a guy from train tracks in NYC. "He insists he's not a hero...we have got to show each other some love." Big ups to the President from Wesley.

Wow, Sgt Reman has visible nervousness. Look at him breathe! I can only imagine the pride and excitement he feels. Silver Star winner. He really has earned the respect and gratitude of our entire country. I love these guys. To think I get to lead some of them into combat...humbling.

'The state of our union is Strong." I can't get over how tall Dikembe Mutumbo is. Pretty funny.

Well, not a great speech. Pretty short, very laundry listish. No memorable rhetoric. Par for the course for a SOTU address. "Polite, but not overwhelming, reception." - Brit Hume, Fox News. The President just talked to Michelle Bachman from Minnesota, who held onto dear life until he kissed her on the cheek. These Congresspeople are like giddy schoolkids getting an autograph from their favorite baseball player. I think Dennis Kucinich just got the longest handshake.

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And so the post-SOTU parties begin. The reception at the White House for the heroes in the gallery. Senator Jim Webb will soon give his rebuttal. And thus one more day in Washington is done.

Meanwhile Nick is in Iraq with his men, and Kent is leading convoys in Afghanistan. My buddy Mike will be headed off to Kabul for a six month tour in a few weeks, and Autumn heads back on deployment in a few months. My cousin Christopher is with his Marines in the Middle East desert, and his brother Alexander near the DMZ with an F-16 squadron. Somehow these new initiatives and political horsetrading don't seem quite so important.

Personality

2007-01-21T14:14:00.000-08:00

I was bored, and did some reading on personality types. I guess it always amazes me how well modern psychology has people pegged. And while personality type explanations by no means cover the full extent of a person's existence, I am always shocked by how accurate they are. I guess from the metaphysical standpoint, it makes me wonder how much "free will" we actually have, given the predilections we have unconsciously bestowed upon us.

It occurs to me that in much the same way as it is necessary to understand adversaries through cultural awareness, it is equally important to understand the inherent personality characteristics in our own friends, family and particularly, significant others, in order to respond appropriately and with understanding.

I am an INTJ (Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Judging). Find the explanation, courtesy of this website, below. My initial reaction was, "That's ME! That's ME!" Enjoy...

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As an INTJ, your primary mode of living is focused internally, where you take things in primarily via your intuition. Your secondary mode is external, where you deal with things rationally and logically.

INTJs live in the world of ideas and strategic planning. They value intelligence, knowledge, and competence, and typically have high standards in these regards, which they continuously strive to fulfill. To a somewhat lesser extent, they have similar expectations of others.

With Introverted Intuition dominating their personality, INTJs focus their energy on observing the world, and generating ideas and possibilities. Their mind constantly gathers information and makes associations about it. They are tremendously insightful and usually are very quick to understand new ideas. However, their primary interest is not understanding a concept, but rather applying that concept in a useful way. Unlike the INTP, they do not follow an idea as far as they possibly can, seeking only to understand it fully. INTJs are driven to come to conclusions about ideas. Their need for closure and organization usually requires that they take some action.
INTJ's tremendous value and need for systems and organization, combined with their natural insightfulness, makes them excellent scientists. An INTJ scientist gives a gift to society by putting their ideas into a useful form for others to follow. It is not easy for the INTJ to express their internal images, insights, and abstractions. The internal form of the INTJ's thoughts and concepts is highly individualized, and is not readily translatable into a form that others will understand. However, the INTJ is driven to translate their ideas into a plan or system that is usually readily explainable, rather than to do a direct translation of their thoughts. They usually don't see the value of a direct transaction, and will also have difficulty expressing their ideas, which are non-linear. However, their extreme respect of knowledge and intelligence will motivate them to explain themselves to another person who they feel is deserving of the effort.
INTJs are natural leaders, although they usually choose to remain in the background until they see a real need to take over the lead. When they are in leadership roles, they are quite effective, because they are able to objectively see the reality of a situation, and are adaptable enough to change things which aren't working well. They are the supreme strategists - always scanning available ideas and concepts and weighing them against their current strategy, to plan for every conceivable contingency.

INTJs spend a lot of time inside their own minds, and may have little interest in the other people's thoughts or feelings. Unless their Feeling side is developed, they may have problems giving other people the level of intimacy that is needed. Unless their Sensing side is developed, they may have a tendency to ignore details which are necessary for implementing their ideas.
The INTJ's interest in dealing with the world is to make decisions, express judgments, and put everything that they encounter into an understandable and rational system. Consequently, they are quick to express judgments. Often they have very evolved intuitions, and are convinced that they are right about things. Unless they complement their intuitive understanding with a well-developed ability to express their insights, they may find themselves frequently misunderstood. In these cases, INTJs tend to blame misunderstandings on the limitations of the other party, rather than on their own difficulty in expressing themselves. This tendency may cause the INTJ to dismiss others input too quickly, and to become generally arrogant and elitist.

INTJs are ambitious, self-confident, deliberate, long-range thinkers. Many INTJs end up in engineering or scientific pursuits, although some find enough challenge within the business world in areas which involve organizing and strategic planning. They dislike messiness and inefficiency, and anything that is muddled or unclear. They value clarity and efficiency, and will put enormous amounts of energy and time into consolidating their insights into structured patterns.
Other people may have a difficult time understanding an INTJ. They may see them as aloof and reserved. Indeed, the INTJ is not overly demonstrative of their affections, and is likely to not give as much praise or positive support as others may need or desire. That doesn't mean that he or she doesn't truly have affection or regard for others, they simply do not typically feel the need to express it. Others may falsely perceive the INTJ as being rigid and set in their ways. Nothing could be further from the truth, because the INTJ is committed to always finding the objective best strategy to implement their ideas. The INTJ is usually quite open to hearing an alternative way of doing something.

When under a great deal of stress, the INTJ may become obsessed with mindless repetitive, Sensate activities, such as over-drinking. They may also tend to become absorbed with minutia and details that they would not normally consider important to their overall goal.
INTJs need to remember to express themselves sufficiently, so as to avoid difficulties with people misunderstandings. In the absence of properly developing their communication abilities, they may become abrupt and short with people, and isolationists.

INTJs have a tremendous amount of ability to accomplish great things. They have insight into the Big Picture, and are driven to synthesize their concepts into solid plans of action. Their reasoning skills gives them the means to accomplish that. INTJs are most always highly competent people, and will not have a problem meeting their career or education goals. They have the capability to make great strides in these arenas. On a personal level, the INTJ who practices tolerances and puts effort into effectively communicating their insights to others has everything in his or her power to lead a rich and rewarding life.

INTJs generally have the following traits:

-Able to absorb extremely complex theoretical and complex material
-Driven to create order and structure from theoretical abstractions
-Supreme strategists
-Future-oriented
-See the global, "big picture"
-Strong insights and intuitions, which they trust implicitly
-Value their own opinions over others
-Love difficult theoretical challenges
-Bored when dealing with mundane routine
-Value knowledge and efficiency
-Have no patience with inefficiency and confusion
-Have very high standards for performance, which they apply to themselves most strongly
-Reserved and detached from others
-Calm, collected and analytical
-Extremely logical and rational
-Original and independent
-Natural leaders, but will follow those they can fully support
-Creative, ingenious, innovative, and resourceful
-Work best alone, and prefer to work alone

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And my favorite explanation of our romantic tendencies, courtesy of typelogic.com:

Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ's Achilles heel. While they are capable of caring deeply for others (usually a select few), and are willing to spend a great deal of time and effort on a relationship, the knowledge and self-confidence that make them so successful in other areas can suddenly abandon or mislead them in interpersonal situations.

