Growing Up Southern: September 15, 2017

They say the “Greatest Generation” gave up its present for our future. I think of that a lot. Fate has placed one of those great ones into our care, a saint who now requires constant supervision. If paying back a debt requires sacrifice, so be it.

"I've had a good life," she says.

Caregiving now requires of Brenda and me that one, or both of us, is with our ward at all times. We don't have the option of traveling anywhere together, just the two of us. We now know how our parents, one of whom is that ward now in our care, must have felt when we were helpless children. In each of our cases, our parents would have no more left us with a babysitter than they would have rented us out to a textile factory. Care was a constant obligation.

Life can be confining. People sometimes laud us for our sacrifice, but, to us, it is simply something you do. Just as you can’t refuse to take a breath, you can’t refuse responsibility. What you can do is live a life of pleasures gained from what some would call the mundane, unimaginative, or uninspiring.

Something like enjoying, together, the colors of a forest changing tones just before dusk.

Something like helping one another repair an old tractor that has given faithful service for over 50 years.

Something like making a reference to a mutually revered book or movie, such as, “Gee, people are driving just like the race scene from On The Beach. Remember that?” Or, one watching Rebecca for the 20^th time simply because the other loves it so much.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. We miss walking along the seashore together after having boiled a pot of shrimp and feasted “bigly.” We miss walking the streets of Washington, D.C. and feeling the flow of history coursing through us. Cannery Row, San Francisco, Gettysburg, Chichen Itza, Fallingwater, Chicago … we miss them all.

But one can’t always pick and choose in life. We believe that those are the happiest who can find beauty in a fallen leaf, joy in sharing a good book, or comfort in recalling old friends and family members that are no longer with us. Sometimes, that is all that life is willing to grant us.

Young and ready for life

Reconciliation: 24

Everyone makes decisions. Some are more horrific than others. This month, back in 1944, young men their 20s were facing dreadful choices. Last evening, that came to mind afresh. We watched Twelve O’clock High, the classic Gregory Peck film, and it brought to mind something told me by the late Hal Naylor, a precious friend and hero.

Leaving college during World War Two, Hal became pilot of a B-17 flying from England to Germany before his plane was shot down during, if I recall, something like his sixth mission.

He told me how the young pilots of the squadrons faced one faithful decision even before leaving. They could take off and fly in the opposite direction for some time in order to gain altitude before turning and heading toward the German anti-aircraft emplacements in France. This improved survival odds but expended precious fuel.

Alternatively, they could head straight across the English Channel into enemy fire before gaining relatively safe altitude, but be assured of enough fuel to return to base. In the Eighth Air Force alone, 26,000 did not. Their duty almost rose to the level of suicide missions. I have read where, though they selected volunteers who were small in stature for the job, the space allotted a ball-turret gunner didn’t allow room for a parachute. Hal told me the pilot and co-pilot spaces were so cramped that they tied parachutes to their legs in hopes they could don them if they had to exit.

Decisions. Sometimes I think of the young men and women and the decisions they had to make in those days when I read where modern college students must have “safe places” where they are protected from hearing thoughts and ideas that don’t coincided with their world view. That would probably amaze a nurse who had faced the horrors of medical triage after a battle.

An amazing fact is that, today, less than one-percent of Americans will ever serve in the military. They will never face decisions like having choose between attempting to land a crippled plane and save wounded comrades, or abandoning their craft over the English Channel.

Those who have faced the ultimate sacrifice, those “happy few” as Shakespeare called them, probably have a different view of life because of the experience. The awarding of trophies of excellence to every member of a children’s sports league must seem a little tedious to a “grunt” who had to write that blank check on his life, payable to us, in order to wear the coveted Combat Infantry Badge.

Further, the fact that so few serve, in my opinion, opens all Americans to the danger that we will be drawn into useless wars that will, at first, only affect the children of others. That such adventures may eventually affect us all seems to be lost on so many. If it doesn’t affect me, what do I care? It seems to be more important that I select the best cell phone plan. I read where most of us cannot locate, on a map, the place where the last American soldier died in combat.

