Ripon College Days

Larry Malchow [Click to enlarge]

This is a very divisive time for America because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I do not wish to aggravate our social fracture by waxing pro-military, but I think it is important to acknowledge the unique nature of military service on this occasion. I hope to find some common ground where we all, despite our politics, might find some agreement on the nature of a veteran and his military service.

Veterans once served as soldiers. For convenience I use soldiers here to represent all military personnel. The word service describes the nature of a soldier's work; by definition it is work performed primarily for the benefit of others rather than for personal profit. This is the first element, I think, that distinguishes military service from most other professions. Certainly there are other jobs that result in good being done for others. Teachers and police are two examples, but it would be difficult to successfully argue that the main purpose of most work in a capitalistic society is not for personal profit. Military service is one of the few professions in which profit is not the main motivation.

This in and of itself does not make military service unique, however, so what might be other elements of military service that, when combined, perhaps will?

Physical and psychological hardship is certainly another distinguishing element. A soldier endures adversity, privation and even suffering at certain times, particularly during wars. I can give examples from my own career, but I am sure that others have endured worse hardships. I lived in steamy squalor for months in a wooden hut on the British equatorial island of Diego Garcia during the Iranian Hostage Crisis. We would deploy from there to the Persian Gulf in order to monitor any aggressive action by Iranian forces against commercial shipping. There were no amenities on the island. The Brit loos were simply outhouses. The showers were always ice cold. Coconuts dropped from the trees and pounded the tin roofs of our wooden huts all night long, or the rain did during monsoon season, and I just couldn't sleep. Sounds funny, I know, but try putting up with that day in and day out. Sand was everywhere, in my flight boots, my hair, my food, in my butt crack. It drove me nuts.

We were flying reconnaissance missions out of Africa at the same time. I was prescribed one quinine pill per day, a big pink horse pill, as a deterrent against malaria. I began suffering from a severe stomach disorder much like dysentery (which I experienced on another occasion); it was the mother of all stomach flu, and it lingered. When we returned to the island I saw the flight surgeon. "Oops," he said, "the bottle is supposed to say one pill per week. You would be dead in a week of quinine poisoning." And of course he certified me as fit for flying.

Did you know that every navy ship not in a maintenance cycle must be ready at all times to get underway almost immediately? That means when a ship is in port there must be enough personnel onboard who are skilled at running all shipboard systems. So the crew is broken into four watch sections, and every fourth day you go to work, stay on board that night and stand a four-hour watch in the middle of the night, then you work all day the next day before you go home. You do this every fourth day until you get underway, weekends included, then do it all over again when you return to port from sea. And watchstanding at sea is even more taxing. Watchstanding is rare in other professions.

Even during my "soft" shore tour between flying and ship tours, I stood a watch schedule with an intelligence collection team that looked like this: six days on and 80 hours off, the first two "days" being mid watches from midnight to 4 a.m., the third and fourth being eves from 4 p.m. to midnight and the fifth and sixth being day watches from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.. This schedule requires a "double back" on the third and fifth day. i.e. less than eight hours away before returning to work. Both the ship and shore routines are debilitating when done for many years. They mess up your biorhythms; they trash your biological clock and no respectable doctor considers them healthy.

I attended survival training in the desert, four days of starvation on only what you could find or kill in an area picked over by previous classes, then a full 24 hours in a mock prisoner of war camp where I endured beatings, humiliation and psychological abuse. This is the training all navy fliers must endure. It does not really sound all that bad, I guess, Americans jailing other Americans in a mock setting. I can tell you, though, that hunger is painful whether in training or not, and bruises are bruises are bruises.

Then you move your family lock, stock and barrel every two to three years, sometimes halfway around the globe, sometimes to areas where your appliances don't work, strange places with different ways, places where you must quickly learn once again how the world works around you.

Wartime is much worse. John McCain was held for years as a prisoner of war. He was deprived of food, sleep, medicines and exercise, and he was tortured. I cannot think of another profession that can claim hardship on such a scale for such lengthy periods as what soldiers endure, during war and peace.

A third element unique to military service is separation. It occurs often and for great durations. Separation is an experience so powerful in and of itself that I distinguish it from other hardships. Soldiers are separated from parents, relatives, spouses, children, friends and even normal society, for incredible durations, during peace and war. During crises, some battle groups are gone for a year. Soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq can be away for a year or more, then after returning home for a while can be sent back for another tour.

I was away from my family four of the first eight years of my marriage. You miss a death in the family, a birth, your toddler learning to walk, the big school pageant, the holidays. You miss the little things like bathing your kids and reading to them. For survival's sake, you become totally immersed in the present, in your surroundings, and you can actually forget the faces of loved ones, their voices, their touch. It hurts. And you worry about them. Soldiers are no different than any other people who barbecue in backyards or go to church on Sunday. Soldiers love and hurt and ache for their loved ones.

The final major element of military service I can think of is extraordinary risk. While on patrol, my aircraft experienced an engine fire, and we were lucky to be able to land it. The navy didn't have enough money for parachutes during this period, so I spent 2,000 airborne mission hours without one, another form of risk. I once slipped on deck as my destroyer was rolling in stormy seas and would have ended up overboard if not for an alert boatswain's mate. When you go overboard, it is easy to get sucked into the ship's propellers and, of course, easy to drown. I have landed in a jet in the middle of the night on the deck of an aircraft carrier, considered the most dangerous place on earth, and have been catapulted off of it. Another time I was lowered from a helicopter in a horse collar onto the pitching deck of a cruiser. The winch stuck, and I bounced hard for a few minutes against the helo (I remember my first thought, "This is a long way from Shakespeare class") before they could engage the winch again and lower the seriously acrophobic Lieutenant Commander onto the ship.

Sailors were lost overboard during my battle group deployment. I have lost friends in jet plane crashes. Even peacetime is fraught with danger when you're a soldier, and nobody is even trying to kill you. Imagine what war must be like. You risk your body, your health and ultimately your life.

I think that when you combine these elements of military service, lack of profit, physical and psychological hardship, separation and extraordinary risk, you end up with a profession that is certainly unique and arguably more demanding than any other. So why would anyone want to perform such service?

So they can travel to strange and exotic places, meet unusual people... and kill them? I have never met such a psychopath, and I have known many hundreds of soldiers. Because there is some Hollywood-like glory in serving? Such childish notions are quickly dispelled when your mind is turned to the daily grind. I have met many who joined for educational benefits and technical training. Nonetheless, most soldiers I know served because they believed they were giving a great gift to their nation and countrymen.

While I am very cognizant that some readers might not see nationalistic patriotism as necessarily the best form of humanism, I ask that we look beyond that for the moment and try to understand the soldier's primary motivation. It is to serve others in this era of an all-volunteer military, to serve so others do not have to. These others might be you.

What is a veteran? I do not think the answer depends on where you stand politically. Veterans were once soldiers who actually received very little from their societies in return for their pain, hardship, separation, risk and oftentimes health and well-being. They believed in their hearts that their sacrifice was a gift to others - to you. Where is the common ground where I ask us all to meet? Just here: you have got to respect that.

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