The Disillusionment of Ranger: The Genesis

 Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters
cannot be trusted with important matters
--Albert Einstein 

I prefer to be true to myself,
even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others,
rather than to be false,
and to incur my own abhorrence
--Frederick Douglass 

In a room where people unanimously maintain
a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth
sounds like a pistol shot
--Czeslaw Milosz 

Scratch any cynic and you will find
a disappointed idealist
--George Carlin
______________________

The Disillusionment of Ranger Pt. II -- The Genesis. (This is an extension of Ranger's Disillusionment, PT I):

One of the most common comments heard in the Army is that it eats its young; here is one of those tales.

All Ranger ever wanted to be was a soldier, and his start was stellar. Number One cadet in his ROTC class, Distinguished Military Graduate, regular Army commission, Jump and Jump Master qualification, Ranger, and then onto his first assignment. But within four months of his first troop assignment, his career was over before it started. He was dinged on his first Officer Efficiency Report (OER), and for the next 44 years he has agonized over the question of why his Battalion Commander hated him, and/or why was he willing to kill him before I even left "shavetail" status.

Why? It's a small and pitiable story, but not unique.

As a Mortar Platoon Leader there was a lot of time spent planning and running range firing for the Battalion. This was one of my duties and I excelled at the task, but one day changed that -- the day that began my professional death. (Keep in mind that Ranger's Commission was Regular Army/ROTC, while the Battalion Commander was a West Pointer, if you think that matters.)

The Battalion was a bad luck unit as was the entire European Command at the time Ranger entered. The war was raging in Vietnam, and the seams were stretched tight. While his Platoon passed all of its tests and was ready to perform its tactical mission, the Battalion and Company failed its Command Maintenance Materiels Inspection (CMMI), and was dinged badly on several operational evaluation tests.

So we find our young LT on a freezing hillside in Germany with a range set up to familiarize and qualify the HQ Company personnel in their in their assigned weapon -- the M3 grease gun, a .45 cal submachine gun assigned to support personnel found in the support platoon of HQ Co. This was simple, clear and unambiguous job, until the S-3 (Operations Officer) and Battalion XO (Major) drove up.

The S-3 and XO directed Ranger to pencil in all the personnel requiring training because they were preparing to be re-tested for the annual CMMI (as the Battalion failed their first attempt.) Failure usually equates to Battalion Commanders being relieved, or at least, not promoted.

So young LT Ranger stood before the S-3 and the XO who, in the name of our lord, the Battalion Commander, were directing him to pencil in the trainees as having received instruction which they had in fact, not, which meant he had a choice: either falsify official records, indicating that soldiers had received training that they did not receive, or to not lie on an official document. You can guess the decision made by an idealistic young LT unversed in Army politics.

Neither Infantry Officers Basic Course nor ROTC mentioned any scenario like this in either ethics or leadership training. As a result of the absence of a bootlicking unit in his education, his career died the day he chose not to lie, as did his hopes and aspirations. You may call him a fool, but the moral dilemma surrounding honor and integrity in the military forces of our nation remains the same for both him and others today.

In his 20 years of active and reserve duty, the "grease gun" scenario  was replicated many times, on much higher levels. In mobilization drills and exercises, there were major units certified for deployment which were measured with elastic yardsticks. Units were certified as combat-ready which could not pour piss out of a boot. (If you doubt this, look no further than current scandals concerning cheating, lying and corruption regarding the certification of nuclear weapons specialized units.)

It is a long way from that frozen hillside in a 1969 Army unit and our little submachine gun training to 2014 and nuclear surety problems, but they are the same issue. If you will lie about a grease gun, then what else will you lie about?

Lest you think these are isolated events, ask a veteran if they have their own "grease gun" story, for the issue is pervasive and universal. The upshot is, I never again believed any official, unofficial or any other word uttered by any government or military official. I know the system is not run on honor.

Ranger's disillusionment is insignificant in context, but it indicts the system through and through.

[Cross-posted at RangerAgainstWar.]

Trial before Pilate

The generation of this post came from two very different parents, as should all fertile offspring. The first was a comment on the earlier post at Graphic Firing Table about celebrity culture in general and as it applies to Lance Armstrong, the cyclist, in particular. The other was a part of a long conversation I've been having with a friend, a terrifically bright and vital woman, about perception and truth and the relationship between them.

First, the comment. The poster, a friend of ours who is a cyclist himself and is married to a fitness fanatic and passionate cycling addict, said:

"...your discussion of the Lance's bad behavior was the final straw, and I just took off the yellow bracelet I have been wearing for months...as I read the coverage, and read about Kristin Armstrong I felt less and less happy about wearing the symbol of somebody I increasingly thought of as callous and egotistical. The details of his breakup with Sheryl Crow just crystallized my distaste for Lance's character."

So the revelation of Lance's ruthlessness put an end to both the bracelet and the respect.

The discussion revolved around my friend's concept of Truth as something universal and immutable, a sort of Truth as Godhead, that exists as an object beyond, immune to and unaffected by, human perception.Its a good discussion, and well worth the recounting but beyond what I want to talk about here. But I want to use it as a frame to hang my subject on.

Because in this case the is a central Truth to the matter: the entirety of the personality of Lance Armstrong himself.

This is utterly unknown and, more to the point, unknowable, to any of us; my friends, me, you the reader. We cannot know Lance Armstrong as he knows himself, as his family and friends know him, even as those who are acquainted with the man know him. What he likes, what he doesn't, his strengths, his failings...beyond the crayon drawing of the man presented in the public media we have, like my friend's concept of abstract Truth, no way of understanding LA through inquiry or perception.

We can observe, assess and judge what we see as aspects of the man's personality. And I have, and did; saying that, while I respect the man's athletic skills and his tough struggle back from cancer, his treatment of the women in his life leaves me cold, and less that enamored of him as a husband, fiancee' and lover.

But, that said, those things don't lessen his skill. They don't detract a bit from his courage.

And they don't affect his stated belief, through his Lance Armstrong Foundation, "in life...in living every minute of it with every ounce of your being...in energy: channeled and fierce...in focus: getting smart and living strong. Unity is strength. Knowledge is power. Attitude is everything."

As someone who has been shot at, well, Lance, no, attitude isn't everything - windage and elevation make a difference. But let that pass.

The thing is, the yellow bracelet can mean different things, and I would say that it may mean more, or less, or just different things than the man himself.

If you're wearing a Livestrong bracelet to symbolize your fight against cancer, or someone's hope for recovery and survival...or as a way of expressing support for the man as a cyclist and a champion, then it seems to me that revelations of the man as a man, husband, father, partner really don't dim the brightness of that little rubber band. You can support the man as an athlete, or as a cancer survivor, without admiring or respecting his romantic or sexual ethics.

But if you're wearing it as some sort of general show of affiliation or association with Lance Armstrong the man, well...

...then you're probably wearing it for the wrong reasons.

Lance Armstrong is no different from any of the other strong, glib and pretty people we "meet" through the electronic media. His strength cannot strengthen us, his prettiness gild us, or his fame enhance us. His intelligence doesn't make us wiser, his wealth make us richer. We are who we are regardless of our wish to cover ourselves with a tiny corner of the mantle of his celebrity.

Sadly, we live surrounded by the notion that none of the realities in the above paragraph are true, but we are smaller and lesser for believing them. When Pilate asked "What is truth?", he meant to pose a conundrum, not state a contemporary confusion. But more and more, I believe that we in 21st Century America are truly confounded separating our perceptions from reality, belief from fact, and the cold truth from warm and inviting lie.

(crossposted from GFT)