This is an article that I wrote two years ago about the tragic loss of the great British Battle Cruiser HMS Hood during the Battle of Denmark Strait by the German Battleship Bismarck. I will be doing a couple of articles about different parts of the chase for the Bismarck as well as that great ship in the next few days. It is hard to believe that a great ship and all but three members of its crew can be destroyed so quickly. It is a sobering thought for anyone that has ever served aboard a warship in time of war. Peace, Padre Steve+
Seventy years ago today the “Mighty Hood” was sunk by the German Battleship Bismarck. This essay is in honor of that gallant ship and crew. May we never forget the sacrifice of these men and all others who have gone down to the sea in ships.
There are some warships and naval engagements which assume legendary proportions. The Battle of the Denmark Strait on 24 May 1941 between the two largest battleships in commission at the time, the pride of the British Royal Navy the HMS Hood and the German behemoth Bismarck is legendary as are those two mighty ships. The battle came at a critical time as the Britain stood alone against the seemingly invincible German Blitzkrieg. Britain had been driven from Western Europe and was being bombed regularly by Herman Goering’s Luftwaffe while a British expeditionary force that had been sent to Greece…
This week has been a rough week for many locales in the Midwest with serve weather and an outbreak of tornados. Ground zero for many of these storms has been the State of Oklahoma, the center of we call “Tornado Ally” and today that state, particularly the suburban communities around Oklahoma City were devastated by what might be one of the most powerful tornados ever to hit an American city. Ground zero was the city of Moore Oklahoma, no stranger to such weather having been hit by major tornados in 1998, 1999 and 2004. Today’s tornado is estimated to be at least an EF-4 with winds of 160 miles an hour and some estimate that it could be an EF-5, the strongest category of tornado with winds of 200 miles an hour cutting a swath of destruction a mile wide at the base of the tornado and a path 20 miles long. It was on the ground about minutes hitting its crescendo as hit struck Moore. Whole neighborhoods are destroyed with only driveways and foundations remaining.
The casualties continue to mount. At least 51 are known dead and hundreds injured at the present time and the toll is certain to mount. The areas hit included residential areas as well as schools and hospitals. Two schools received direct hits and one of those schools has reported that students were killed. The major hospital in the city was destroyed and now unable to operate. First responders in many cases are often victims themselves and quite possibly will return to their homes and find that they no longer exist. Lives destroyed and disrupted and property destroyed or severely damaged. The people in Oklahoma are incredibly resilient and tough but they will need help from other Americans, both through the Federal and State Governments but also from various relief agencies such as the Red Cross, Salvation Army Disaster Services and other agencies who are trained and equipped to give aid.
This happened to our fellow citizens, Americans. These are American citizens just as other Americans were impacted by Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina, the city of Joplin Missouri destroyed by a tornado much like the one that hit Oklahoma today. In other places in this country whole areas have been devastated by flooding along the Mississippi, Red and Missouri Rivers, and earthquakes like the one that hit the San Francisco Bay area in 1989.
I have been through tornados, major hurricanes and severe earthquakes. I have provided emergency assistance directing an emergency shelter for a hurricane and post disaster counseling to staff members of a school destroyed by a tornado. All things being equal I would rather go through an earthquake or hurricane any day of the week before I ever want to go through another tornado. There is something unearthly in the way they wreak devastation, almost a terrible randomness as to where they hit and what survives and does not.
Please pray for those affected and do what you can to help. To do so through the Red Cross either go to their website www.redcross.org or text REDCROSS 90999. To do so through the Salvation Army go to their website https://donate.salvationarmyusa.org/uss/eds/aok or text “STORM” to 80888 to make a $10 donation through your mobile phone; to confirm your gift, respond with the word “Yes.” A state religious group, the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma is also providing relief services and those that want to donate to them can do so through their website at http://www.bgco.org/ministries/disaster-relief/donate-to-disaster-relief
Of course there are other ways to give but those are the first that came to my mind and ones that I believe will be able to respond quickly.
Please, these are Americans. I know that last year when Sandy hit the East Coast that some pundits and politicians did what they could to obstruct aid to the affected areas citing their “principles.” However to me it doesn’t matter if an American is a Republican or Democrat, if a State is a “Red State” or a “Blue State” but rather that they are Americans and that as Americans we are either in this together or we are not. As a Christian I cannot simply say that person is not my neighbor because they do not vote like me, share my faith or live in a different part of the country. They are my neighbors and if you are an American they are yours. Please do what you can to help through private means and encourage your representatives to speed Federal assistance to the people of Oklahoma and other areas hit by these terrible storms.
I saw Star Trek: Into Darkness yesterday and as I mentioned in my last article about the subject last week I did promise that I would do a review of it when I saw it. So I saw the movie and to sum up my experience in the words of Spock it was “fascinating.”
Now the “Prime Directive” of writing a movie review of a recently released film is not to give away spoilers and I will not violate the Prime Directive.
I saw the film in its 3D format in a nice theater. I have come to enjoy the 3D experience as the technology continues to improve. Director JJ Abrams has put together one of the best Star Trek films of all time. I have been watching the Star Trek franchise since the very beginning of the original series when I was a kid and continued watching TOS in the early days of syndication before the first film Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released in December 1979 when I was a sophomore in college.
Needless to say I am a big fan of the franchise as a whole and having seen every movie, every episode of TOS, TNG, DS9, most of Voyager I have to consider that I am a Trekkie, Trekker or whatever label that you want to give me. The only series that I have not seen except for a few episodes was Enterprise because I was deployed or traveling on various other military duties around the world through much of its run. The times I was home it was hard to find because the local television stations didn’t carry it.
When I was a teen ager I read most of the TOS novels that came out in paperback and when TNG came out I read quite a few of those as well. Each one kind of expanded my Trek experience, and at one time I think I had most if not all of the TOS and TNG Technical Manuals.
My preferences in the Star Trek franchise have been the TOS, TNG and DS9 series, the last of which I am currently watching in order. I watched every TNG episode in order between the end of the 2012 World Series and Opening Day 2013 before beginning DS9which I am now into Season 5. I figure that I will get Voyager when I finish DS9. I missed a lot of Voyager episodes due to deployment or working nights in civilian hospitals.
As far as the previous movies they have been a hit or miss affair for me. Of the Original Series films I was not a big fan either of Star Trek the Motion Picture or Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock was okay for me but the three films that I can watch almost any day of the week are Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan to which the new film has some interesting connections, as well as Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. However my favorite of these has to be The Wrath of Khan and the TOS episode that is sprung from Space Seed. As for the films associated with Star Trek the Next Generation I found First Contact and Nemesis to be the best, but overall found the television series much better than the films.