This happens in part because many INTJs do not readily grasp the social rituals; for instance, they tend to have little patience and less understanding of such things as small talk and flirtation (which most types consider half the fun of a relationship). To complicate matters, INTJs are usually extremely private people, and can often be naturally impassive as well, which makes them easy to misread and misunderstand. Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is that INTJs really want people to make sense. :-) This sometimes results in a peculiar naivete', paralleling that of many Fs -- only instead of expecting inexhaustible affection and empathy from a romantic relationship, the INTJ will expect inexhaustible reasonability and directness.

Culture (pt. 2)

2007-01-12T10:45:00.000-08:00

A recent reader of my musings observed in relation to my last discussion on culture:

"From my perspective, you make the mistake of conflating American foreign policy with the will (or temperament, as you put it) of the American people. I would posit that our (the populace's) naîveté has no relation to our government's dealings (particularly in the modern era) except the important fact that it means most of us don't really understand what's behind any given diplomatic maneuver. Gotta remember that government officials act in their own self-interest, and foreign policy is driven by so many other things before collective temperament or the trappings of cultural relativity."

From the outset, I think it is important to understand that I agree almost 100 percent with the commentator. Our national ignorance of international issues or other nation's cultures does not impede our policymakers from instituting what they deem to be appropriate measures of foreign diplomacy. Our temperament on issues of things other than war often is relegated behind concerns about domestic policy or local infrastructure. Those in the foreign policy establishment, with their assumed wealth of knowledge, are given the responsibility to make decisions in our stead, as we often lack the acumen or insight to collectively come to a "good" solution. And government officials are indeed quite self interested.

But while foreign policy may be driven initially by many other issues aside from "collective temperament" or "cultural relativity," these latter two elements set the broader theme of a country's history. In the short term, individualistic impulses and faddish ideologies will make their impact felt, but any gross deviation from a cultural norm will soon find itself without supporters. Soon in this context is years or at most a few decades.

I take the current rise and fall of the neo-cons as a prime example. The ideology had been fermenting since the 1960s, but until the leadership of President Bush, VP Cheney, and SecDef Rumsfeld came to pass, there was no way for their policies to be implemented. At first, after the initial successes of Afghanistan and the quick march to Baghdad, the neo-cons looked vindicated in their approach to foreign policy. But as things began to get bogged down, and democratic transformation in the Middle East came up against the wall of Arab culture built up over many centuries, the more tempered realist school began to look correct. The neo-con intelligentsia, much better informed than the American public on issues of international importance, implemented their ideas. And the resulting cultural backlash towards our status quo has resulted. The President has backed away from his initial optimism, the Democrats now control Congress, and even many Republicans have embraced the Realist undertones of the Iraq Study Group, a clear repudiation of Neo-con ideas.

The same thing occurred at the opposite end of the spectrum during the 1960s and 1970s. A different war, same initial optimism about military intervention from government officials, and with the public backlash, a repudiation of direct American involvement in containment of the Soviets. Foreign Policy is never able to get too far ahead of cultural norms.

The weariness of Americans with war can also be traced back to World War II. The "smart" thing to do with the collapse of Nazi Germany was to continue pushing the Soviets back to their pre-war boundaries. Although this is easily said in retrospect, it was also put forth by many American military officers as well as high government officials. But the tipping point came at the insistence of the American people to bring their boys home. They had never truly wanted to be involved in the first place, and when they did enter the war, came in with a determination to end it as soon as possible. With the imminent threat of the Axis gone, there was no reason to carry on against perceived threats, which later turned into a 50 year nuclear standoff. No amount of government persuasion would have convinced the American people to send their boys off to fight against a former ally.

Looking to the broad swaths of history, one can see this characteristic of America playing out over and over again. We are an impatient people. I read an article the other day in the Economist about the Pushtuns of Afghanistan. "According to a Pushtu saying: 'A Pushtun waited 100 years, then took his revenge. It was quick work.'" If we think back one hundred years ago, Teddy Roosevelt was still president. The world had barely seen aviation, the two bloodiest wars in world history were yet to play out, nuclear weapons were a twinkling in Einsteins eye, and we Americans had just rolled over the remains of the Spanish Empire with very few American deaths.

We Americans are fighting and negotiating with homogeneous cultures thousands of years old. We are a heterogeneous amalgamation of culture barely 250 years old. Our impetuousness, and dare I say pomposity, as elucidated by even our most shrewd foreign policymakers reflects the brashness and quickness by which we demand results.

It seems to me that the recent increase in troop strength in Iraq, mostly on the backs of those who have already been there and continue to be there, will do more to alter the decisions of our policymakers than anything else. I will reiterate my belief that we must stabilize Iraq, and more troops are likely required. But it may be unsustainable in the face of Americans who cant bear to see their sons and daughters away from home for another year. The ballot box is where the stamp of approval or disapproval comes from in our culture, and for all the other faults our electoral system possesses, this to me speaks louder than anything else that cultural predispositions win out in the long run over everything else.

If something doesn't work in a short time, and there are even moderate costs associated, we demand change. And we manufacture it, whether our myopia is valid or not. We will sacrifice immensely for a short time, but the endurance and stamina required for a "Long War" involving hundreds of thousands of our troops is just not there in America. There is no short term cost to negotiating with the likes of Iran and N. Korea, thus our "ability" to keep ongoing talks going without manifest frustration by the American people. Even trade issues are boring, and seemingly unimportant to the daily lives of Americans, thus the free ride given by our society to those who make trade agreements. But ultimately, policymakers will be forced to bow before the reality of American cultural temperaments, or be ousted along with their delusions.

Culture

2006-12-27T12:58:00.000-08:00

I haven't written in a while, and perhaps this is the culmination of a month's worth of thoughts. I had the opportunity to go home over Christmas, which as normal as that may seem, was not the case for four of my closest friends. Not because they didn't want to, but because they couldn't. They were at war.

I went back to my old high school and visited a beloved, if not extremely liberal, US American History professor. She was definitely a product of the 60's generation and all of its cultural habits, but far from that being a wedge between us, the stark differences in our worldviews seems to only heighten our penetrating conversations. In the course of our discussion, we got to talking about the Washington military establishment, and in discussing the varying cultures of the different services and the impediments it has caused for joint operations, she noted that "culture is the hardest thing to change." How very right she is. I am sure this is rather self-evident on the face of it, but it bears repeating.

I also finished perhaps one of the most intriguing and eye-opening books of my life, namely Hermann Wouk's The Winds of War. I began its sister novel, War and Remembrance on the way back to Meridian yesterday. Its principle character, Captain Victor 'Pug' Henry (USN) , is perhaps the literary character I have empathized most with, and related to best in all my fictional journeys. The Winds of War deals with the time between 1939 and 1941 prior to the entering of World War II by the United States. And while the theme of impending doom is felt throughout the story, the subtext I couldn't help but notice was the influence of national character on the development of that catastrophic conflict.

