Old boots

A lot of ordinary things really aren't. Know how I know? Combat boots.

In a piece of fiction I once described something as "ordinary as an old boot." I thought of that recently when a picture of me showed up briefly on a National Guard website. It was a black-and-white snapshot taken at Grafenwohr, (West, at the time) Germany during one of my several REFORGERs, and what caught my eye was the combat boots I had on. They were the old style, the pair issued to me in 1980 in Basic Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Back then, the uniform was olive drab, not camouflage, and the boots were black.

What surprised me was that I instantly remembered every detail of those old boots. They were still black the day I threw them away, but only through a soldier's discipline. The leather was soft, but badly scuffed and cut. Most of the paint was worn off the eyelets, so they showed brass instead of black. The soles were faded to gray and worn smooth. Just an old pair of boots -- there have to be thousands just like them in attics across this country.

I remember clearly the first day I wore those boots. Our drill sergeant used a garden hose to fill them with water; his theory was that by marching them dry we would break them in in one day. As things turned out, I would march them dry frequently that summer, as we trained in the rain and in rivers and squelched down mud-puddled trails.

Dig around the tongues of those boots and you might find grass seeds from Korea, bug parts from Panama, pastry frosting from Belgium and dust from maybe 30 states. I wore them for about 15 years, in rotation with a couple of newer pairs. Me and those boots did most of the things soldiers can do. A lot of them I'm proud of, but some things, not so much. Some I still can't talk about; some I just won't.

I wish I still had those boots. They were a floppy, beat-up, sweat-stained scrapbook full of memories. That cut on the left toe? Busting brush with a machete is harder than it looks. The chip out of the boot heel? The rope was shorter than the cliff. The missing corners on both tongues? Field-expedient rifle-cleaning patches. The dark smear along the side of the sole? Don't ask.  

Those boots, in my memory anyway, capture the essence of my career. A lot of it was just training, but some of it wasn't. A few times I was aware of being involved in something significant, but most of the time it was just more duty in another obscure corner of useless geography. Some of the ops did what we planned them for, some didn't. At any one point, it didn't seem like much, but put it all together 25 years later and it spans Grenada and the Cold War and Panama and Somalia and both Gulf Wars. It's kind of impressive, even though I shouldn't be the one saying so.

I think our lives are like that; I'm not sure there's such a thing as an ordinary life. The locations might be just plain vanilla and the days might seem pretty mundane, but live enough of them and look what happens. Look at all those students taught or cars fixed or books read, look at what the kids grew up to be, look at the things you know and the places you've been and the wonders you've seen and the lives you've changed.

My grandpa was a farmer, retired for most of my memory. He was about as ordinary a man as you'd find, which means not very. He was a locally-renowned baseball pitcher who snuck off the farm to play on Sundays, a young hellion who drove way too fast. He was famous for his strength -- they said he could grab a bull by the horns and back it up. He plowed his fields with horses, and then tractors; he told of the day it rained frogs and fish; he remembered the first car ever bought in the county. Grandpa loved God, and he loved singing hymns. Even at the very end when he couldn't see or stand or even hold his head up, he still sang. I only realized when it was too late that he was one of the most fascinating people I knew.

It makes me think I should spend more time appreciating my life and less time wishing it was different. It makes me wish I had the trust of King David, who thanked God in Psalm 16 by writing, "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance." It makes me hope my kids will be smarter about it than I was.

The odds of that seem pretty good.

Respect - The Lesson of the Flags

Why does it seem that the most respected people don't care if they are, while others crave respect?

Respect is a complicated thing to get, in both the blonde and Rodney Dangerfield senses of the term. But earning it is critical personally and professionally.

These ruminations started this weekend when I was on a college campus and noticed that, while the US and state flags were at half-mast in honor of a fallen soldier, the Canadian flag was still flying high. I was taught that, on American soil, nothing flies higher than Old Glory.

Now, it's possible that Canada has claimed some sort of ambassadorial presence on campus, in which case it seems appropriate that the flags were flying in front of the cafeteria. But more likely someone made a mistake. Either way, it could be seen as disrespectful.

In younger years my response would have been immediate and hotblooded and, therefore, probably un-helpful. Instead, I found myself engaged only on an intellectual level. In other words, I didn't care an awful lot.

I didn't care because it felt to me something like a grown man letting his little brother sit in the driver's seat. I mean, does anyone think for a minute that the relative heights of our flags somehow meant we couldn't beat up Canada if we wanted to? It seemed like the kind of gentle indulgence the strong can afford.

But even though fear is a form of respect, it's not really respect if people act deferential just because you're bigger. Respect has more to do with agreement with or admiration for your values and actions. Every time some jobless teen-aged punk with his pants around his thighs and his hat on cockeyed gets in someone's face and says, "Don't dis me," I think, "Why, because you've done so much to earn our respect?" Fact is, I do dis him, because being tough isn't all there is to it.

