D-Day 75th Anniversary Next Week: Cold War Follows

Family Gravesite of Major Richard "Dick" Winters

One of the 9,000+ graves at the US War Memorial above Omaha Beach

On June 6 we will be marking the 75th Anniversary of D-Day, the beginning of the end of Nazi Germany. With the demise of Nazism came the longest stretch of peace in the history of Europe: no shooting wars between European countries since the spring of 1945.  

The peace was certainly tense, and included the Balkan slaughter and atrocities, but it held. Along with millions of other Cold War veterans, I was part of keeping the Soviet Union from expanding further. And, to the surprise of everyone who lived through it, we Cold War soldiers saw the Soviet Union totter in 1989 and collapse in 1991. 

NATO was at the center of the long era of peace. NATO expansion after 1991 seemed to offer more peace and stability, but now the NATO frontline states really are on the front line, not in danger of direct invasion, but of takeover through political terror, insurgency and cyber attacks.  

I hope Europe remains at peace long after I am gone, but I would not bet on it.  Just as nearly all of the veterans who stormed the shores of Normandy have passed on, the long era of peace that was our combined legacy is crumbling.  

They won a great victory for all of us, we held the line until the Soviet Union crumbled and now we will have hope NATO holds together for our children and the future of the world. 

Draft Dodging, A Matter of Honor

In 1993, President Bill Clinton spoke at the Vietnam War Memorial. A large group of Vietnam War veterans were in attendance.  As soon as the President began speaking, they stood up and turned their backs.

I agreed. Every man who dodges the draft lets another man serve, and possibly die, in his place.  I have never voted for a draft dodger. Which means since 1992, my only choice has been the candidate who served, or was too young to be drafted.

In 2008, I had a choice. I could have voted for either candidate. I chose the one who did not have Sarah Palin for a running mate.

Every other year I voted for the honorable man or woman regardless of party. There was only one.

Today the veteran and Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg called out President Trump as a draft dodger.  He was right to do this and brave.  Whether he wins the nomination or not, Mayor Pete is the best candidate in my opinion. Here is the video.

So Mayor Pete and I agree that a man who dodged the draft, who let another man service and maybe die, is not fit to be Commander in Chief. We think it is a matter of honor.

On Memorial Day, my son Nigel and I will go and visit the grave of Major Dick Winters--the soldier that I admire most for his service and his life.

And yet, the vast majority of Vietnam War veterans, men who were despised by draft dodgers, support the current President. The same men who despised Bill Clinton cheer the sleazy billionaire who said his Vietnam was avoiding STDs. If they saw draft dodging as a matter of honor, they could not have voted for the man who could not remember which foot had bones spurs.

Some civilians ask me about honor in the military.  I answered more confidently before 2016, now I have to say we soldiers are just like everyone else.  The best of us are amazing, the rest of us are just people. 

Mennonite Warriors: Pacifist Killers

Dunkard Mennonite Seal

In the early 80s, when I first lived in Lancaster County, I was a tank commander in a Reserve Armor unit based in Reading, Pa. One of the soldiers, a tank gunner, was a Dunkard Mennonite who told his family that he was a medic. This odd young man bought "Soldier of Fortune" and other gun and mercenary magazines. When we were in the field, he talked endlessly about various ways to kill with his bare hands. He owned many knives and liked to talk about strangling the enemy with piano wire.

M60A1 Main Battle Tank, Not an Ambulance

He wanted to remain in his community so he kept his real job and interests to himself. But he loved being a combat soldier, and training with combat soldiers, even if his family thought he was a medic.

Lancaster is very conservative, about 80% Republican outside the city of Lancaster, but also very Mennonite and Amish. So there are a lot of pacifist conservatives.

Recently, I overheard a Mennonite farmer who never served in the military talking about the coming Civil War caused by the "Liberals" who are pushing the nation further into sin. His definition of sin is, of course, things Liberals do. He clearly relishes the possibility of Civil War and talks about it like the tank gunner used to talk about piano wire. He has his military-style weaponry ready for the Liberal onslaught.

These guys were brought up to turn the other cheek, but have secret lives in which they are warriors, at least in their own minds.

It's not that Mennonites don't own guns, all the Mennonite schools close for the first day of deer hunting season, just like every other school in Lancaster County. But the guns are for hunting, not weapons of war.

Both Amish and Mennonites were hated during the draft for their Conscientious Objector status. They got rich during World War II.

F in the Middle Acronyms: Military and Civilian

In 2007 I re-enlisted after almost a quarter-century as a civilian.  I quickly started learning and re-learning acronyms for everything.  My kevlar helmet was an ACH not simply a helmet.

ACH, or helmet

In the 70s and 80s as a tank commander I was always looking for BFRs to keep my driver from hitting them and knocking the track off the tank.  BFR?  Big Fucking Rock. I actually said "Driver Left, BFR."