The history we have all learned in American classrooms regarding this continuation of World War I seems to place WWII as a separate and definable event removed from the past. Aside from the rise of Hitler after Versailles, we get little understanding that WWII was really about the collapse of the British system, the Germans and Russians doing what their culture had been exuding for centuries, and the racism that tinged all sides of the conflict, both on the Axis and Allied sides.

History is often simplified, if only to make it more digestible in large chunks, but this simplification necessarily eliminates the little details that truly explain why monumental events transpire in the way they do. Chief among this simplification is that we lose sight of the cultures of the people who started war, and those that engaged them. Sun Tzu's primary admonition is to "know your enemy" and the Delphic oracle to "know thyself." These adages have survived for millenia because they have been proven time and again. Yet every generation of warmakers that tries to do this often fails to remove their own cultural predispositions before analysing those of their opponent.

From generation to generation, these things change, but on the whole, remain remarkably consistent. It is rare that wild departures from cultural norms lead to lasting change...much like a rubber band, they snap back to the status quo eventually, if not a little more stretched out that before.

Thus, it would behoove the American people to understand its own culture. The following is by no means fact, but I think it is an accurate representation. So in the broadest terms, Americans tend towards individual pleasure. As a culture we are economically and wealth driven. We are naively idealistic about the world, which I think stems from our relative national youth. And geographic isolation from the rest of the world. Two vast oceans as our boundary, a peaceful neighbor to our north and a weak one to our south gives us a very different perspective on a world that has seen most modern nations bloodied and destroyed by factional conflict. This explains our isolationism and reluctance to get involved in European wars in the first half of the last century until we could barely do otherwise. I guess we are a lot like Hobbiton in the Lord of the Rings, albeit with weapons.

This is when we are (were) at our best. Or at least win decisively. Leave me alone, and I wont hurt you. But if you touch me, you will get beat down. Hard. We can back it up.

We never have liked getting involved in foreign entanglements, unless it stifled our pleasures at home (Barbary Pirate War), or was easy picking right on our doorstep (Mexican American War, Spanish-American War, Panama, Nicaragua). Where we have gotten in trouble is when we stretch those boundaries and went far away, trying to institute our own beliefs in a far off land, with little overt provocation (Vietnam and yes...Iraq). Of course, much of this has to do with politics. As much as the divide between the military and civilian realms has deepened, our military is still impotent without support from home. Its excursions run vigorously for a few years, but it is unsustainable without the lifeblood of support that is the republican citizenry from which it's men are pulled.

I think we get discouraged easily, especially compared to other nations. Why were the Russians able to endure the slaughter of nearly 20 million men just against Hitler...and still push him back and defeat him? Undoubtedly because they live through harsh winters, and their history replete with iron tyrants. The Japanese in the run up to their attempt at empire impoverished themselves to build a mighty navy and army. Their emperor told them to sacrifice everything for Japan, and everyone did. Even those who were living abroad. The defining characteristic of the German people, at least until recently, has been a firm desire towards obedience, albeit in a different fashion than the Japanese. The philosophical writings of Hegel make this clear.

The images of war in American cities vice those of every other nation at war at nearly every other point in history make this cultural impatience apparent. At no point after the war of 1812 have any of our cities been besieged, bombed or otherwise threatened. The prospect of war is always thousands of miles away. This is unquestionably a blessing. But it is much like the rich kid who has always had everything given to him. His perspective is skewed, and out of touch with the realities the rest of the world has had to historically face.

The thing that galvanized these very different people and cultures into action was the emergence of leaders who intimately and inimically understood their respective nation's cultures and exploited them. Churchill, Roosevelt, Hitler, Tojo, Stalin...all spoke to the deepest held beliefs of their countrymen and used that most precious of driving forces to spur their people on. And some of them may have genuinely believed in those cultural driving forces. But I doubt it.

Our cultural naivete is a unique one that requires a leader who understands the subtle aspects of it. To be frank, I have lots of qualms with Roosevelt as a policy president...I honestly believe he prolonged the Depression with the New Deal. But I have never questioned, and indeed have come to greatly admire, his political instinct and acumen at getting people to do what he wanted, while making them think it was what they wanted. I have too much of a regimented and rote personality to mask my intentions with deception and doublespeak. Yet this is exactly what he did in surreptitiously supporting Britain and later Stalinist Russia despite his 1940 campaign promise to keep American boys out of a war. In early 1941, the US Congress barely passed (by one vote) legislation extending the draft. There were howls of outcry that Cash-and-Carry was neither. But under his public pronouncements, and stretching the American people to the very limit of their tolerance for his desire to help his Anglo brethren, he had put enough plans into motion that the very instant we entered into War, we were psychologically ready. And it was something we could sink our teeth into with a clear goal in mind.

To some extent, our victory in World War II confirmed our view of the world, and while it did well in keeping the Soviet Union at bay, it hasn't worked out well since. Without a direct belligerent actually threatening our shores, our generally tolerant and understanding nature has put us at a disadvantage in negotiating with Iran and North Korea. I read a fabulous article in the Wall Street Journal last week that brought to light something I have always known, yet haven't really contemplated. Namely that the North Korean regime is by its very nature a racist one.

This can be generally applied to Asian national cultural as a whole -- perhaps all world culture to some extent -- but in this specific context I apply it to Asia historically. The Japanese, Chinese and Koreans all believe that they alone have the purest blood, and by that virtue have the right to rule whatever sphere of influence they find themselves in. This was why Japan invaded Korea and China during the 1930s. China for centuries during its heyday viewed all foreigners as barbarians, and to this day the belief still remains in cultural norms. This, unlike many forms of Western racism, is very subtle in its application and appearance. Americans in particular live in a very heterogeneous society, and the amalgamation of cultural attributes that this creates lulls us into a perception that the rest of the world must think the same way. So we come to the negotiating table with this inherent misconception. We think they want to agree with us, because our culture is imbued in compromise and relativism. We make trade deals to enrich both parties, whereas this view is not always a virtuous one outside the Western world.

It should be no surprise that we are outmaneuvered and lured back time and again by Kim Jong Il. For some reason the Western Press thinks it a victory when we get him at the table and act shocked when he suddenly leaves. Unquestionably, negotiation is preferable to war, but when our own "allies" (China, S. Korea) in the region, on this issue at least, view us with suspicion, it's no wonder nothing gets done. We don't understand them - not even close. We are going up against cultures that perfected the art of deception. And while its a softer sort of hatred then those people the British subjugated for their empire, it's once again East against West. The same goes for Iran. When our own House leadership cannot name the Islamic persuasion of the Persian country, we are in real trouble (its Shia by the way). This isn't a point of semantics.