All that being said I have said almost nothing about the new film as of yet. I loved the first film in the reboot of the series, Star Trek which came out in 2009. I liked the casting, the story line which broke the old time line and paradigm which allowed the new series to take on a life of its own even which keeping connection to other parts of the series. Because to this the possibilities that Abrams and his team have opened up are very “Roddenberry” and the new film has the feel of what I think Gene Roddenberry might have imagined for the future of the series.
The fact is that Roddenberry was not afraid to break the molds of his own creation. He killed Spock, destroyed the Enterprise and took the story with a different cast to a different century. As the creator of the series he was not afraid to take risks and to take the series to places that many fans could not have imagined. I can only imagine that after 10 feature films involving two separate series and 703 television episodes in one timeline spanning 5 separate series that Roddenberry would approve of the new life that Abrams and his team have give to the series.
I found that the cast is really beginning to gel as the crew of the Enterprise. Even though they are different actors each has captured the spirit of characters of the Original Series. Chris Pine as Captain Kirk is younger but believable as Kirk. We see the defiant and independent nature of Kirk in his performance. Zachary Quinto as Spock is as close to perfect as to how I imagine Spock could be in the new timeline. The appearances of Leonard Nimoy as Spock Prime and his interactions with Quinto’s Spock are priceless. My favorites in the other characters brought over from the Original Series are Bones McCoy played by Karl Urban and Scotty played by Simon Pegg. Sulu played by John Cho, Uhura played by Zoe Saldana and Chekov played by Anton Yelchin are all good in their parts but because the characters are only seen briefly in each of the films they are harder to get to know, unlike the cast members of either TOS or TNG who were known to fans through their respective series before they appeared in any of the films.
As far as the villain of the film, initially known as John Harrison played by Benedict Cumberbatch is as good of villain as you can get in Star Trek, but then he too is reprised from the TOS series, better known as…. No won’t say it, it would violate the Prime Directive, even though you can look it up somewhere else like the the Internet Movie Data Base at www.imdb.com Because of what Abrams does with this part of the story line a whole new set of possibilities remains open regarding this villain in future episodes and Cumberbatch was an excellent villain that I would not mind seeing again should they decide to reprise his role.
The story line is excellent, especially in light of 12 years of war following the terrorist attacks of 9-11-2001. I think one think that transcends the terrific action and special effects of the movie is how it is possible for those defending the ideal of freedom to cross the line into tyranny when they believe freedom might be threatened. It really is a fascinating metaphor that is important, because the darkness referred to in the title is not really the outside threats to freedom, but the threat harbored in each of us when we give in to the temptation to not ask the hard questions about the morality of our own actions that we take in the defense of our freedoms.
Abrams dedicates the film to the post 9-11 veterans and that is something that I appreciate because he backs that up by working with the charity The Mission Continues. Abrams had 6 veterans form the honor guard folding the flag at the somber memorial service scene at the end of the movie, something that most of us who have served over the past 12 years have seen or participated in too many. For me that was especially touching.
Anyway, I don’t think that any fan of Star Trek can go wrong in seeing this film and it may help bring new fans into the fold by sending them back to watch the series that helped begin everything in the Star Trek universe.
Today is Armed Forces Day and unfortunately most of the country will not notice unless they are attending a Baseball game where it is being observed or some special event on a base, national cemetery, monument or VFW hall. There are also protests, sometimes involving veterans. Last year at the NATO Summit in Chicago which coincided with Armed Forces Day a number of veterans protested by throwing away their Global War on Terror Medal. I actually have little problem with people protesting wars, even the current one so long as they direct their protest at the appropriate target, the politicians, pundits, think tank wonks and lobbyists that profit from war and not the soldiers that fight them.
Now there are a fair number of local celebrations to honor members of the Armed Forces across the country. As a career officer and son of a Vietnam veteran Navy Chief I appreciate those events and the people that put them together. Being a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, especially those that have taken the time to honor Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
Likewise there are wonderful people that honor the Armed Forces every day. I think especially about the Maine Troop Greeters of Bangor Maine and the Pease Troop Greeters of New Hampshire. These men and women, many veterans themselves or related to veterans are amazing. They have been welcoming veterans back since early in the war and provide many services to the men and women of the Armed Forces that pass through Bangor Maine International Airport and the Portsmouth International Airport, the former Pease Air Force Base in Pease New Hampshire. I have had the honor of passing through both locations, Bangor on more than one occasion. While I know that there are many others that do this they are in the minority in this country.
At any given time less than 1% of Americans are serving in all components of the military. For over 10 years we have been at war in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as other locations that we don’t like to talk about too much like Pakistan. However this has not been the effort of a nation at war. For the most part the war effort is that of a tiny percentage of the population.
As a nation we are disconnected from the military and the wars that have been going on for so long. The fact is that most Americans do not feel that they have a personal or vested interest in these wars because they have been insulated by political leaders of both parties from them. There is no draft, and no taxes were raised to fund the wars and the military is worn out while taking 50% of the cuts of the Congressional Sequester.
We have now been at war continuously for nearly 12 years and truthfully there is no end in sight. In that time every single Soldier, Sailor, Marine and Airman volunteered for duty or reenlisted during this time period. Motives may have varied from individual to individual, but unlike the World Wars, Korea and Vietnam every single one volunteered to serve in time of war. I think that this makes the current generation of veterans quite unique.
Many of these volunteers served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Neither war was popular, except in the very beginning when casualties were low and victory appeared to be easy and quick. We like short wars. We left Iraq in December 2011 and Afghanistan is still going to be with us for God knows how long, even though we are drawing down or forces there.
In Afghanistan we followed the same path trod by the British and Soviets in trying to topple regimes and plant our respective versions of civilization in that land of brutal Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek warlords who war on each other as much as any foreign infidel. It is a path that leads to heartbreak which ties down vast amounts of manpower without any significant strategic gain for the United States or NATO. This even as war drums beat across the Middle East and nuclear armed Pakistan slips into political and social chaos and keeps a major supply route for the US and NATO to Afghanistan shut down.
The fact is that American and for that matter other NATO and coalition military personnel who have served in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa or at sea are in the minority in all of our countries. Thus when a few of the few of these veterans choose to make a public spectacle of themselves by tossing a medal away they get cheered and lots of media attention. Some liberals applaud the medal throwers and conservatives vilify them without getting what is really going on. Both miss the tragic disconnection between the military and civilian society that is the result of public policy since the end of the Vietnam War. A relatively small professional military in comparison to the population is sent to fight wars while the bulk of the population is uninvolved and corporations, lobbyists and think tanks get rich.