BFR, hazard to tank tracks

If I was asked to do something beyond my capabilities I said NFW: No Fucking Way.

A few months after I joined my high-school sophomore daughter Lisa said in a casual way that Claire was be BFF.  I had not heard the civilian version of that acronym, so thinking Army, I assumed she was saying, "Best Fucking Friend."  I was kind of surprised that she would use that acronym to describe her friend and said hesitantly, "BFF?"

Lisa said, "Right. BFF. Best Friends Forever." She looked at me, seeing me smile as she spelled out the acronym. "What did you think it meant?"  I told her. We laughed.

The year before she went to see the movie "Jarhead" with some of her soccer teammates. When she came home she said, "Dad! You didn't tell me the right words to the Yellow Bird song." I admitted I changed the words.

My 66th Birthday--Life is Very Different from Past Decades

Ten years ago today, I boarded an Air Force C-17 Cargo plane in Kuwait for a half-hour flight to Camp Adder, Ali Air Base, Iraq.
My 56th birthday present from the Army was a lovely new home in something like a shipping container on Camp Adder. I would share that two-man room in a Containerized Housing Unit (CHU) with Sgt. Nick Black Smith until January of 2010.
When we walked down the ramp of the C-17 the 120-degree heat and blazing sun gave us a preview of life for at least the next six months. Even Iraq cools off in November.
On my 46th birthday I was a Communications Manager for Millennium Chemicals at a conference in Paris and on the way to a conference in Perth.
On my 36th birthday I was an Account Executive at Godfrey Advertising in Lancaster and had ridden in the second bicycle race of my life.
On my 26th Birthday I was a Sergeant and a Tank Commander in 1-70th Armor. I drove my friend Sgt. Cliff Almes, my roommate in the Wiesbaden Military Community barracks, to his new home and life as a Franciscan Monk in Darmstadt.
On my 16th birthday I got my learner's permit!
I can't remember my sixth birthday, but I was in the 1st Grade at Robin Hood Elementary School in Stoneham, Ma.
I started this day at Physical Therapy, took a nap and then swam a quarter mile at the YMCA. This is my first birthday with a titanium knee.

The Sergeant's Major in Film and Video

Last night I finished re-watching the HBO series "Generation Kill," about a Marine Recon Battalion during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.  The series captures moments of incredible bravery by the Marines followed by long hours of boredom and a string of bad decisions by high command.

One of several comic characters in the drama is the battalion Sergeant's Major John Sixta.  A short, broad-shouldered man with a raspy, nasal voice, he is obsessed with the "grooming standard." He combines the worst of every senior enlisted man in every branch of every military.  This little son-of-a-bitch would make soldiers laugh who were veterans of either side of the fight at Gettysburg, at Leningrad or Stalingrad, at Austerlitz, at Waterloo, probably even at Vosges on either the Roman or German side.  The cartoon Sergeant's Major is perfectly expressed in John Sixta.

On the other extreme of the senior sergeant in film is Colour Sergeant (Platoon Sergeant) Frank Bourne in the 1964 film "Zulu." Bourne trains his men, makes sure they are ready to fight, quietly encourages his best soldiers, pushes the slackers, and stands with stiff-upper-lip resolve in the face of an assault by a force outnumbering  his unit by 100 to 1.

The best sergeant's major I have known personally is Christopher Kepner, the current Command Sergeant's Major of the National Guard.

The role of the Top Enlisted Soldier in the military has civilian parallels. A warehouse manager or shop manager keeps the workers motivated makes sure work procedures are followed to the letter, and is responsible for worker safety.  But a manager has no input in corporate strategy.  The Top Sergeant has responsibility, but not authority: they get the soldiers ready to fight, but do not decide where or when to fight. That's what officers do.

For me, the best civilian parallel is in the book (NOT the movie) "Remains of the Day" by the winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature, Kazuo Ishiguro.  The butler in that lovely book is the picture of the sergeant's major. He is in charge of maintaining the appearance, the morale, and the performance performance of the large staff of servants in a pre-World-War-II English ancestral mansion.  He can terrorize the staff and yet, behind his well-groomed back, be the subject of ridicule. In one of a hundred big and small ironies in the story, the butler is completely devoted to the Lord of the house. But that venerated figure turns out to be the center of clandestine Nazi sympathy in England.

I heard Ishiguro speak in Phialdelphia in 2015, two decades after the book was published.  When asked about the movie Ishiguro said he was just beginning his career as a novelist. He was flattered to have a movie made of his book. But the choice of the studio to play the butler was Anthony Hopkins.  Ishiguro said Hopkins is brilliant, but he is not a comic figure, so the movie lost that dimension of the butler.

If you have a favorite portrayal of a Sergeant's Major or other top sergeant in film, let me know at ngussman@yahoo.com .