Getting back to the American cultural view towards war however, we respond very well to patriotism...for a short time. And then we demand resolution, or else the head of whoever led us into the morass in the first place. Of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with the moral validity of wherever we find ourselves engaged. But it is what it is. And the leadership must recognize it, or else be deposed. Which can be extremely frustrating, especially from a military perspective. We have a desire for a soft empire, without military occupation, but economic and political influence. Ideally, we would like freedom for all people, but if they can't figure it out for themselves, then that's their problem. We'll help, reluctantly, if asked. But just as our societal institutions tend towards political correctness and a "live and let live" attitude, so to does our overarching view of other nations. It's why we would like to, but don't intervene in the Sudan. Why we have yet to march on Tehran or Pyongyang. Our current military endeavors, while in my judgement absolutely necessary, are out of line with who we are as a culture. Thus the discontentment. Until these cultural predispositions change, our patience for a "Long War" will last about as long as our obsession with "Who Wants to be a Millionaire."

I see the American temperament as being relatively constant from after the Civil War through today. Sure, we have generational shifts and lifestyles have certainly altered. But I think we will always be a flashpan culture, explosive and deadly, but with our attention quickly drawn elsewhere. The Russians will always barely hang on, enduring and growing stronger. The Chinese will be wily adversaries with a closely hidden agenda, able to wait centuries or millenia as they always have done. Culture may be the hardest thing to change, but it is also one of the most enduring and binding elements of human nature. From those of a family up to those of nations, they are unique and odd to outsiders, but understanding them absolutely vital if one is to make friend, keep enemies at bay, or venture out into the unknown.

Moderation

2006-12-03T19:45:00.000-08:00

The long view of human history seems replete with the bouncing back and forth of societal flirtations with the extremes of perception. While there are many juxtaposed pairs that could be defined as encompassing the realm of human existence, the two that continually jump out at me are the extremes of rational intellectualism and amorphous emotionalism. Paradoxically, the two when intertwined seem perfect compliments to each other, but finding the appropriate balance between the two is, of course, the challenge of worthwhile living.

And far from these two elements being confined to humanity as a whole, the disparate parts that compose humanity, down to the individual, trace the foundations of the larger waves of history. For historical trends must necessarily come from societal trends, and societal trends from the individual ones. It is only from the en masse perspective, however, can an interpretation of the myriad of individual trends be made sense of. Judging from the philosophies of those I interact with, there is a swirling mass of discovering for oneself that end of the spectrum one currently finds themselves on. I myself can trace the weeks, months and years in which I have tended towards a more emotional analysis to a more emotionless intellectual one far apart from the greater waves of society. But while the individual works out his place and philosophy for himself, an unspoken wave in one direction or another envelopes entire groups of people.

In the past one thousand years of Westernized thought, we can see this historical movement between the two extremes. Beginning the millenia, there was the monasticized intellectualism of the Dark Ages, followed by artistic license of the Renaissance, then the hard-edged Age of Empire, the Enlightenment, then the Industrial Revolution, etc. Even in music, the logical consistency of the Classical age that defined eighteenth century composers like Haydn and Mozart gave way to a more emotional view of aural art beginning with Beethoven and proceeding down through Taichovsky and Wagner. We see economics in the twentieth century evolving from a softer Keynesian approach to an emotionless, rational Friedmanesque free market.

The Church has seen its evolution in a similar vein. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, theologians and clergy were regarded as the best educated and most rational of all professions. Indeed, many of our current Ivy League schools were initially begun as seminaries by which to educate future clergymen. This has slowly evolved to a state in which among a panel of politicians, lawyers, generals, doctors, professors, pilots and reverends, the latter are regarded with the least amount of intellectual heft, and the realm of the spiritual relegated to irrationality. On the face of it, it would hardly seem plausible to imagine that Jonathan Edwards, Calvin and Luther were speaking the same gospel as Billy Graham, Rick Warren or Joel Osteen.

Somewhere in between these two extremes, however, seems to lie a middle ground that could prevent this apparent careening. Because the best explanation for the constant shift between emotionalism and intellectualism is that when an individual, society or history reaches on end of the spectrum, they find something to be missing. Thus, the response, instead of incrementally inching back from the precipice, is to race headlong in the other direction.

A purely rational and intellectual view of the world necessarily excludes a vital component of humanity, namely our "feelings." And while theories and experiments and numerical explanations can quantifiably render the world "understandable," mere facts hardly inspire devotion. The beautiful vistas of the Grand Canyon can hardly be appreciated through rote understanding of geological time frames, erosion, and waves of light passing through the frequency vibrations of the molecules that compose the air around the said monument. There is something inherently missing to a purely rational analysis.

At the other extreme lies the realm of unrestricted emotion, of "feeling" your way through life. Because whatever else I've learned, its that emotions are a useful tool to rarely be used in isolation. "The heart wants what it wants" betrays a sense of cause and effect that necessarily implies the reality of consequences and rewards. It disregards thousands of years of compiled human knowledge and understanding, in favor of self-discovery with reckless abandon.

We find that love, that most complicated but delicious of all emotions, often begins with a bang of passion and obsession, but necessarily cools. This cooling then leaves its possessor with a choice: the realization that true love is more than the stirring of emotions, or the abandonment of the formerly loved in an attempt to reacquire that aforementioned high. Thus the former choice leads to an understanding that the mysteries of love are more than emotional, and rationality must play a part in actively pursuing it. At the same time, a "love" based only on obligation and no emotional response can hardly be called love at all.

We find in our professions that we may have been induced by the glamour and promise of adherence to an ideology, or the opulence of luxurious living, etc. soon to find that the essence of that profession is much more difficult and challenging than the emotion inducing glossy image had us believe. Without inspiration, work ceases to be meaningful, but without labor and hardship, the momentary high of inspiration becomes too overwhelming to sustain.

Currently it seems that much of my life has ricocheted to the extreme of rationalism and intellectualism almost inadvertently, but most certainly detrimentally. Romantic love seems a lost conception, only described in storybooks that have no resonation within the emotional aspects of my psyche. I can't image my past ever experienced such a thing, even though I know it occurred. What does it feel like to kiss someone in passion? To feel the touch of a warm hand against an arm in barely contained excitement? Sure, I could describe it, but that hardly does justice to the thing! To look unspoken at someone in eyes dancing with delight. I cling to the intellectual knowledge that my profession has meaning, and written works that extol the virtues of hard work and self-sacrifice, without believing it deep down in my soul. I write impassioned idealistic tomes in an attempt to convince myself that there is value to it, forcefully trying to elicit feeling I wish I possessed. But in the end, when I go to sleep at night, it makes sense, but neutrally so. I can lay out this reason and that for my decisions, but there is no joy attached to it. My religion seems based on rational philosophizing and doctrines of academic thought far removed from the warm-fuzzys of Sunday School. Books upon books have been read and absorbed, knowledge disseminated, without the little tickle of irrational happiness that supersedes all types of logical supposition. I can pontificate and convince, but at the very real threat of regressing to sophistry instead of spirituality. I am convinced they are true, but in a resigned way, not in the way the preacher does. So much contained behind a placid exterior, begging to be let free in an infinite number of ways.