Rachel Maddow the MSNBC host of the Rachel Maddow Show wrote in her outstanding book Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power:
“The reason the founders chafed at the idea of an American standing army and vested the power of war making in the cumbersome legislature was not to disadvantage us against future enemies, but to disincline us toward war as a general matter… With citizen-soldiers, with the certainty of a vigorous political debate over the use of a military subject to politicians’ control, the idea was for us to feel it- uncomfortably- every second we were at war. But after a generation or two of shedding the deliberate political encumbrances to war that they left us… war making has become almost an autonomous function of the American state. It never stops.”
Now, going back to the protestors for a minute. The right to protest and disagree with policy and the politics of war is important and for Americans is protected under the First Amendment. That being said I think it is important that when one protests a war that they direct their protest at the appropriate target, the army of lobbyists and think tank wonks that promote the politics of war regardless of who is President and not the soldiers. The fact is that the lobbyists, pundits that promote war don’t care about the protesters or the troops. This is because no matter who is in office or who controls Congress they will promote policies that keep them employed and their businesses enriched. Marine Major General and Medal of Honor winner Smedley Butler was quite right when he said:
“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”
I may disagree with the manner of how and when veterans protest wars that they have served like those that threw their medals away in Chicago last year. However, I am not going to question their motives, integrity or honor even if I disagree with their manner of protest because I came back different from war.
When a society sends off its sons and daughters to fight in wars that no one understands, and the vast majority of people no longer support it is no wonder that some veterans make such displays. Likewise it is understandable why other veterans have major issues with such protestors, just as many Vietnam veterans still feel the hurt of how a nation turned its back on them. For example I still have a terrible time even thinking about Jane Fonda, the images of her manning a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun when my dad was serving in Vietnam.
Protests may make some feel good, but they often miss the bigger point of why wars like these go on for so long. That they do is because misguided policies have brought about a chronic disconnection in our society between those that serve in the military and those that do not. But how can there not be when in the weeks after 9-11 people like President Bush and others either directly or in a manner of speaking told people to “go shopping”* as we went to war in Afghanistan? When I returned from Iraq I returned to a nation that was not at war whose leaders used the war to buttress their respective political bases.
I think that Armed Forces Day should be better celebrated but I am grateful to those people that do things every day to thank and support military personnel in thought, word and deed like the Maine Greeters and Pease Greeters. The interesting thing about these groups is that they are made up of citizens from across the political spectrum, veterans and non-veterans who simply care for and appreciate the men and women that serve in and fight the wars that no-one else can be bothered to fight.
I just hope and pray that the end in Afghanistan does not turn into an even worse historic debacle than suffered by the British or the Soviets during their ill fated campaigns. Of course the politicians, pundits, preachers and the defense contractors, banks and lobbyists will find a way to profit from this no matter how many more troops are killed, wounded or injured and how badly it affects military personnel or their families. After all, to quote Smedley Butler, “war is a racket.”
Peace
Padre Steve+
President Bush’s actually words were “Now, the American people have got to go about their business. We cannot let the terrorists achieve the objective of frightening our nation to the point where we don’t — where we don’t conduct business, where people don’t shop…” http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011011-7.html
Over the past number of weeks the incessant number of stories regarding incidents of sexual assault and harassment by military members against other military members has reached levels that I have not seen in years. Since I have served in the military continuously in one capacity or another for almost 32 years I have seen this phenomena develop and reach a point that I did not think was possible, which endangers the morale and mission of the military and the trust of our society in our military institutions.
When I first entered the military in 1981, enlisting in the California Army National Guard and in the Army ROTC program at UCLA had no idea what would transpire over my career and how I as a man would see the problem of sexual assault. I entered the military not a few years after the changeover from a military built on conscription to an all volunteer force and the integration of women into units, which while not “combat arms” units would certainly be in the fight should we ever go to war.
I guess that the first places that I saw what would now certainly be prohibited behaviors were in my National Guard unit, a Field Artillery Battalion in Southern California which though not authorized any females, had an administrative support section of females who worked for the personnel officer and Command Sergeant Major. When we went to the field they would accompany us and the stories of what went on with them and members of the leadership were infamous. When I attended my ROTC Advanced Pre-Commissioning Camp at Fort Lewis Washington we had three female cadets in my platoon. They lived in a separate barracks with other women but trained with us. They were subjected to some of the most despicable treatment that I had seen in my life. Their looks, motivations and morals were scrutinized in ways that the editors of the National Enquirer would be proud. They had senior instructors appear to give them unwanted favor and for that they ended up being derided by their fellow male cadets.
Me early in my career as a Platoon Leader in Germany
After I was commissioned as a Medical Service Corps Officer in 1983 and assigned to a Medical Ambulance Company in Germany I saw the problem grow as more women were assigned to such field units because of the indiscriminate nature of the Army assignment system. My unit eventually had 63% of its assigned strength as females, about 85% of our medics were female. Our sister company was just that, they peaked at 73% female strength. While I was in the unit I served as a Platoon Leader, Company Executive Officer and eventually the Company Commander when our Company Commander, who actively spoke in racist and sexist terms referring to blacks as “the seed of Cain” and women as “unequal to men” using his religion as justification was relieved of command.
I was privileged to serve with some of the finest women soldiers that I have every served alongside while in that unit. My XO retired as a Lieutenant Colonel and my Platoon Sergeant retired as a First Sergeant. Both were hard chargers and as competent or more than most of the men that I served with but were often, usually behind their backs treated with distain for their competence and ability to serve in what until that point had been pretty much a “men’s club.”
While I was serving as a company commander I worked hard, I had only been an officer a little over two years, a very junior First Lieutenant when I took command following the relief of the previous commander. I found though that some things were not simply a matter of individuals but problems in the very institution that since I was a child had idolized.
One of those situations came out when I attempted to prosecute a Sergeant for forcing a very junior female soldier into a sex act in her barrack room after duty hours. His wife was 8 months pregnant and also a Sergeant but at the base medical clinic. He was caught by her and soon the barracks had every member of the chain of command as well as a copious amount of Military Police and CID agents swarming in it. The poor girl was found half undressed under her bed and had to be taken by my former platoon sergeant out of harm’s way after all was said and done while the Sergeant was being read his rights. As the Company commander I had the primary responsibility to file charges. Since the man was a Sergeant and under I could not reduce him in rank using the Article 15 Non-Judicial Proceedings process and he was to leave the Army in a couple of months so a court martial would have only kept him in the unit longer. So I referred the case to the Group Commander, a full Colonel and decorated Vietnam veteran and aviator.