So it's possible that the position of the flags was intended as disrespect. Even so, it's hard to see how that would improve if I got on my high horse and started firing off nasty-grams to everyone on campus with a public e-mail address. Being prickly doesn't seem like the right strategy to gain respect.

Besides, the flag itself is important only as a symbol. I put in a career in uniform based in part on the idea that people, even if they think differently than I do, should be free to express themselves in any legal way. To me, the fact that you can pour red paint on a flag in this country without the police playing the Symphony of the Batons on your head is all the proof you need that we are indeed the land of the free. In that context a paint-covered flag becomes a symbol of our tolerance and long-suffering. At half mast, beneath the Canadian flag, it seemed to me to be symbolic of our gentlemanly ability to not stand on our rights when it isn't important to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

To the extent we in our superior strength can continue to exhibit those traits of long-suffering, tolerance and chivalry, we will hold the respect of the world. If we start to default on our loans, throw our trash in other peoples' back yards, and beat up other countries for their lunch money, we won't.

It's good to remember that, be they flag or cross or corporate logo, whatever meaning our symbols have is derived from the actions we take in their name. That means that even in demanding respect we can diminish it. In that context we do well to think about our own names as symbols of our own personal brands. Do they garner respect? If not, why not? The answer has nothing to do with rank or wealth or power.

It's not unlike what Margaret Thatcher said about being a lady: If you have to tell people you're one, you aren't. In the same way, if you have to demand respect you don't have it. And you're not going to get it by flexing muscles or legalities. You get it by taking the high road, by behaving decently and honorably.

Hmmm . . . I'm beginning to see the problem As with so many other things, could it be we want the payout without putting in the work? Maybe we think people should respect us just because we're us, not because we've done anything in particular to earn it. That's true in a spiritual sense: We all have value derived from being made in the image of God, so we all deserve respectful treatment. But that general respect we extend to fellow humans as basic courtesy is different than being respected for the individuals we have become.

With all that said, I do think the things the Stars and Stripes stand for are worthy of respect, and I think for the most part our flag is respected around the world. And that's exactly why I'm willing to let this slight go by uncontested, whether it was an ignorant mistake or intentional raspberry. Because magnanimity is far more respect-worthy than virtuous self-righteousness.

Taxes

Guys, I hate to say it, but we need to pay taxes. And I think we need to pay more.
Call the medics for all those members of my Republican party who are currently coughing up a lung. And please don't think I've fallen under the sway of the evil liberals.
First off, none of the liberals I know are evil. But even if they were actually evil instead of just wrong, I'd be with them, at least partly, on taxes.
Maybe it's because around here we mostly pay as we go, but it seems like a pretty simple equation: Money in must be greater than or equal to money out or you pile up debt.
I know, a lot of America believes that money in only needs to be equal to the minimum monthly credit card payment, and even then you can always go to one of those debt consolidation places if things get too bad. But let's make believe for a minute here that the idea is to balance the checkbook, not just pile up stuff.
So anyway, if you have too much debt, you can't borrow anymore. And if you wait too long to pay your debt, the Sheriff comes and tells you your creditors get your stuff.
That's basically where we find ourselves as a nation. Too much debt, we can't pay it, and we're getting close to the point where China is going to want New Jersey.
OK, bad example. No one's going to complain if we lose New Jersey. But what if it was something we cared about, like the Mall of America?
I've been in debt, I'm currently not. I know what it took to get out of debt; I know what it takes now to stay debt-free. And I don't get how we can simply repeat "No taxes. No taxes" while we reel ever closer to the abyss.
Any person with reasonable math skills and a little rudimentary knowledge of our national budget knows that the only way we're going to get on top of this is with a combination of new taxes and spending cuts. Neither on its own is going to get us there.
OK, medics, haul out the defibrillator, because I'm about to cause more trauma to the GOP faithful: I'm inclined not to vote for any candidate who signs the Tea Party pledge. Not that I don't have some sympathy for their cause. It's just that their pledge is so rigid; it doesn't allow for changing circumstances. I think it's out of touch with reality because it allows only one option for four years of unknowns. And a candidate who signs it is either just as out of touch, or is a cynical manipulator doing what needs to be done to get votes. Either way, that's not my guy, or gal, as the case may be.
I'm looking for the one who says, "Look, I'm going to do what I can to keep a lid on taxes, but we're going to need more money if we want to keep a strong defense and keep Social Security intact." That's the only reasonable answer there is.
And I'm OK with that; in fact, I'm OK with paying more. They say the per capita share of our national debt is $2k each - I'd write that check today if a responsible government asked me to.
Until we Republicans are willing to say, "Hey, go ahead, cut the defense budget, and here's a couple more things we're willing to do without," then our choices are limited: more debt, or more taxes.
So I have a simple request for my party: Try an actual dialogue. Negotiate. Give and take. Work something out. We did it with the Koreans and the Russians and the Taliban. Surely we can do it with fellow Americans.