Missive From The Town Crier

"You can't handle the truth! This world has walls. Whose going to defend them? You? You have the luxury of not knowing what I know; that Santiago's death, though tragic, probably saved lives; that my existence, though grotesque to you, saves lives. Because in places where you don't talk about, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall..."

- Jack Nicholson as Colonel Harlen Jessup in the motion picture "A Few Good Men".

I was in the Army for five years, a rear-echelon computer programmer-analyst-instructor who basically "soldiered" from 7:30-4:30 every day, then went home and tried my damnedest to forget I was in the Army. Things you would take for granted are part of the military - such as going to the field for infantry maneuvers, formations, KP detail, guard duty, and daily barracks cleanup - were not even a part of my vocabulary, much less a part of my military existence. But my everyday duties took me around a lot of people in the military not unlike the hard-core motivated soldier's soldier portrayed by Jack Nicholson.

I remember before going into the military I could never stomach the film Patton (with George C. Scott in the title role). Every time the film came on I would tell myself that this time I'm going to sit and watch it and get through it no matter how repugnant I find the subject matter because I want to see why this is regarded as one of the best movies of its time. But every time, just as the movie was beginning, with Scott walking out in front of a screen-filling American flag at ramrod attention to give his military soliloquy, I'd lose it. At around the time he barks in a gravely voice, "American's love a winner; they will not stand for a loser," I would scream at the television, "FUCK YOU, ASS HOLE!!! EAT SHIT AND DIE!!!" and violently turn the television off. If there was any factual accuracy to the way Scott portrayed Patton, then I thought of the four-star armored general as a worse Nazi than Hitler - it was just happenstance that he was born an American and not a German.

After entering the military and going through the brain-washing indoctrination that is basic training, I realized that Patton was right; Americans just cannot stomach to lose at anything, much less war. The realization of this didn't really diminish how I thought of Patton - he was still a Nazi in American clothing in my mind, just much less of one. But now that I was a member of the military establishment it made him no less right. A few months after arriving in Germany for my first duty assignment I rented the film Patton and sat through the whole thing without blowing chunks (the title character notwithstanding, it really was a well-made film). Having been in the military, sitting through A Few Good Men was easy. I actually enjoyed the movie. But I could feel Nicholson's little courtroom soliloquy begin to make my blood boil in the same manner as Scott's (what kept me from exploding at the television in the same manner as with Patton was Jessup's arrest at the end). That having been said, and keeping in mind that Nicholson's character was fictional, Jessup was no less right than Patton.

To glean some greater meaning from what Jessup said, there are a lot of distasteful things people have to do in this world. And as overused as the clich is: Somebody has to do it.

Even in everyday society, seemingly undesirable tasks have to be done by somebody. What just recently dawned on me is that as a society we understand that there are repulsive things that have to be said and done, we just want somebody else to do them. It leaves us with a sense of purity, of taking the moral high-road, of keeping our hands clean.

When you are in charge of anything, making tough decisions that affect the success or failure of what you are in charge of can be unpleasant at best, disheartening at worst. I manage a county league co-ed softball team. And considering that most of the people I coach are close friends, deciding who plays and who sits, and even cutting people from the team is tough. Last season I had to run through a gamut of emotions; I had to cut my best friend's girlfriend, and remove my starting pitcher from a game for the first time. This season it won't get any easier; I had to cut my best friend entirely, and tell my pregnant starting pitcher, even though she is willing to, that she can't play this year. And every year because of my intense, competitive personality I am typically the most disliked person in the league. I am fortunate that I receive the support of the rest of the team - as well as the team sponsor, who asked me to coach this team four years ago when we were awful - but I've come to the conclusion that not one of them would even be willing to step in my shoes and do what I do. Sure, they applaud what I do as manager, but it's easy supporting me from afar and not stepping up to do the nasty stuff. I find it interesting that as much as they endorse all that I do, every single one of them is glad that it is me and not them doing it, that my job - "though grotesque", to steal a phrase - is necessary...

...I'm not complaining, mind you. It's just that when these streams of consciousness hit me, I just have to express them. I love my team and my players, and I wouldn't trade in managing for anything.
But I have to wonder: Had I not gone into the military and learned any of this, would I have ever understood it?

David Kennedy
Editor

Copyright 1998 Accurate Letters Enterprises/Psrhea Magazine

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