The Colonel had been our senior instructor when I was at the Academy of Health Sciences and he was a man that I admired. However, when the case got to him he did less that I would have been authorized to do and in addition did not revoke the award of the Army Commendation Medal which the Sergeant was being given for the end of his service as he got ready to leave the Army. When I found out I stormed to the Colonel’s office and told him that he, the Colonel had embarrassed the entire Medical Group and my Company in particular because the case was the talk of the entire base. It could not easily be covered up. I was told by him “I have done what I have done.” He then turned his back on me and from that moment on I was treated with contempt by him and his closest staff members. I learned the hard way that honesty can get you in trouble.
My next assignment was as the Adjutant of the Academy of Health Sciences. I was a newly promoted Captain and worked closely with the Brigade Legal Officer who served as the prosecutor. While I was assigned there three major incidents come to mind all of which involved significant sexual assault, harassment or treatment of students or junior enlisted staff members.
One of those was an aggravated rape of a 18 year old female trainee who was raped by a male trainee over concertina wire in a dark area near her barracks when she was walking back from the trainee PX and Snack Bar on a Saturday Night. It was a brutal case and we sent the young soldier to a General Court Martial when he was convicted of assault, battery, rape and a number of other charges and sentenced to 40 years in Leavenworth prison.
The second was the first trial of a soldier that was having unprotected sex with other soldiers while knowingly being HIV positive. He was a player, a good looking man who easily picked up young women. He worked as a personnel sergeant in one of the training battalions and used his looks, his rank and influence to have unprotected sex with a number of the young female clerks that worked in that personnel center without letting them know of his HIV status. He was found out when the Battalion Commander who was walking through the office overheard one of the females talking with another about her date with him and the sex. Since the commander had personally counseled the sergeant of his legal responsibilities being HIV positive, which included informing sexual partners and ensuring that any sex he had was “safe sex” the commander brought him up on charges. Eventually he was tried and convicted at General Court Martial and since he was beginning to show the outward symptoms of the opportunistic infections of fell blown AIDS was sentenced to 6 months confinement and a Dishonorable Discharge. One of the women that he had sex with, a junior soldier as well eventually tested HIV positive.
The last of the major events at the Academy was a Christmas break, sex for grades scandal that eventually encompassed 17 instructors who had a rather large orgy and party at one of the instructor’s off base home. The San Antonio Express News picked up the story and ran with of course and it made front page news. Unfortunately, most of what they reported, with the exception of the use of “whipped creme” at the orgy was contained in police and CID reports. The whipped creme was certainly an interesting twist and needless to say a good number of instructors were disciplined or their actions.
I left active duty in the fall of 1988 to return to the National Guard while attending seminary. While in the Guard I served in all male units that unlike my unit in California did not have its own assigned female administrative detachment and harem. However that doesn’t mean that I still didn’t see cases of sexual indiscretion, but most of what I saw happened happened outside of my command.
Since I go back a long time I do remember the effects of the Navy’s 1991 Tailhook scandal that eventually ended the careers of some 300 officers, including a number of admirals. I was promoted to the rank of Major in December 1995 and transferred to the Army Reserve and was mobilized in July 1996 to support the Bosnia intervention. About that time a major sexual assault and harassment scandal took place at the Army Training Center at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. It like Tailhook was all over the news and the Army tried to respond by getting tough on offenders and by sending teams around to emphasize what was right and what was wrong. One of these teams showed up at our base in Germany and about 60 chaplains were gathered together to get the training.
Now I was a mobilized reservist who had not only been a chaplain but had seen and or help prosecute these kinds of issues before as a Company Commander and Brigade Adjutant. I was somewhat jaded by what I had seen and during the lecture I raised my hand into the air and uttered something that many of my colleagues were thinking. One of our instructors, acknowledged my upraised hand so I asked the question. I said “Ms so and so, my name is Chaplain Dundas and unlike most of these gentlemen and women I am a mobilized reservist.” She she asked me what my comment was and I said “Ma’am, it seems to me if people would simply treat people as they would want to be treated or have their wives or daughters treated by others none of this training would be necessary.” You could hear the air being sucked out of the room as my active duty colleagues looked in shock to see who uttered such heresy. Even the instructor seemed stunned. I continued “It seems to me that if we took a hard line and punished the offenders severely and stopped treating this like it was a joke as an institution then we wouldn’t need to have this kind of collective training.” My comment was rapidly passed over and after the training a number of more senior chaplains came to me and thanked me for being honest. Not a few months later the Command Sergeant Major of the Army was relieved of his duties for alleged sexual harassment, yet another scandal.
In 2003 there was a major scandal at the Air Force Academy which very few people were ever punished for, despite a massive number of substantiated complaints of unwanted sexual harassment by female cadets. I have lost count of the number of commanders and other senior officers relieved of duties for inappropriate behaviors with junior subordinates many times of the sexual harassment or assault variety. Any casual reader of the Navy, Army, Air Force or Marine Corps Times can testify to how many of these instances happen and unfortunately they are but the tip of the iceberg I am afraid.
Lt. Col Jeffrey Krusinski, the chief of the Air ForceSexual Assault Prevention and Response program
Just in the past month the program director of the Air Force Sexual Assault and Prevention program, a Lieutenant Colonel was arrested for drunkenly accosting a women in a parking lot, the director of the Army program at Fort Campbell Kentucky, also a Lieutenant Colonel was charged with violating a protective order put in place by his estranged wife and a Sergeant First Class, the director of a unit Sexual Assault and Prevention program at Fort Hood Texas was charged with running a prostitution ring using of course, junior female soldiers. Brigadier General Jeffery Sinclair, the former Deputy Division Commander of the 82nd Airborne Division is being prosecuted for is accused of having an illicit affair and engaging in wrongful sexual conduct with several women who were under his command.
General David Petreus and his “biographer mistress” Paula Broadwell
These instances of course do not take into account of the scandal involving former Iraq and Afghanistan Commander and former CIA Director General David Petreus and his relationship with his biographer an Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel. To make matters worse some General Officers who are the convening authorities for Courts Martial offenses have given clemency or set aside punishments of senior officers convicted by General Court Martial proceedings of sexual assault or harassment crimes.
I could go on and on and on but will not because frankly it is nauseating and is bringing so much discredit to the services that it cannot be joked about. Almost all of these cases involved some form of undo command influence or other criminal behavior. Although the crimes sometimes are committed by male homosexuals or lesbians, the vast majority are heterosexual and often involve high ranking career service men and women who are married heterosexuals both male and female.