I want to feel again. The thing that makes us human lies dormant in me. To be excited, and get riled up in anger over something, to be inspired and filled with passion. To live a life that is so much more than critical analysis and observation. To not just get checks in the box, but find boxes that dont need checks, and can be explored. To be awed in wonder, and have no idea what is happening in a relationship but not caring because it's mesmerizing. To have a fight, and then be reconciled. To find that balance of emotional fulfillment and logical consistency. To not have to spend my thoughts thinking on such things, because the very analysis flings us back to the extreme.

And thus experiencing this at the individual level helps explain societal upheaval and uncertainty and desires and experimentation. Where the inner, hidden parts of the soul reveal the secret foundation of questioning organizations of humanity. Why history, for all our "progression", generally repeats itself. The rise and fall of Empires. Why some societies evolve and change (for better or worse) and others remain stagnant -- perhaps desiring change, but ultimately afraid of what change will bring. And just when we think we have it right, something comes along and disrupts our balance.

Bond

2006-11-19T20:29:00.000-08:00

Among the vast tracts of wisdom I've acquired in my 24 odd years of living and observation is that fact that very often things you expect to turn out one way end up being quite different than initially anticipated. This in part has revolutionized my perception of the world, and caused a much more reflective stance towards predictions of dire or euphoric ends. I suppose it contributes to my tendency to be a contrarian with nearly every discussion I engage in, as I enjoy challenging assumptions and beliefs held by others, even if I wholeheartedly agree with them, merely to see if the statement is more than a mere paper tiger. Humans have this tendency to think they can predict with certainty the outcomes of events, when in reality their basis of understanding is by necessity limited to the fragility of the human mind. The more certain one is about the occurrence of something, the more likely it is that their understanding of a given situation is lacking.

Alas, I have already traveled far from what I intended to write about. All that was to say that when I first saw the previews for Casino Royale a few months ago, I rolled my eyes and thought "here we go again." New Bond, same plot. I'll see it, but it really wont be all that good. Boy was I wrong.

Having had a few days to digest the content of the movie, and think about it, I can without reservation say that it was my favorite of all the Bond movies. As my friends will attest, especially those in Meridian, I am somewhat of a Bond fanatic. Heck, I dressed up as the dapper spy for Halloween, and even inaugurated what will undoubtedly be an annual event: The Bond Martini Party. I have grand plans for this. Slight aside -- over the past few months, Ive come to realize that for as much as I dislike attending parties, I love hosting them. I've probably said this before, but I seem to have more fun when I am causing other people to have fun. I love playing bartender. I love cleaning up the house and making it a place for people to gather. I need to marry a woman who wants to host lavish dinner parties for friends and guests on a monthly, if not more frequent occasions. Most of all, I like spending money on other people. I suppose this is an inherited trait from my great aunt. Anyway, I know my Bond's, and this one was the best.

The funny thing is though, there were no quirky gadgets, no Q, far fewer witty one-liners and a much less jovial overall atmosphere that seem to define the Bond genre. This flick looked into the soul of the man that every other movie had assumed was off-limits. Of course, this was the entire purpose of this prequel to the rest -- to give a foundation as to why our favorite Brit treats women as mere objects of his sexual desires and how he can dispassionately kill without remorse. It was no surprise then that the searing shut of this fictional characters heart came at the fingers of a woman he madly fell for.

I think my perception of this movie is not universal, judging from the mutterings of the men around me. Most of them where aghast, audibly so, when James -- wait for it -- told a woman he loved her. That he would resign his glamorous MI:6 job in order to spend his days with only one woman. There was an audible sigh of relief from the audience when this, how shall I say it without spoiling the ending...resolved itself. I just shook my head and laughed. Partly because it has once again shown me how different I view masculinity from many of my type-A fighter pilot buddies, but party because all the ones I observed were single, and had likely never experienced the passion with which a man becomes consumed with upon finding a woman that awakens a part of him he never knew existed.

After I sent out my invitation for the Martini Party, one of the invitees responded with a jovial, "you really are James Bond, aren't you???" And while it was certainly meant in jest, seeing the characteristics of the woman James fell in love with, I couldn't help but chuckle at the similarities. Maybe its the case for all guys, but those that capture my interest are the sarcastic, bitingly intelligent, independent types. Especially those who one would never expect me to be attracted to. The ones that don't fit the mold. Dangerous?? Without a doubt. But thats half the point. A woman that can beat me at my own game, that can leave me without words in the midst of intellectual sparring. Exactly the woman that caught 007's eye. Of course this is also the exact type of woman that causes a man to become a hardened shell towards humans of the female persuasion should that enticing enigma absolutely shatter his soul. Which is something I've been doing my very best not to fall into, with varying degrees of success. For as much as I really really like Bond, something about his post-Casino Royale persona just seems to be missing something. He always gets the girl, the car, wins the battle. But its always a different girl, always a different car, always a new battle to face. No anchor or foundation. Its that lack of a family touch. Or maybe the knowledge that he will never again find a woman that comes close to matching his lost love.

I'll admit it, I'm a closet romance movie lover. I cried during The Notebook (on a plane no less...). I enjoy the old Audrey Hepburn classics. And this Bond movie was at its core, a love story. Albeit it with insane chases, awesome cars, and shootouts. So, it was the best type of love story. And dark. Oh, so dark. As if throughout the entire story, you just had a feeling that things couldnt go on like they were. It seems interesting that many of the best movies, especially those continuations of serials, have a dark element to them. Batman Begins was by far the best of the Batman movies, because there was that underlying dark tension. Spiderman 3 promises the same. And now Casino Royale. The perfect world of the superhero isnt so perfect...evil and betrayal always lurk. And this parallels reality. The unquantifiable battle between good and evil that lays just below the surface of every day life, and is thus seemingly out of view.

I think I'm gonna like Daniel Craig. He isnt as loquacious as his predecessors. But he has an intensity and sense of purpose lacking in previous Bond's. He has his moments of wit, and due to his seriousness, the levity only becomes more pronounced. I have a tendency to read waaay to much into things, so if you see it, and for some reason think of my analysis and go "huh?" dont worry. But my initial premise still stands. The best things in life are those that pleasantly surprise us the most. And this flick most certainly did.

Election

2006-11-10T07:31:00.000-08:00

Knowing my political interest, I think the most frequent question I have been asked from nearly everybody I have come into contact with is, "so how do you feel after Tuesday night?" I've given various responses. Initially, I played up the part of the disgusted Republican partisan, in that I "mad" merely because my party lost. I really didnt feel that way though. In terms of politics, I feel more relaxed now than I have in years. I thought I would experience the heartache that comes on the back of an electoral loss, but in all honesty, I'm more indifferent than anything. I voted a straight Republican ticket here in Mississippi (such as it was -- Trent Lott for Senator and the basically unchallenged Republican Congressman). And I would probably never vote for a candidate caucusing with the Democrats. However, I never thought I'd be saying this, but I'm actually pretty glad the Democrats took both houses of Congress in such overwhelming fashion.

On the face of it, I hardly believe a Democratic congress will enact those pieces of legislation that I personally advocate, both socially and economically. But the Republican leadership and the party as a whole needed a wakeup call. I can only hope that such a resounding defeat will cause the old guard to be ousted in no uncertain terms, and a new crop of dedicated, young conservative Turks to rise up and take their place. The Democrats squandered their opportunity to be an effective minority party over the past twelve years, and won this election because power corrupted the party in power.

