Semper fidelis

Semper fidelis

I truly enjoyed a recent New York Times op-ed column by Doris Kearns Goodwin, entitled “Defeat Your Opponents. Then Hire Them.” I have long admired the author’s scholarship, and the ease with which she enriches history with a dash of psychology. This particular article happened to strike a timely personal note.

A week or so before reading it, I had been driving on the New Jersey Turnpike when one of my tires suddenly blew out. Fortunately, I was near an exit. I pulled in to a gas station with my smoking, pancaked tire, grateful to have made it. But the station attendants categorically refused to change my tire. I suspect they didn’t know how. One pointed to a man standing nearby.

With some trepidation, I approached him, asking if he worked there since I was looking for someone to help me change a flat tire. In a rich Southern accent he answered, "I don’t work here, but maybe I can help you, ma'am. I notice you have a Marine sticker on your car. Are you in the Marines?"

Wow! What a case of mistaken identity. I was wearing faded green sweat pants and a t-shirt, with my trusty high-topped grey-green Merrells. Maybe that helped to complete this grandmom’s disguise as someone courageous and always faithful. "No," I hastily corrected the misimpression, "it is my nephew who is a Marine."

"Oh," he said, with a friendly smile. "I am Navy and I have great respect for the Marines." We walked together toward my smoking tire. Then while he deftly found all that he needed in my car’s trunk and proceeded to exchange the dead tire for a live "doughnut," he shared his story.

My modest rescuer is a reserve Naval pilot, who had years of career service including tours in Desert Storm, Afghanistan, and the current Iraq war. He enjoyed every minute of his overseas service. Since retirement, his day job has been to fly and manage the maintenance of a corporate jet. Sadly, that "great job" would be ending the next day, the plane grounded because business is suffering.

So this perfect gentleman had taken a walk from his motel to think about what comes next for him. He has an opportunity to go back to active duty. He would love to go overseas again. He has always wanted to serve his country and deeply admired the military. He has a "very supportive wife, herself a child of the military," and a young son. They live in the South where he was born and raised.

Predictably, he would accept no gift of gratitude from me, and only reluctantly agreed to allow me to send some books to his son. The fact is, I had happened upon a generous man who could not only change any automobile tire, but was completely versed in doing the same for jet airplanes. In a gentle way, he indicated that his mission in life is service, in the broadest sense of that term; and he was proud to have been able to be of some help to me.

What does all this have to do with Doris Kearns Goodwin’s sage political advice? Everything. The tire episode was something approaching an epiphany for me. I do have family members (though not blood relatives) who have voluntarily served in the Air Force and the Marines, some who still do. I love and admire them; but live in a very different ideological world. Crudely put, they are "red-staters" and I am all blue. I not only oppose the current war, but was a vocal young peace-nik during Vietnam. During Desert Storm, I chastised the military in a letter to the editor for routinely deploying two parents in families with young children.

With an academic, Eastern seaboard mindset, I certainly don’t consider the term "liberal" defaming. What is more, I am under the illusion that I am an independent thinker. But today, I couldn’t agree more with Goodwin’s implied caution about being so narrow-minded that we shoot ourselves in the feet. Not only must each presidential candidate be open to drawing on the wisdom of opponents, we, the voters, need to be reminded that this isn’t a recreational rivalry like the Yankees vs. Red Sox (although I know Doris Kearns Goodwin could never agree with me about which to cheer!). We must urge our leaders to follow the examples that Goodwin cites, of past presidents who drew on the gifts of strong leaders without regard for ideology. This America belongs to all of us after all, to be protected in any way we each can.

August 11, 2008