When I look at this situation and ask myself what is going on I have to agree that it is a massive problem. You don’t get so many instances involving so many individuals of high rank without it being something systemic in the military culture. While we can point to the fact that the military is composed of people of the broader society we are a very small segment of that society and percentage wise very few people even qualify to enlist in the military. We are very selective as to who we take in and who we keep. Yet we still have these problems at every level of the chain of command in every branch of the Armed Forces. These are magnified in the eyes of the broader society because of our oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and because we are entrusted by the larger society of representing the best of what the country stands for and which we are supposed to defend. Our mission, especially in a military where men and women serve together in combat, often enduring the same hardships and separations that previous generations of military personnel did not have to face becomes compromised when men or women abuse their rank, privilege and office to take advantage of other men or women, heterosexual or homosexual in the conduct of those duties. It compromises the chain of command, it compromises the mission and it destroys the trust needed to be mission ready. We cannot use the excuse that it happens in the civilian world so we shouldn’t be surprised by it in the military.
All the services have implemented training designed to get this problem under control. However, it will not change until people in the military decide that such acts are not just senseless, tasteless or offensive but often an violent assault on another person. I was reading an article in the Military Law Review today written about the Tailhook scandal. The author wrote something very profound with which I completely agree:
“The heart of the problem in redressing sexual harassment in the armed forces has not been Congress’s failure to expand the traditional coverage of the UCMJ so that it directly criminalizes specific forms of hostile environment conduct such as sexist remarks, tasteless jokes, and other offensive gestures.Instead, the problem has been the military leadership’s failure to recognize that in many cases, like those arising in Tailhook, sexual mistreatment actually constitutes a serious assaultive crime that must be prosecuted accordingly.”Arresting “Tailhook: The Prosecution ofSexual Harassment in the Military. Lieutenant Commander J. Richard Chema MILITARY LAW REVIEW Volume 140 Spring 1993 p.63
The fact is that the law is established, training is conducted at all levels and this still happens far to often. What it demonstrates to me is that like my first attempt to deal with a sexual assault as a Company Commander in 1986 that the military culture itself is to blame. Despite our best attempts there are many who figure that boys will be boys and girls will be girls and it is not a big deal. Well maybe not, until rape, murder occurs, or a baby is born out of wedlock, or a young man or woman commits suicide because of the trauma and shame that they endure from a senior NCO or officer that has great influence over their career and life.
I know that we can do better because I know a lot of good men and women, officers and senior enlisted that are committed to changing the culture. That being said it takes the commitment of everyone to do this right. Since it doesn’t look like we in the military are capable of handling this ourselves it is that members of Congress will change the UCMJ and maybe take these cases out of the hands of military commanders. That could well be the case. You can only give excuses so many times over so many decades as to why you don’t do better as an institution before those that have the civilian oversight decide that you are incapable of change. We just may have reached that point in our military justice system.
Folks, this might be interesting as a lawyer or ethicist, but it is not going to be something that we in the military will enjoy.
Someone did a You Tube video using footage from the German language film Downfall where Hitler takes his commanders to task in the last days of the war. The subtitles have been changed to deal with the recent sexual assault scandals. It is very pointed satire and maybe, just maybe we in the military should take it seriously.
I have been under the weather the past couple of days with a really nasty sinus infection that has totally sapped my strength. I have been wanting to write something dealing with the current situation regarding the Sexual Abuse scandals and other leadership crisis that seem to be overwhelming the military even as we continue to fight a war in Afghanistan, deal with challenges necessitated by budget cuts and the real threat of involvement in even other wars. I will get around to that, but one thing I do want to post is an older article about German Colonel General Ludwig Beck who died in the attempt to overthrow Hitler. I think that there are lessons for military professionals to learn from this, especially those that in a closed institution have become distanced from the people that the come from and Constitution that they are sworn to support and defend. Hopefully I will feel more like writing something new tomorrow or over the weekend. Peace, Padre Steve+
“It is a lack of character and insight, when a soldier in high command sees his duty and mission only in the context of his military orders without realizing that the highest responsibility is to the people of his country.” Ludwig Beck
Ludwig Beck Bundesarchiv Foto
This is one of those uncomfortable posts to write partially because I know that some people will take it completely wrong or ascribe meaning to it that I do not intend. I by training am a military historian, probably better at that than I am theology. One thing that fascinates me in the study of military history is the actions of men in the face of evil and the meetings of such people at the intersections of where military and government policy intersect. It is a timeless theme. The bulk of my study until the past few years was the German Army, particularly that…
I like hard questions and hard cases. My life has been quite interesting and that includes my faith journey as a Christian and human being. It is funny that in my life I have as I have grown older begun to appreciate those that do not believe and to rather distrust those who proclaim their religious faith with absolute certitude, especially when hard questions are asked. Paul Tillich once said “Sometimes I think it is my mission to bring faith to the faithless, and doubt to the faithful.”
I think that the quote by the late theologian is quite appropriate to me and the ministry that I find myself. I think it is a ministry pattern quite similar to Jesus in his dealings with the people during his earthly incarnate ministry. He was always hanging out with the outcasts, whether they be Jewish tax collectors collaborating with the Romans, lepers and other “unclean” types, Gentiles including the hated Roman occupiers, Samaritans and most dangerously and scandalously women. He seemed to reach out to these outcasts while often going out of his way to upset the religious establishment and the “true believers” of his day. He was actually quite successful at this, so successful that his enemies made sure that they had him killed.
I think that what has brought me to this point is a combination of things but most importantly what happened to me in and after my tour in Iraq. Before I went to Iraq I was certain of about everything that I believed and was quite good at what we theologians and pastors call “apologetics.” My old Chaplain Assistant in the Army, who now recently serves as a Chaplain and was recently selected for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel called me a “Catholic Rush Limbaugh” back in 1997 and he meant it quite affectionately. I was so good at it that I was silenced by a former Archbishop in my former church and banned from publishing for about 7 years. The funny thing is that he, and a number of my closest friends from that denomination are either Roman Catholic priests or priests in the Anglican Ordinariate which came into communion with Rome a couple of years back. Ironically while being “too Catholic” was the reason I was forbidden to write it was because I questioned certain traditions and beliefs of the Church including that I believed that there was a role for women in the ordained ministry, that gays and lesbians could be “saved” and that not all Moslems were bad that got me thrown out in 2010.
However when I returned from Iraq in the midst of a full blown emotional, spiritual and physical collapse from PTSD that certitude disappeared. It took a while before I was able to rediscover faith and life and when I did it wasn’t the same. There was much more mystery to faith as well as reason. I came out of that period with much more empathy for those that either struggle with or reject faith. Thus I tend to hang out at bars and ball games more than church activities or socials, which I find absolutely tedious. I also have little use for clergy than in dysfunctional and broken systems that are rapidly being left behind. I am not speaking about belief here, but rather structure and methodology.