What unquestionable minority status will allow is a vigorous opposition to develop. An opposition that is based on the bedrock conservatism that launched the Republican Revolution of 1994. Commentators have claimed that the elections of 2006 were a repudiation of the Contract with America. I'm not sure how they justify their claim. Paraphrasing something I heard recently, its is very rare that anything of historical significance is recognized as such at the moment it takes place, and is usually only realized after years and years of contemplative reflection.

If we look at how the Democrats won a majority, it becomes pretty clear that their candidate recruitment (specifically in the House, but even somewhat in the Senate -- Testor, Webb, Ford) focused on those who could easily be called conservative Democrats. And thus the newly ascendant Democratic majority leadership will run into the same problem the GOP ran into in 1994. All the newly elected representatives have no seniority within their caucus, and the old liberal guard will take control of the committees. The top positions will be filled with those members who were unable to offer viable policy alternatives while they were in the minority. Flush with new power, the agenda of the old-guard will become the legislative centerpiece. However, this agenda will likely come up against skepticism from some of the newer members. And then a choice will have to be made -- vote for what they ran on, or capitulate to Party discipline. Rep. Pelosi has made it clear that party discipline will be paramount under her leadership.

Furthermore, I have a feeling that the one race that put the Senate in the hands of the Democrats -- namely Webb's victory in Virginia, will end up being their greatest thorn. Senator-elect Webb is not one to bow to tradition or suppress his personal opinions to please party masters. His entire career has been marred with controversy, but he says what he thinks. I think he will be the new McCain, except for the Democrats.

As for the Republicans, perhaps this loss will enable us to run on our platforms rather than on pork. Dick Armey, a former GOP Speaker of the House, said in yesterday in the WSJ, "I've always wondered why Republicans insist on acting like Democrats in hopes of retaining political power, while Democrats act like us in order to win. " This analysis leads to an obvious, yet seemingly ignored conclusion by Republicans in Washington: If we actually governed the way and on the issues we (and the Democrats!) ran on, we could have an effective perpetual majority! Fiscal discipline, a strong national defense, disdain for pork, timely weeding out of corruption. All of these are winning issues in the heartland of America. This loss will (and already has) let us cull the likes of DeLay and Hastert from our ranks. Turnover is good. An organization ceases to become effective when it becomes stagnant in its leadership. As the minority party now, we should elect leaders who arent merely in line for leadership based on seniority. Elect leader who will not only criticize the Democratic majority, but put forth bold and untried policy proposals. Embrace true conservatism and the freedom both economically and philosophically that such beliefs engender.

Competition and failure bring out the best in people. That is why turnover in our government is healthy. I've heard dire predictions from my more hard-core Republican friends, and even depression. Get over it. We lost. Learn why. Understand how we failed the American public (which really isnt all that hard). It is a historical paradox that President Clinton was more effective in passing legislation to his liking after the GOP took over in '94. I wouldnt be surprised if over the next two years President Bush was able to repeat his bipartisan successes while he was governor of Texas. All the while helping to cultivate and free the new Republican minority from their institutional smugness. Will elements of liberalism be legislated? No doubt. But our nation has survived scores of party transitions. We have more than survived. We have thrived. Vibrant competition and peaceful transitions of power are what define our Republic. Its time to start being the minority party the Democrats should have been.

Tribute

2006-11-06T19:47:00.000-08:00

Not having a wife of my own upon which to bestow the following tribute to women intimately attached to military men, the following observations may not be an accurate depiction, but instead reflect the views of an impressed outside observer close to the action. I am not privy to the fights and depression behind a placid and happy exterior. Nonetheless...

On Sunday, my roommate and I went to a friends house on base to have lunch with he, his wife, and his two very young children. Since we are pilots, we invariably talk shop for about 90 percent of the time, with the other 10 percent taken up by discussions related to the Marines. This is not really by design...it just happens. I guess the best visual representation of this I have is the scene from 'The Right Stuff' where the men are outside around a barbecue with their hands in various flight regimes, looking up in the sky with giddy grins as a plane flies overhead, happy as clams, while the wives look on with collective disdain at the immaturity of their beloved one's and single-tracked minds. Repeat this about 20 times throughout the week, and that's the extent of our musings for the most part. Except when Chris and I start yelling at each other because we are arguing over the nature of eternality, its relation to Time, and whether Effectual Calling leads to true human choice in a meaningful sense. But I digress.

Anyway, the thing I was most impressed with was the patience displayed by Mike's wife, Laura. Here is a woman who graduated with honors from St. John's University in Annapolis. For those of you unfamiliar with this institution, it is very unique in its approach to collegiate education, and is not for the faint of heart. It is classical education embodied, in the most classical sense of the term. They study math by beginning with Euclid and Pythagoras, and are required to learn and take classes in Greek and Latin. Each graduating class has maybe 100 students, and all are academic superstars. Something like 50 percent go on to Ivy law schools, or Johns Hopkins-like medical schools. This is a very bright woman. She married her high school sweetheart after he graduated from the Boat School, and has been following him around to his various flight school duty stations ever since. The books on their bookshelves rival any Ivy League graduate, with the possible exception that she has read and analyzed them all. And amidst her wealth of intellectual knowledge, she is listening to us prattle on about weps patterns, landing at the boat, emergency procedures, how awesome the JSF is going to be, etc.

Earlier this year I had the chance to talk with her a little about her education and academic interests, as in all honesty, the constant talk about aviation bores me incessantly as well. I was astounded at her humility and willingness to leave everything behind to follow her husband around to backwater Mississippi in order to support him. And at the cost of having very few like minded peers to converse with. Yet she does it with a smile on her face, and an incomprehensible peace. Absolutely amazing.

A lot is made about the perseverance of military wives, and rightly so. But seeing them on a daily basis never ceases to cause me to sit back and marvel at their constitutions. Especially for those who have moved to Meridian. For as bad as it is for us men living here, at least we get to fly. Our job is fun, when we get to do it. For the women, they dont even have that. Forget about a profession. And if you don't have kids, you are SOL. One of the OCF wives who I have come to know quite well is a physical therapist by trade and passion, but the only job she has found is to work at Express. Talk about devotion to her husband. And only by digging deep is there the hint of loneliness in a lack of close female friendship. Being a rather introverted person myself, I can get along quite well by myself. But in my small inkling of knowledge related to the female gender, I do know that female friendship is required to satiate the social inclination of nearly every woman I have ever known.

Sometimes we as men, specifically we men who are driven to fly jet airplanes, forget that our psychology is...Unique. We put up with crap and bureaucracy, months of nothing to do, just to get behind that stick one more time and make the jet roar with life. We think everybody is like us. We have a drive for adventure that takes us across the globe for months at a time, because something within us tells us to be a part of whatever action is to be had, whether we agree with the politics of it or not. We are always looking to the sky with our mouths open, ignoring the simplicity (politely put) of our earthly environmental surroundings. Yet aside from the few female pilots that are in the squadrons with us, the women here seem to have little interest in the world of flight. They go through the emotional ups and downs of good and bad flights, learn all of our procedures to quiz us, all without any benefit to themselves other than that is helps their husband out. And because its important to him, its important to me. Suppressing the desire that seems to be within almost every womans heart to settle down in one place -- that preferably has a Target and a good mall--, have your husband come home every evening, and raise their kids in a normal home. Really, thats not too much to ask for. They stand by as we get drunk during Dining-outs, and laugh at all the inside jokes that they dont understand. They deal with the monotony of life when we go on detachments to Key West and San Diego.

