Morning Thoughts: February 26, 2018

Some decisions in life are easy. I decided to marry my wife the instant I saw her sashaying toward me, her long red hair “just a’swinging.” That was the very first time I ever saw her. When she gave me that, by now well-known, “what the hell are you looking at?” look, I knew I had made the right decision.

Some decisions are simple but complicated. I had just as soon not have entered the military when the time came. I thought I was doing just fine. It got complicated when the United States Department of Defense inserted itself into the equation via the Draft Board in my hometown. Since my father was no physician, attorney, banker, or fourth generation patriarch, there was no arguing with the members of that dreadful board.

It was simple, though, to decide what branch would receive the honor. I had long revered the United States Navy. When I was fourteen, an older cousin came home from four years of service telling of what sounded to me like the rip-roaringest, goddamdest, gut-bustingest, fun-filldest time a person could have and not get arrested for it. It spell-bounded me for sure.

I could, at that age, imagine the seas swelling beneath me and the salt air putting hairs on my chest with each breath. I imagined walking the streets of ports of call, the local girls “getting the vapors” just looking at me in that dazzling white uniform. I longed to reach the age at which my folks would allow me to quit school and enlist. I was in a state, so to speak.

I grew out of it, gradually discarding all the recruitment material I had collected. I set my mind on more civilian goals. But when the aforementioned draft board intervened, I retained enough of my boyhood enthusiasm to seek out a nice young man in one of those white uniforms. He assured me that I was just the sort of person they—the Navy—and he, were looking for. He painted such romantic visions of romantic seaports, bravely weathering rough seas, and sharing sunrises with flying fish that I was sold.

“Give me a fast ship,” I said, “for I intend to go in fun’s way.”

When my beloved Navy handed me orders for Vietnam instead, I had to another decision to make.

I was stationed in Monterey at the time, but on a weekend jaunt to LA, I met some people who offered a way to get me to Canada, undetected. Our northern neighbors didn't indulge in such things as unprovoked wars. I pondered that decision for days. Then one morning, sitting on the edge of The Great Tide Pool in Monterrey, I made the decision to play the hand life had dealt me, for better or for death. See an only slightly fictionalized account of it here.

Now, each time I see our current president’s face on television, I realize that, if a certain party hadn’t sashayed by me once, I would still be regretting that decision I made long ago with the wide Pacific Ocean beckoning me toward the unknown.

Decisions force us to learn that we must, in life, take the dismal along with the sublime. Our strength to face the future, in fact, is tempered by the fires of previous trials. We press on.

These mental meanderings result from the fact that the subject of my greatest decision and I face a trying and major task today. It will test us, but we will prevail. We are well-tempered, after all, and will face it together.

Someday, maybe I’ll have the strength and eloquence to talk about it. In the meantime, if you think you hate this Monday, you have no idea.

Advice: Never include a military
recruiter in your decision-making.