I think that if there is anything that God will judge the American versions of the Christian church is our absolute need for temporal power in the political, economic and social realms and the propagation of religious empires that only enrich the clergy which doing nothing for the least, the lost and the lonely. The fact that the fastest growing religious identification in the United States is is “none” or “no preference” is proof of that and that the vast amounts of money needed to sustain these narcissistic religious empires, the mega-churches and “Christian” television industry will be their undoing. That along with their lack of care for anyone but themselves. Jesus said that his disciples would be known by their love for one another, not the size of their religious empire or temporal power.
The interesting thing is that today I have friends and colleagues that span the theological spectrum. Many of these men even if they do not agree with what I believe trust me to love and care for them, even when those most like them in terms of belief or doctrine, both religious and political treat them like crap. Likewise I attract a lot of people who at one time were either in ministry or preparing for it who were wounded in the process and gave up, even to the point of doubting God’s love and even existence. It is kind of a nice feeling to be there for people because they do not have to agree with me for me to be there for them.
In my darkest times my only spiritual readings were Father Andrew Greeley’s Bishop Blackie Ryan mysteries which I began reading in Iraq to help me get through the nights in between missions in Iraq and through the nights when I returned from them. In one of those books, the last of the series entitled “The Archbishop goes to Andalusia” the miscreant Auxiliary Bishop to the Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago goes to Seville Spain. In the novel Bishop Blackie makes a comment after celebrating Mass in the cathedral at Seville. He said “Every sacramental encounter is an evangelical occasion. A smile warm and happy is sufficient. If people return to the pews with a smile, it’s been a good day for them. If the priest smiles after the exchanges of grace, it may be the only good experience of the week.” (The Archbishop in Andalusia p.77)
That is something that I try to do now on a regular basis. Sure most of my sacramental encounters as a hospital chaplain do not occur during the liturgy, but often in the life and death moments and times of deep discouragement felt by the wounded, ill and injured. In that ministry I have found that there are many hurting people, people who like me question their faith and even long held beliefs.
On my way home from taking my little dog Molly home from a visit to the vet this afternoon I heard the old song by Nazareth called Love Hurts. The song always gets me. It is one of those “real” songs from the 1960s and 1970s that nails how life can be sometimes.
Love hurts, love scars Love wounds and mars In any heart not tough Nor strong enough To take a lot of pain To take a lot of pain And love is like a cloud Holds a lot of rain Love hurts
I’m young and I know But even so, I know a thing or two I have learned from you I’ve really learned a lot I’ve really learned a lot And love is like a stove Burns you when it’s hot Love hurts
Some fools rave of happiness Of blissfulness, togetherness Some fools fool themselves, I guess But they’re not fooling me I know it isn’t true I know it isn’t true Love is just a lie Made to make you blue Love hurts
In 1977 a Christian singer, Erick Nelson included that song on an album called The Misfit and used it to lead into another song of his called He Gave Me Love. The album which he did as a duet with a lady named Michelle Pillar was always and still is one of my favorite albums. It was and still is one of the few works of “contemporary Christian music” to really deal with the hard questions of faith, including hurt, doubt and betrayal and the cost of following Jesus with any measure of authenticity. The song, the lyrics of which I include here are quite remarkable, because they talk about those themes.
When I was down, they wouldn’t stay
When I was hurt, they turned away
But Jesus called me and I must obey
He gave me love
You see, His friends all let Him down And when He healed everyone around All He got was a thorny crown Because of love
Because of love for you Because of life and truth Because of love for you Come take his love
Sometimes they laugh and are unkind And others smile and say I’ve lost my mind But all I know is what I find And I find, He gave me love…
Love does hurt, and well deciding to love can bring a lot of pain, but I do think that it is worth it. Well, that is all for tonight. Until tomorrow.
Last week was National Nurses Week. Today was the 105th Anniversary of the Navy Nurse Corps. Nurses are the lynchpin of medicine. Physicians are incredibly important and as a society we usually ascribe more value to them. However in many case, if not most it is a nurse who is the person that does the heavy lifting in the care of the sick. Before the modern era of nursing was often done by Nuns or by women that volunteered to assist military physicians.
The First 20 Navy Nurses “the Sacred 20” 1908
It was in the quagmire of the Crimean War that Florence Nightingale brought about the modern era of nursing, even though physicians and hospitals often saw the women who served as nurses as inexpensive help to care for the sick. Despite this nursing became more and more professional and technical over the years without ever losing that particular calling of ministering to the afflicted that is the essence of their history. In the later 1800s the first nursing schools were established and in 1901 New Zealand was the first country to have Registered Nurses. In 1903 North Carolina became the first US State to require the licensure of nurses.
Chief Nurse Lena Higbee, Second Superintendent of the Nurse Corps, and first woman awarded the Navy Cross (above) and the ship named after her the USS Higbee DD 806 (below)
The US Navy Nurse Corps was established n 1908 with nurses being commissioned as officers and assigned to Naval Hospitals. However it was the needs of war that brought nursing into the modern age where it is formally recognized as a key component of Health Care. In the World Wars nursing came into its own as a profession. Nurses were among the US personnel that endured the initial onslaught of the war in the Pacific. The Army and Navy Nurses that served and cared for the wounded, starving and emaciated Soldiers, Marines and Sailors on Bataan and Corregidor were heroes in their own right.
Navy Nurses released from Japanese Captivity (above) and a Nurse aboard USS Benevolence with a POW released from Japanese Captivity in 1945
The profession of nursing continues to grow and the women and men who serve as nurses at various levels, from the most highly trained Clinical Nurse Specialists and Nurse Practitioners, or other highly specialized Registered Nurses many of whom have advanced degrees including doctorates down to the most humble Licensed Vocational (or Practical) Nurse and even Certified Nursing Aides. These women and men are the backbone of medicine and despite the long hours, the years of training and certification required of them, many people don’t fully appreciate them until they become sick and are cared for by these wonderful people.
Ensign Jane “Candy” Kendeigh, the First flight nurse to serve in Iwo Jima and Okinawa Campaigns
Today US Navy Nurses serve in every place one can find a Sailor or Marine. They serve in Hospitals, Medical Centers and other Medical Facilities in the United States and overseas. They serve aboard surface ships, combatants as well as Hospital Ships, with the Fleet Marine Force, in Joint and Multi-National Medical activities deployed in combat zones and in humanitarian operations.
I have been blessed to have known and worked with many amazing nurses in the course of my career as a Medical Service Corps Officer in the Army and as a Chaplain in the military and civilian settings. Today I was present and offered a prayer at the cutting of the Navy Nurse Corps Birthday Cake at Naval Hospital Camp LeJeune. It was my 5th year serving in Navy Medicine and offering this prayer and blessing was an honor that I will always remember. Since I will be transferring out of Navy Medicine in the August-September time frame to assume new duties at the Joint Forces Staff College this will be the last one of these events that I get to officiate at for a few years.
