"My Fellow Americans..."

A letter to a retired Army Colonel who served 9 combat tours in Vietnam, with the 82nd Airborne and the Special Forces. When we met he wore a Human Rights Campaign equality pin on his chest next to a flag honoring the people of Vietnam. I appreciated his thoughtful, practical, ethical, humane approach to service in situations that have been everything but amenable to those qualities. It takes an extraordinary constitution to do the right thing when it is very difficult, inconvenient or unpopular. That, to me, is the definition of heroism. I wrote him recently...

Maybe I've been guilty of idealizing the American Military. I've studied their battlefield history. I've marveled at their pragmatic approaches to daunting challenges. I've imitated their calm approach to situations that would otherwise leave me unnerved. I've aspired to the courage of junior leaders shielding their troops from danger and incompetence. I've learned from the perspective and wisdom of strategic commanders who asked for trust from subordinates at difficult moments in exchange for integrity and leadership. I always thought somehow the best of America was represented among the ranks. Then I went to basic training.

Last year I enlisted deciding I'd talked enough, criticized enough, analyzed enough, from the safety and comfort of University. I entered Army Basic Combat Training. From the beginning I realized that this was not merely an education in battlefield survival, but an education on the country from which I claimed citizenship. I had been a blissful upper middle class beneficiary of the best of American institutions. I had never experienced loss, bigotry, or insurmountable incompetence. Growing up in Bethesda my dad told me stories, over bourbon and branch, of the racial divisions in South Carolina, of our family heritage that included slavery. My step-dad told me stories about the trials growing up in West Philly, the corrupt judges, cops, crimes. It was all a dinner hour abstraction usually with a punch line twist that made it all seem so quaint.

My first job in the Army was that of Platoon Leader for my Basic training class. I stood before my soldiers in formation one morning before chow, quoting the standard presidential opener. "54 of my fellow Americans" I thought to myself proudly.. We were blacks, whites, Asians, men, women, city thugs and country boys. At first we fought each other. We projected every stereotype we could muster with our limited racial experience and baggage in tow. Our parents had not raised us with the vocabulary and tools to be on a team with people unlike us. We were generally raised to gravitate towards those that look like us, talk like us and eat like us. But now we found a bigger enemy than each other. The wide brims of Drill Sergeants cast a long shadow like a thunderhead on the horizon. We learned that low crawls are more painful than compromise. We realized our differences were less important than our success. That our team was more effective than our ego.

But our differences were real. My brothers and sisters were not the ideal soldiers that I had hoped for. They were flawed, at times shortsighted and petty. Mostly they had stumbled into military service with no real intention of becoming a warrior. I saw cheaters. I saw selfishness and dishonesty and bigotry. It was all so counter to what we were supposed to be learning. It was all so short of our potential. It was all so reminiscent of the stories from old Philly, days gone by, when people were still poorly drawn caricatures of nepotism, issues I thought were past us. I learned the profound limitations of the large bureaucracy that is the American Military, famed for deeds in war, renowned for readiness in peace. I dealt with my disillusionment.

Kalhil Gibrahn wrote "Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain." I once enjoyed the blissful ignorance of the citizen. I could enjoyed that blanket of protection presupposing the competence and heroism of all who serve. But now I enjoy the privilege of an enlightened perspective. I see more clearly the dangers in the world. I understand the institutions that we develop to counter those threats.

I think now, more than before, I marvel at what we can accomplish. It's easy to do great things with great people, ample resources, and clear direction. It is more amazing to learn that no such conditions exist for our military, and maybe they never have. But we've still managed to get it together and accomplish objectives, despite our selves. I see the limitations of the institutions and the people more clearly now and some how come away more impressed with our abilities and more humbled by the task.

I learned that the ignorance that yields hate and mistrust towards Muslims or gays is a reality not just in mainstream society. Servicemen and women are a cross section of our society and carry with them the same bias and baggage they carried before they donned the uniform. I can't expect heroism from everyone to overcome all that they've ever known. But, slowly but surely, we seem to be taking two steps forward for every step back.

So please keep up your work. You have to keep educating, bridging gaps, and leading without a hopeless attitude towards the vast ignorance. It may seem like there is an endless supply of hate and fear but there is no alternative but to keep patiently teaching the basics. My Drill Sergeants taught me that lesson. Every 9 weeks a new hopelessly divided, ignorant, rabble arrives by bus at their barracks (with a few idealists thrown in there to cause trouble). But they unhesitatingly dig right in, teaching the same basics fundamentals over and over again, yielding soldiers, the heroes that I once idealized from a sheltered library back home. I always thought somehow the best of America was represented among the ranks. I do still, just differently.