I guess this has hit home with observing my sister over the past year of Nick's deployment. My brother and I are very much the same in terms of our drive to serve, and do whatever it takes to be good officers. Not that the Navy comes first, but we are driven to work and lead. I remember visiting my girlfriend at the time in the fall of '04 during Hurricane Ivan, and while I enjoyed being with her, was itching to get back to Pensacola. This made her angry (rightly so), but it was something I couldnt help as much as I tried to suppress it. We feel a compulsion to do our job, even if that job means checking in at 0730 for 5 minutes and doing nothing the rest of the day. Its completely irrational, but its the way I'm wired. Whereas my sister completely supports her husband, and always will, but just wants him back. And its the balancing of those competing desires, to see her husband fulfill his duty (as no doubt his drive to do so is part of her attraction to him) while also wanting to be in his arms again. Not being a woman myself, I will never truly understand what that feeling is like at the "heart" level, only that I can understand it at the "head" level -- and even then not so well. And I suppose this is best evidenced by the fact that when I talk with her about his potential future jobs, I aimlessly think about all the cool places he could visit in the intel business, while she just cares about him being home at 5 o'clock every night. Given this, I wonder what the wives thoughts are as they see a section approach pass overhead. If they are just nervous beyond belief, or if they wish they were up there too...Probably not the latter.

Which is perhaps the most amazing thing about these military marriages. Is that despite the incredible differences between the general psychological makeup between men and women, they last. This may be the essence of the paradox of men and women, that two seemingly opposites are the best suited to compliment and thus endure together. The Warrior in the truest sense finding captivation in Beauty, thus giving meaning to life beyond that of being a fighter. And that Beauty eventually enticing the Warrior to fight his battles, then come home to a home where he can enjoy the fruits of their sacrifice. In a weird way it all makes sense. Its a weird little world we live in. The things we put these women through, without even recognizing or understanding it. It definitely takes a particular type of woman. So here is to them. Not that it means much, cause it doesnt bring their husbands who are away home. Nor does it mitigate their loneliness in the midst of a town that cares little for the care of transient inhabitants. But I certainly admire them nonetheless.

Perspective

2006-10-31T15:07:00.000-08:00

With the midterm elections a mere week away, it is unsurprising that the media has whipped itself into a frenzy of predictions while partisans on either side warn of dire results for the nation if the other side wins. In typical fashion, this election has been punctuated by sex scandals, both in deed (Foley) and in word (Webb and Lynne Cheney), one-liners (Macacca and Kerry's latest misstatement), and pretty much everything else unrelated to real issues. All this unfocused adrenaline will likely culminate in litigation where the courts may well determine which party controls which chamber of Congress. And in all likelihood, the winner will claim an unquestionable mandate that their side has won and has a right, nay, a duty, to carry out its partisan purposes.

Except that in historical terms, this election is just a blip on the radar. How many of us remember the 1998 midterms? Or even the 2002 midterms? The Wall Street Journal had on its editorial page today a fascinating historical analysis of "sixth-year" midterms. And in an election year where upward of 25(!!!) House seats may change hands, this is peanuts compared to the hundred seats lost by an incompetent party during the 1800s. Talk about change. I suppose with all the money to be made and the ratings boon scandals are for Old Media, it makes sense that we are bombarded with constant analysis. But it is completely out of proportion to its significance. I bet after November 7th, most of America won't care who wins what, just as long as the parties SHUT UP! and govern. A recent poll was published that revealed that most Americans believe the government does too much. Tell that to both the GOP and Dems. I think a great platform that would likely garner quite a bit of grassroots support would be one that promised to vote against everything.

I remember my days in ASG at Northwestern. There were moments when I felt my only role in that organization was to make sure it didnt get too big of a head. We had our little corner of discontents that occupied the same space every week. I introduced zero pieces of legislation in the two plus years I occupied a senators post. I led the charge against more pointless legislation than I care to remember. The thing most politicians, both professional and amateur, seem to miss is that there doesn't always have to be something to legislate. Its okay to have a blank docket. I suppose this is why I am a fan of term limits...getting the professional class involved in Congress for the very reason that they will keep ties to their previous professions, and thus not see their sole purpose in living as acquiring a record as an "advocate."

But the point is that whether or not the Democrats take control of the House, and whether or not Nancy Pelosi takes the speakers gavel will likely have small historical repercussions (burn this post in 20 years, should this prove myopic...). And I guess the primary reason I am confident in this is that there are very few members of Congress with gravitas. There are no revolutionary, visionary leaders that will change the course of American history. I was flipping through channels this afternoon and came upon an MSNBC analyst saying that in years where a divided Congress was present, the economy usually did better, because due to the gridlock, less legislation was passed, thus causing fewer roadblocks to the efficient flow of our society. Which confirms to me my personal adage that a good day in Washington from my perspective is one where no legislation is passed. It seems kind of silly in retrospect that I have spent so much time and energy poring over article after article about this candidate and that candidate as columnists attempt to divine what will happen on November 7th. I suppose as a hobby, it is amusing and I have a litany of worthless political trivia stored in the recesses of my mind, but in terms of it having any lasting significance, there is very little value.

Thus as we come down the final stretch, I think it will be of little more than passing interest to me who is ultimately victorious. My buddies are still scattered around the globe fighting in a war. I'll get my wings eventually. My family will still love me, and I them. I will still long to continually build treasured friendships. I'll still be more happy that one of my good friends has finally found a butterfly-inducing love after years of waiting. That I get to go home for Christmas. That I get to pursue hairbrained ideas to my hearts content. None of this will change, just the party in power. I still plan on doing my election party, but I think instead of it being an evening of potential sadness because the GOP loses control of Congress, it will be an excuse to get a group of friends together to have fun. Would I be saying the same thing were the Republicans about to make huge gains? Who knows...but probably.

Expectations

2006-10-29T12:13:00.000-08:00

One of the most frustrating things about flight school is that I never seem to measure up. And this is not a feeling held exclusively by me, but by pretty much every other student here. Our instructors expect us to be perfect in everything we do, and if we aren't, we most certainly hear about it. Most debriefs would be anathma to modern purveyors of elementary educational theory, as our self esteem is utterly shattered, and we feel worthless as humans. And the weird thing is that most of it comes afterwards, as we internally criticize our performance more harshly than any instructor would dare to voice. Literally. There are the occasional good flights, but most of them are a list of things that you messed up on. The number of days Ive come home and wanted to quit is beyond count now, as I never seemed to be reaching the level of proficiency that they expect of us.