LCDR Eric Gryn in Afghanistan tending a wounded Afghan Soldier on a Medivac flight in 2011, he serves at Naval Hospital Camp LeJeune
Captain Nancy Pearson cuts the Birthday Cake at Naval Hospital Camp LeJeune
As such I just want to thank all of my friends that serve as Navy Nurses with whom I have shared joys and sorrows the past several years. Blessings on all of you!
God Bless all Nurses tonight, especially those tending the sick, ill and injured and those in harm’s way.
Capt. Picard: I sincerely hope that this is the last time that I find myself here.
Q: You just don’t get it, do you, Jean-Luc? The trial never ends. We wanted to see if you had the ability to expand your mind and your horizons. And for one brief moment, you did.
Capt. Picard: When I realized the paradox.
Q: Exactly. For that one fraction of a second, you were open to options you had never considered. That*is the exploration that awaits you. Not mapping stars and studying nebulae, but charting the unknown possibilities of existence.
I can’t wait. The next installment of the Star Trek franchise Star Trek Into Darkness comes out this week. It is the second episode of the new cinematic re-boot of the franchise and as someone that grew up and matured with the series in its various television forms as well as on the big screen I am rather excited.
When I first saw the hints of the new movie franchise a couple of years before it premiered in 2009 I wondered about it. I wondered how they could pull of the feel of the original series. I heard friends rave about it and every review I read was sweet. The movie was great. The cast, most of whom I had seen very little of in other roles, had the feel of the old cast. Chris Pine (Kirk), Zachary Qunito (Spock), Karl Urban (McCoy) and Simon Pegg (Scotty) had great chemistry. The supporting cast worked well too. I was simply blown away as they pulled this off and managed to do a “prequel” which worked.
As a side note, my undergraduate campus, California State University at Northridge served as Starfleet Academy. All in all it was a very satisfying experience and the crowd applauded loudly as the final credits came up, preceded by Leonard Nimoy doing a voice over as the Enterprise went by saying; “Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life-forms and new civilizations; to boldly go where no one has gone before.” This was followed by the theme music of the original series as the credits rolled out. That was special.
As I said I will see the second installment of this series sometime later this week. From the trailers and reviews it looks quite good. I haven’t seen it but when I do I will review it. From what I have read it does seem to tackle issues that many of us will be familiar with in the post-9-11-2001 world.
I grew up with Star Trek. I remember as a kid when the original series was still on NBC and when it went into syndication I tried to watch it whenever it was on, or whenever I could get control of the television. There was something that captured my imagination, a glimpse of a positive future, possibility and adventure. Since I have always been seeking new frontiers, note my career in the military, Star Trek, the Original Series was an inspiration. Kirk, Spock, Scottie, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov and Nurse Chapel became part of my life. When not watching it I was reading Star Trek novels, something that I continued with Star Trek the Next Generation. I was fascinated by the Klingons and Romulans, the though of other planets with other intelligent beings was something that did not frighten me, or cause me to question my Christian faith. Since I have always believed in a very big God, the fact that God did not have to be limited to just dealing with humans seemed, as Spock would put it “logical.”
No I know that some people could be offended by this, or could give me some flak for what I just said. But I see no reason why God couldn’t be working in all of the gazillion galaxies, solar systems, planets and maybe even parallel or alternate universes. Why not? What if there was a planet where there was no fall and the inhabitants didn’t screw it up? I think it would be cool. My God is big, in fact the Bible and the Christian tradition is pretty clear that God is like really super duper powerful and capable of handling a whole lot of stuff all at once.
In fact we Christians like to call God omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and a bunch of other “oms” most of which are not even biblical concepts, but we have borrowed and used them so much to explain the God that we believe in that you would thing that they are. Likewise, at least some of us believe that God is a creative God and if we do really believe all of those “om” descriptions that we ascribe to God why should we be threatened that there might be other live, other civilizations out there?
So why would we look out and see this vast universe and say: “Nope Clem, just us out here.” So since I am backed up by the testimony of Scripture and Tradition about some of the attributes of God I think it is safe to say that God indeed could well be working elsewhere in the universe. If I believe that God is who Scripture state him to be, then I have to at least give some thought to this possibility. Can I positively say this is the case? No, but I can infer it from what the faith teaches me about God and by what science has revealed to us over the past couple of hundred years. None of this takes anything away from God working his plan of redemption through Christ with humanity.
Anyway that rabbit chased back into the woods, I continue. I followed the Star Trek movies, with The Wrath of Khan and The Voyage Home being my favorites. Not long after I learned to drive in high school a friend and I went to a Halloween party. I had made me a Mr. Scott uniform and my friend was dressed as an alien. After the party we headed home. We had just gotten on I-5 and I looked at him and said “set course 010 Warp 8” and being young and dumb took my 1966 Buick LeSabre 400 with a twin barrel carburetor up to about 90 MPH. I noticed a pair of headlights coming up behind me. I slowed down for the Benjamin Holt Drive exit and exited the freeway where a stoplight was red. Beside me pulled a CHP cruiser. The trooper looked at us, me with my Star Trek uniform and my friend in his alien suit, laughed and waved. I watched my speedometer like a hawk the rest of the way home and prayed that the trooper would not turn around to get me.
Later in Germany I was driving my first German “beater” a 1976 faded and rusted powder blue Ford Escort nicknamed “the Blue Max” to my base on a Saturday with Judy. Ahead of us a Mercedes crept along going well under the speed limit of 100 km/h and it was driving both of us crazy. People that do the same here in my post-Iraq PTSD world and I wish I had phasers or something to blast them out of my way, perhaps a transporter or tractor beam would be maybe a tad less violent.
Since we were on a two lane state highway going through the hills of the Saarland along the bank of the Nahe River there was no way to get around this guy. My little car known as the “Blue Max” had its emergency flasher located on the center of the dashboard. It was a red button about an in round. I looked at Judy and said “fire phasers.” I reached down pushed the button of and on and in front of us the strangest thing happened. There was a boom, a flash and the guy’s muffler and tail pipe dropped off. I avoided the debris and he coasted to a halt alongside the road. Judy and I both looked at each other with looks of shock and disbelief. Yet it had happened. I have tried this again on every other car that I have owned with no effect. I guess phasers are not standard on this side of the Atlantic.
When Star Trek, the Next Generation, or TNG came out in 1987 I was a young Army Captain getting ready to go to seminary the following year. I fell in love with TNG and its cast. In fact during my clinical pastoral education residency my supervisor was able to use analogies from the TNG characters, Lieutenant Worf and Lieutenant Commander Data to help me gain insights into what was going on in me.
