The End

 My military career ended on November 11, 1970. I had started the four-year experience a bitter, hostile, unwilling participant. Why four years and no accepting the draft? They were sending Army draftees to Vietnam. Besides, if I had to go, there was no choice but he U.S. Navy. When I was fifteen years old, a cousin came home from the Navy and, oh, the stories he could tell. Gunnels awash! I spent that year collecting all the info I could, just waiting for the day I turned old enough to enlist.

 Time past, my fervor for the military dwindled, but not my sense that sailors were just a step above and the sea as a siren still called. Why enlist? Found out to my dismay that I couldn’t pass some of the color blindness tests. The Navy didn’t take too willingly to line officers that couldn’t distinguish some shades of red. Oh, and that Vietnam thing? I learned not to piss the Navy off. They had ways.

 Anyway, I ended in a much better frame of mind, having decided along the way that I could change my attitude much easier than I could change my circumstances. So, I spent the night of the 11^th in a cheap motel in Starkville Mississippi with an old Gibson guitar and a commendation from my Fleet Admiral, daring the future to meet me on my own terms. All my belongings in the world fit in a 1967 Chevy Impala. I was ready.

 It’s been a roller-coaster ride since, mostly ups. I’m somewhere between a mediocre fish in a large pond and a second-tier fish in a small pond. I’ve seen lots, but I never thought I’d see a United States of America in the condition that I, personally, feel it is in today. We have a leader of a party that has deeply dishonored two of my Navy’s best, John Kerry and John McCain. We have a leader of a party that has branded all my brother and sister veterans as “suckers and losers.” Because of my personal experience, I was a bit used to it, but the young ones who have come after didn’t deserve it.

 I have seen the leader of a party mock a disabled person, an act that hit close to home. I have seen a level of discourse sink to depths that would have embarrassed some of my fellow Bosun’s Mates. I have seen us turned against voice of reason, then decency, then one another. I have seen the statue’s torch grow dim, evil called to readiness, and the “madding crowd” inflamed with lies and chants. I wonder if I dare to call a friend.

 I think the low point came early in this administration when the leader of the party addressed a group of police officers. I have, do, and will support the vast majority of fine men and women who serve as public safety members of government, both the police officers and fire fighters. They do the jobs that we are afraid to do and then hang crucified for actions of a few. These include actions that are misguided to say the least, but easy to condemn by those who have never ridden the mean streets of America at midnight or sat in terror expecting the unexpected.

 I have lost friends over my support for the police officers and former police officers I have known.

 But when the President of the United States told an assembled group of officers “not to be so gentle with suspects,” i.e. those who are presumed innocent until proven guilty, told them it would be okay to bang their heads against a car door opening, it made me nauseated. When the group, in their blue uniforms and dainty white gloves laughed and clapped, I felt a sadness overcome me like a cloud of the stinging grief. I’m sure they were hand picked for the occasion and they weren’t the fine men and women I’ve known. Still, it broke my heart.

 That’s what the current leader of our county has done for me. I want everyone to vote. I want everyone to vote for the candidate they believe will bring dignity to this country that I and so many others have served. I will abide the outcome. It may, as some of the more divisive stickers suggest, make me cry, but I won’t cry for myself. I’ll cry for those who are still young enough that they will have to live with bad choices.

 For me, I’ll survive. I won’t say that I’ve survived worse, since I wasn’t around for the Civil War, the two World Wars, or the Great Depression. I have faith in my ability to function. As they used to say in one of my previous lifetimes, “It ain’t no bigee.”