Words and Actions

About a year before I retired from the National Guard my First Sergeant grabbed four other guys and myself early one Saturday morning and sent us to the Columbia fair grounds during the South Carolina State Fair to hand out recruiting fliers. It was easy, sham duty that usually went to the young, gung-ho, hotshots who lived and breathed weekend warrior action. I don't remember the other guys, but the only reason the First Sergeant threw me in the bunch was because I was in his line of sight at the right time.

So like good soldiers, we loaded up in our cars, drove downtown, and joined the mass of civilians already doing the rides, eating carnival food, looking at all the craft exhibits, along with general people watching. Since I was quickly approaching retirement and suffering from extreme burnout, handing out the propaganda pamphlets wasn't high on my Saturday priorities. At that time the National Guard was neck deep in deployments to both Afghanistan and Iraq with the recruiting fliers we were handing out still extolling the virtues of one weekend a month, two-weeks in the summer duty. Something no one with any sense would believe since Guard units were already doing year-long overseas deployments only to spend six or seven months home before getting orders to head back out.

As you may be able to imagine most of my time that day was spent eating fried Snickers bars, funnel cake, and other high calorie foods. All the sugary things that help make the Southern states national leaders in death from heart disease and diabetes. Understand, I still handed out the fliers but whenever a gullible civilian I was talking with showed signs of taking the glossy, focus group tested bait; I turned them over to one of the young, motivated hot shots.

Given that none of the fair goers we talked with wanted to seriously pursue the National Guard, I came away surprised at how South Carolinians could be both so hyper-patriotic but instinctively adverse to actually making a commitment to joining. To this day, I debate whether or not that made them smart and me stupid for entering military service. Or that their keen patriotism was just a shallow facade to hide outright cowardice and sloth.

Yes, my cynicism is getting obnoxious even to myself but it's well founded.

You might be surprised to know, even as I walked around carrying a bad attitude I did nothing to embarrass the National Guard, my uniform, or myself. You also need to understand that an attitude correction would hit me that day after I literally turned a corner in one of the fairgrounds buildings showing off various fine crafts.

If I remember correctly that particular building was where they had the displays showing off woodworking projects with the winning items in large glass cases in the center of the largest room. My recruiting group made our way through the various rooms both admiring the woodworking projects and handing out fliers to anyone who took notice of us.

Without really paying attention we entered the last room of the building before the maze-like layout of the displays deposited us back outside. Two boys, around seven or eight years-old, were in our path intently looking at one of the woodworking projects in a large glass case. I don't know if its was our reflections on the glass that caught their attention or maybe the sounds of our voices but my group and I really startled those kids.

They both turned around suddenly with looks of astonishment on their faces and said the word, “Soldiers” with a tone of clear reverence. Being soldiers, at least of the weekend warrior type, we naturally chatted with the kids for a few minutes before heading back outside.

It was a simple and brief encounter but one that reminded me that someone is always watching our actions and listening to our words. Like I wrote earlier, I did nothing that day to shame my uniform but my attitude was especially bad for a whole host of reasons, many justified given the situation at that time. I can't imagine the impression those kids would have come away with had I exposed them to my slow simmering bad attitude.

Fast forward to our current, much worse situation in my opinion, and I find myself seething at the actions of certain individuals in out national leadership and the media sycophants who carry their banner of fear and prejudice. The Orange Buffoon occupying the White House has made a habit of identifying the COVID-19 virus as the “China Virus” in a passive-aggressive manner that does nothing but stoke hate towards anyone of Asian decent.

Now OB, in his fourth-grade way of explaining it, says he uses the China Virus term since it originates from that country. This ignores a century or so of derogatory and outright racist terminology aimed at describing Asians, no matter where they were born or what citizenship they hold. More to the point, OB does this to prop up a bogeyman/scapegoat to cover for his criminal incompetence in the handling of the pandemic.

Enough about OB's usual behaviors that does nothing but lowers the standing of the United States and many Americans to the level of street thugs and illiterate, white trailer trash. What really pissed me off was how nervous my daughter was last week upon returning home from a lone trip to the grocery store.

My daughter is Asian, born in China, and went to the nearby grocery store to buy a few food items for herself. The same trip she she was made possibly hundreds of times since getting her driver's license. The difference this time was the fact that she had numerous people stare at her in a manner they had never done before. My daughter swears no one said anything to her in the grocery store but the stares she was receiving were highly unsettling. Upon hearing this, I instantly said that she wouldn't make another trip to the grocery store alone while the local natives, all middle class white folk, were being stirred up by pandemic hysteria.

Yeah, I blame the Orange Buffoon since he is damn near worshiped in the area and state I live. People I know hang on his every word and believe he literally can do no wrong. All his numerous faults are overlooked and ignored and if anything goes wrong during his management of the country they fallback on the scapegoats he serves up during his dictator-like speeches. So when OB pokes at long held racists tropes his collection of toadies quickly fall into line.

I didn't like George W. Bush as president and still believe many of his actions were at a minimum misguided. But not once during his years in office did I think he ever poked at this countries old prejudices against any ethnic groups. The Orange Buffoon on the other hand stirs up old prejudices and fears at every opportunity. It's like watching a slow motion hate crime on a national scale.

The prompting of these ethnic fears is how atrocities happen in other countries. My skin crawls at the idea that I live around and work with people who are so easily swayed by the Buffoon's words and behaviors because this time, it's on a very personal level.