I have a lot of affinity for both of these characters as someone who wrestled with where I fit in life and the world, and where was home. I shared that with these characters, particularly Picard and Worf. There were a couple of episodes dealing with Captain Picard entitled “Family” and “Tapestry” which actually woke me up to a couple of things in my life. I think I can say that the Deity Herself used them to help me through that time when I was still sorting through my life, vocation and issues of home and heart. I thought that the character development in TNG was great and I still will watch TNG whenever I come across it or want to pull out one of my DVDs.
I liked the darkness of Deep Space Nine and the fact that baseball was a part of it. DS9 fascinates me, like TNG it is quite complex in the way it is written and in the way that the characters were developed. The carry over of certain characters and story lines from TNG made it especially interesting. I like the fact that the bulk of the story centers on a Star Base and that you never always know who the good guys and the bad guys are. It kind of reminds me of my service in Iraq. Distrustful political factions, religion, power struggles, competing powers and terrorist groups of various kinds make DS9 a lot like real life, the live that I have lived and continue to live in.
One of the things that I really liked about DS9 was the way that the writers incorporated religion and faith into the script. I know that some people don’t like the fact that they did not incorporate Christianity into it and saw that as an affront but the themes brought out with the Bajorans, Cardassians and even the Ferengi in terms of faith, theology, religious structure and philosophy have a lot in common with many religions that we know here on earth. The fact that it does not deal with any religion practiced here makes it a wonderful vehicle for religious discussion for anyone of faith.
Another thing that the writers of DS9 did was to bring back the alternate universe first shown in TOS in the episode Mirror Mirror. To me the whole concept of alternate universes and possibly other versions of me is fascinating. To wonder what I might be like in some alternate reality is quite fascinating to think about.
I did not take as well to Voyager or Enterprise as my life was getting really busy with military deployments and operations. When I am done with DS9 I will probably start doing Voyager. As was the case I ended up collecting the entire TNG series on DVD and am well on my way to collecting all of DS9. In fact I have watched every TNG episode back to back between last years 2012 World Series and Opening Day 2013 and I am a bit over two thirds of the way through season IV of DS9.
I have a jacket similar to the TNG jacket in Science/Medical Blue with the communicator badge and Lieutenant Commander collar insignia. I also have a very rare Starfleet Chaplain pin with a white Greek Cross on it. This came out of one of the old TOS Technical Manuals dealing with rank and branches of Starfleet.
So I guess I am a Trekkie, or Trekker, depending on which Star Trek sect I belong, but nonetheless, Star Trek has been, and will remain part of my life. Thanks Gene Roddenberry, and all who over the years have brought the Star Trek universe to us.
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” Abraham Lincoln
I like social media. I frequent both Facebook and Twitter but after a number of years of emotional frustration I have been working the past few months to turn over a new leaf in how I conduct myself on it. I am learning though that sometimes strongly held opinions need to be muzzled in places dominated by people that like to slam their opposition with what amounts to sound bites, usually accompanied by some vitriolic picture and phrase to paint whoever and whatever they oppose in the worst possible manner. This is especially bad on Facebook and though I like the medium as a way to stay in contact with friends I am growing tired of its use as a vehicle to promote political, religious and other issues in a manner that cheapens debate and actually destroys any chance of reasonable discourse.
I used to join the political, ideological and religious wars on Facebook until they wore me out. I would try to enter into actual dialogue, get blasted, often by third parties that didn’t know me and then find that I got spun up and drawn into the muck. When I did that I felt cheapened and that something died in me. It wasn’t real debate, it was shouting and sometimes people that I thought were long time friends turned out only to be friends so long as I completely agreed with them.
Twitter seems to be a better fit for political discourse because at least there no-one is claiming to be a friend. They are followers or supporters maybe even haters and trolls but it is easy to not be as personally consumed by debate so long as one knows that going in, where I don’t know if Facebook has that distinction or if people understand that friends can disagree and still be friends.
Some of my twitter comments do end up on my Facebook page, but I do try to keep things separate. I would rather use Facebook now to keep up with friends and attempt to stay out of the political, social and religious wars that often envelope those pages. To do that I have worked over the past few weeks not to enter into those firefights on other people’s Facebook pages, even if I think that they are full of crap. I don’t have the energy for it. I would actually rather write well reasoned articles here and then deal with the replies.
As far as those that decide to comment on things I have on my Facebook page I try to be civil and reasoned now and sometimes just leave negative comments alone, not because I am afraid of conflict, but because I would rather try to maintain relationships rather than prove myself right. I figure that time will always tell.
I have around 1150 Facebook Friends. I would have a good number more had I not gotten into some of the firefights that I have over the years. Some was my own fault, but others, well intolerance is more common, especially among the more “conservative” Christians who I spent much of the last 20-30 years hanging around with. I was actually surprised to see how many of them were quick to savage me when I didn’t agree with their (and my former) religious-political-social views. Things got so bad that earlier in the year I went through my friends list and weeded out the dozen or so worst offenders, those whose posts that were the worst, most vicious, intolerant and mostly inaccurate that showed up on my page. I didn’t need the vitriol, hatred and viciousness. Out of 1100 or so friends I only got rid of about a dozen, and the sad thing that most were ministers, many from my former denomination which kind of creeped me out.
No wonder so many non-Christians want to have nothing to do with us when the face that they see is one of hatred, bigotry and intolerance. Today I saw a friend, who is a minister, on another friend’s page blast someone that he did not agree with. The tone my minister friend framed his comment was arrogant, condescending and demeaning to the other person, a young person who was obviously struggling with faith. I decided not to jump in knowing that no good could come out of another debate on someone else’s page.
So I am learning to shut up a bit and try more to let the grace of God permeate what I do on social media. If some people think that is foolish I guess that it will have to be that way. There are some things that do spin me up but I am going to try to treat people, even if they disagree with me or I them the way I would want to be treated. I will probably screw this attempt up later tonight or tomorrow but I am going to do my best to be a better citizen on the often un-social social media. Hopefully in doing so maybe set some kind of example that will maybe help people with radically different views find reconciliation and not just toleration.
Friends of Padre Steve's World
I welcome comments, even those which disagree with my positions and articles. I have done this for years, but recently I have been worn out by some people.
I have just a couple of rules for comments. First, be respectful of me and other commentators. If you are polite and respectful' even if I disagree with you your comment will be posted and I will respond accordingly.
That being said I will not allow people to hijack the comment section to push their religious or ideological views. Unless the comment deals with the meat of the article, don't expect me to allow you to preach, especially if you are a racist, anti-Semetic, or are a homophobe.
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Peace
Padre Steve+
HMS Hood arrives in Malta
Ludwig Beck Bundesarchiv Foto
The Inglorius Padre Steve's World 