But I've come to realize something. If they didnt expect this out of us, we wouldnt be as good as we are. And we as tactical naval aviators are the world's best, without a hint of arrogance. I look back over the past two years of training and see how far I've come. I ran across my primary checklists for the T-34, and what I once thought was impossible seems like the easiest thing in the world. Its instinctual now. If they didnt make us strive for perfection (which no one ever achieves), but instead coddled us with some intermediate expectation, we would only perform to that level. We would be content with mediocrity. And for me, being competent in mediocrity is worse than failing, but trying, to reach near perfection. This seems to be the common thread among all of us. After failure upon failure, you wake up one day and realize your abilities are suddenly beyond reproach.

There was an article on CNN a few weeks ago about a study done about math students around the world. It found that in those countries where students self-esteem in math was lowest, their test scores were the highest. And in the countries where the students were the most confident in their abilities, their test scores languished. The former countries included Singapore, Japan, South Korea, etc. Whereas the latter, of course, held the United States. The Asian way of teaching math is to constantly be putting competence just out of reach of their pupils, ever searching for that elusive perfection. In the U.S., it seems like wrong answers are almost encouraged as long as the pupil feels good about failure. The level of expectation determines their ultimate level of competence. We no longer strive for objective success, but rather subjective success that is measured by emotional state. What folly.

It seems that this besets the modern American Church these days too. There is no objective standard for holiness that we expect anymore. Churches are places where everybody is accepted, and yea you might be doing wrong, but thats okay, because we are tolerant. Whatever happened to holding people up to their committments? Why dont we plop the scripture in front of parishoners, and say, you say you believe this? Fine, your goal is to live by everything this Book says. And if you dont, we will be there to help you along, but we won't let you give up. And we will continue to fall short. All of us. But our efforts in striving for perfection lead us to a greater understanding of what it is we believe. We wont accept half-hearted belief. Because no other institution on the face of the earth does.

I was talking to my sister the other evening, and I happened to mention to her that if my kids ever wanted to join the military, I would tell them to be Marines. This isnt to say that I will force them to go into the military, for I better than anyone know that success in this profession only comes with a deep internal drive and desire to do so. But if they do, I would point them in that direction. Anyway, she asked why, and my response was simply that they are unequovically the best. They dont have the easiest or most glamorous life. But they are the best. Why are they the best? Because they expect themselves to be. They expect themselves to be the most physically fit. They expect themselves to be the most clean and well-dressed. They expect one hundred percent effort all the time. And if its not delivered, they let the offending party know in no uncertain terms to shape up or ship out. She seemed somewhat confused that that was my only justification, but in my mind, that is all the justification needed to go down a certain road. If you dont set your sights on the near impossible, how do you expect to ever get there? And while we may ultimately fail in reaching our desired end state, it seems that by shooting for the stars, we end up higher than we would have had we only chosen to shoot for where we thought our capabilities ended.

Thus as I near the end of my flight school experience, the system seems to have worked. I am far from a competent fleet pilot, but the standards they have for us no longer seem out of reach. I have so much more to learn, but I wont, and can't accept anything less than near perfection. And it seems we all collectively hold each other to the same standards, even though we nearly always fail to meet them. But I suppose this is why we win force on force wars so handily. We never stop striving for improvement, and never settle for sub-par performance, even if we havent flown for weeks and weeks on end. A philosophy to live our entire lives by.

Internationalism

2006-10-08T18:14:00.000-07:00

Within a few months of each other, two world leaders who have helped transform two very important allies of the United States will be stepping down or already have stepped down from power. The first is the well known Tony Blair of Great Britain, and the second the less well-known (at least in the States) but stunningly transformational Junichiro Koizumi of Japan.

In the midst of the run up to the November midterms and the associated sex-scandals that seem part and parcel of any decent electoral campaign these days, it is quite unfortunate that these men have been given short-shrift by our media in retrospectively investigating the impact that their leadership has played.

Mr. Blair will be most well known for his support of President Bush during the run up and aftermath of the Iraq war. This is quite a legacy for a man who was once seen as the Bill Clinton of Great Britain, especially now that he, ironically (given the aforementioned association), is seen as President Bush's best friend internationally. Not since Margaret Thatcher and her transformational regime has a British Prime Minister held on to power for so long, and indeed, Mr. Blair seems to have done even better than the Iron Maiden by keeping the Labour party on top of the opposition Tories in the polls for an equal stretch. It is therefore somewhat interesting to note that many of his MPs were reluctant followers to this very popular leader. This is in great part due to Mr. Blair's Atlanticist tendencies as well as free-market adherence. He was instrumental in reforming the tuition structure of British public and private universities as well as limiting the power of unions. He also helped keep the British economy strong and outside the Euro area, which although not unpopular, was not especially well like by the more liberal elements of his party who sought more association with their cross-channel European brethren. With his replacement comes uncertainty in the relationship between British and US ventures, as Gordon Brown, Mr. Blair's successor, is known to be much cooler to the U.S. and President Bush. This could have wide ranging repercussions not only in the most pressing hotspot, Iraq, but also in areas of strain like Iran and North Korea. The Brits and the U.S. will in all likelihood always be close internationally, but with a change in personalities comes a necessary change in diplomatic tactics. It will be interesting to see how influential the Bush/Blair friendship really was in maintaining close ties, and how well Bush meshes with Brown.

Prime Minister Koizumi, on the other hand, has truly transformed his country in an unprecedented way. From economics to constitutional issues, his five and a half years in office have been utterly remarkable. Prior to his accession to power in early 2001, the Japanese economy had experienced deflation for some time, and was as stagnant as any developed economy ever had been. Through his economic leadership and push to make Japan a player on the world stage, Japan enjoyed some of its most dynamic growth in over a decade, and defeated the plague of deflation. There is still someway to go in completing the transformation of the Japanese system, but Mr. Koizumi has made significant inroads, not least of which was in Postal reform. On the international scene, he spearheaded the move to send, for the first time since World War II, peacekeepers from the Japanese Defense Forces abroad. This was a vast departure from the isolationist tendencies displayed since the end of WWII, and was met with much opposition at home. But the result was a vastly increased influence and credibility of the Japanese state on the world stage as an up and coming player. Mr. Koizumi also began a push to change the Japanese constitution to allow for foreign deployments of its military, in order that its desire to be a significant player on the global scene would be matched by action. He has not yet achieved this goal, but his ongoing popularity will undoubtedly help this become a reality. He has also been controversial, especially in his relationship with China, but as a friend to the U.S., he is matched only by Mr. Blair. Japanese-U.S. relations will likely not take a big of a hit as U.S.-British relations with the ascention of Mr. Koizumi's successor, but his personality and drive to make Japan a responsible, active international citizen will surely be missed.

The changing of the guard in these two countries will have repercussions for years to come. Change is always certain when it comes to democracies, but it behooves us as citizens to be aware of the challenges faced by the leaders of our allies. And when truly remarkable leaders emerge that change the face of their country, in turn affecting ours, we should pay attention. Our position as the only superpower sometimes leads to significant naval gazing on our part, but not understanding the goings-on outside our own small worldview will necessarily lead to myopic analysis of how to interact with and regard our allies. So here's to you Mr. Blair and Mr. Koizumi. The historical implications of the last five years will be just as much your legacy, good and bad, as that of our own President. I thank you for your service to your countries, and may they be blessed with leadership like yours in the years to come.