Just who do we think we are?

In the news today are stories dealing with slavery and health. Millions of people worldwide are affected while here in the United States we go about our business as if none of this happens. Our daily conversation is about tv shows, beach reading, and Caitlyn Jenner. We’re concerned about our children’s self-esteem, an odd array of issues that might have some negative impact upon the highly controlled comfort of our daily existence.

Today, however, it is big news that a new treatment for malaria will finally be available. This new vaccine has been in development for 30 years and will have a relatively small effect on the containment of the disease.  But, we lose a half a million lives to malaria each year. Those are lives just as important as our own,  just as valuable as our own,  just as significant as our own – but not as privileged as our own. Most of those lives are lost in Africa, most are not important consumers of the goods and services that enrich the better educated, wealthier, and luckier societies on this planet.

At the same time, we continue to struggle with other quite dramatic issues of inequality. Human trafficking is another topic that is reported on daily. It’s a $9 billion a year industry with about 27 million living in slavery around the world today. It’s a hundred and fifty years since slavery was legally outlawed in this country, but we haven’t figured out how to totally resolve issues of racial prejudice.

Our so-called advanced civilization is capable of all sorts of creative and imaginative endeavors. We have space travel, ubiquitous digital technology, fine arts, literacy and health standards (sort of) and many other measures to make ourselves feel good about ourselves. We have God on our side to justify our opinions and outlook. But, we cannot find a way to live in a way that respects our fellow human beings.

Our luck in having been born in the right place, in the right family, with the right opportunities, and the right privilege does not give us the right to ignore and disdain those who find themselves trapped by geography and political history.

Winter at the Navy Recruit Training Camp in Great Lakes, Illinois - 1966

My departure to Great Lakes Recruit Training Camp from Buffalo on February 3^rd, 1966, marks the first, last, and only time that I volunteered for anything in the Navy. There were 30-40 of us at the induction center and, just as we were about to leave for the train station, they said that they had a handful of airplane tickets and would any of us like to fly. My hand was raised in a millisecond. Upon arrival at Chicago's O’Hare airport we learned that we would have to wait for transportation to Great Lakes. We were directed to an out of the way corner – on a lower level as I recall and told to sit on the floor while we waited. Many long hours later we were transferred. I think that we arrived at Great Lakes at about the same time as the guys who took the train.

On the day that I departed for Great Lakes, Illinois, there was 43 inches of snow on the ground in Buffalo from storms in the preceding days. At Watertown, N.Y. (on eastern end of Lake Ontario) there was over 100 inches of snow with food and water being brought in by National Guard helicopters. So, you might understand why I might have wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. It was not unusual for trains to be stranded or to be without heat, etcetera.

As I recall, the temperature in Buffalo that day was near zero while at Great Lakes it was 30 below.  My first “rude awakening” in the Navy came when they took away my extra heavy wool socks and substituted their ultra-thin nylon socks that neither wicked away moisture nor provided any insulation. Then they introduced us to the concept of standing “at ease” outside in ridiculously cold temperatures while waiting to get into the mess hall – waits that were commonly 40 to 50 minutes.

When, finally, we were able to eat, or fuel up – to consume the necessary calories to provide needed energy (body heat!) –  there was barely time to warm up before we had to rush off to the next scheduled torture. Immediately after lunch, we were always scheduled to be in an overheated classroom where the indoor heat was around 80 degrees. After freezing outdoors and then loaded with carbohydrates, a peaceful nap would have been the appropriate activity. Instead, we would find ourselves taking a test – the outcome of which might cause us to be “set back” for a couple more weeks of boot camp punishment.

They would project two questions at a time on a slide screen, with the slide projector 

allowing about 6 seconds to read the questions and fill in the multiple choice answer sheets. I can’t tell you how many times I would snap out of a doze to find myself 2-3 screens behind and needing to guess at a half dozen questions. This was really scary because I hated boot camp more than just about any experience that I had had in life – certainly to that point at least. I had no idea how I could possibly survive if I had to spend another minute at that place. Yet, it was impossible not to fall asleep during these important tests – and not just one time. You might think that the realization that one would have after snapping out of such a dozing experience would be enough to prevent it happening again. Well surprise, surprise! It might happen two or three times during a single exam. Had we been fighting a war in trenches dug in the floor of old, stuffy, overheated buildings in northern Illinois during the coldest of winters, there is nothing that would have prevented me from being killed many times over.

Vietnam era Navy boot camp was meant to be preparation for the challenges of the war in Vietnam and the Cold War. It had been modeled on World War II practices with very little understanding of the value these practices might have 20 years later. The idea was to break a recruit down, and then rebuild the "man" with strict military discipline and esprit de corps. 

Prior to increasing our military forces during this time, the Navy’s boot camp had taken 3 to 4 weeks less time. The program was stretched to greater length without any significant understanding of how that time might be filled. Another problem with this concept was that the implementation of the plan was left in the hands of small-minded, power hungry, people who had been extracted from tasks they were incompetent at and given another where they would further demonstrate their inadequacy. The discipline of psychologically breaking a person, and then reconstructing that person into a stronger individual with the capacity to perform with military precision is not a simple task to leave in the hands of idiots.

I came out of boot camp in far worse physical shape than I had entered. I had been an athlete and could do all the push-ups, sit-ups, etc. that were required. I was a good swimmer and athletic enough for whatever they threw at us. Well, not really – that silly goose-step marching that they wanted us to do in order to look a certain way was just not natural. After 11 ½ weeks, I had such horrible shin-splints that I could barely walk. I think that my legs hurt for nearly the whole time that I was job training in Pensacola. 

The summer in Pensacola seemed like R & R after winter in Great Lakes.