Sacrifice? Has it become an obsolete concept? Today we will pay service of some sort to the fallen B-17 crews, along with the sailors, infantry soldiers, medical personnel, and desert fighters who paid the awful prize for serving our country. Will our main decision be what beer to bring to the picnic? A much better decision would be to choose to become aware of the issues facing our great land and to serve, in whatever capacity we can, to solve them.

It should be an honor to serve out country, but any death in a war is a tragedy.

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
- William Shakespeare

Man Overboard

Yesterday was a fun day. I dined with one of my dearest and best friends for free at one of the local restaurants offering lunches to vets. We reminisced about old times, the uncertain future, and just how happy we were to be there.

Later I started thinking about memorable adventures. I had quite a few in four years, many of them after I returned from the Orient and went aboard the USS Hunley for a couple of years. It was on the east coast and I learned, to my dismay, that they hated west coast sailors, particularly ones with certain service ribbons. So … they gave us the lowest jobs on the ship, or so they thought. I ended up being a Bosun’s Mate.

I loved it.

There was this one time. We were at sea and they decided to have a “man-overboard drill.” Since I was coxswain of the Admiral’s Barge, they decided somehow that I was senior and should coxswain the lifeboat.

Oh wow. The photo shows us being lowered over the side. I’m the one aft with his arm sticking out to grab the lowering lines.

Now. You see these shots of ships at sea and you think, "How peaceful." Not really. Those waves were about nine feet from peak to trough and it was a little boat. The ship would disappear into the tr when we descended and reappear at the peak. We struggled toward the “man-overboard dummy” that was also appearing and reappearing. The ship, on the other hand, was a little farther away each time we caught a glimpse.

Then the engine died.

We had an officer with us but he was bent over a gunnel puking.

We had an engineman on the craft but he was the second dumbest man on the ship.

We had several Marines with loaded weapons (what for I don’t know, sharks maybe) but they were puking on one another and waving their rifle muzzles in our faces.

As if all this weren't unnerving enough, we were bouncing around like a kernel of popcorn.

The ship was drifting farther away.

I thought I could hear the dummy yelling for help.

While I was mentally computing the distance to Cuba, the engine caught. We grabbed the dummy and motored back.

Then our troubles really started.

Getting back aboard called for inserting pins into bollards at each end of the boat. One of those pins is what the lad, forward at the bow, is trying to grab. The pins were attached to lines that would then hoist us aboard.

Remember, the waves were about nine feet deep, or high—depending on which way we were bouncing.

Also know this. It was right after lunch and they were cleaning the galley. There are these things called scuppers on the side of a ship where they discharge waste.

Thanks to my shipmate and FB friend
 Sidney Bussey for the photo.

Yep. You guessed it. In addition to the sick passengers, we were now being bombarded with partial heads of cabbage, uneaten meals, and other delicacies.

We stopped for three minutes to give thanks that this adventure was playing out on the port side of the ship. I shan’t tell you what the scuppers on the starboard side discharged.

Well, we made it or I wouldn’t be here to relate this adventure. I was somewhat a local hero although it was observed that, after several failed attempts at grabbing the dummy in the rough water, I solved the problem by landing the boat athwart his lifeless form. Although it might have been bad for his health, it facilitated recovery. Besides, a real person could have been expected to get the hell out of the way.

I was happy to get back to motoring the Admiral's wife and her friends around Charleston Harbor. As an aside, they always had a nice meal aboard of chilled chicken and white wine with beer chasers. As we deposited them at the main naval base pier, the precious lady would always say with a wink, "Now 'Boats' (they give us this honorific), "You do know how to dispose of the leftovers properly, now don't you." That's when I learned the benefits of saying, "Yes ma'am."

But back to the man-overboard drill. Did I learn a lesson? Yes. Being able to find humor in situations is part of the coping skills that four billion years of evolution has provided us. Luckily, we had them, the coping skills I mean.

We can only hope these younger brothers and sisters do.

"Youth is wasted on the young." - George Bernard Shaw

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