The Military (Combined post)

Hi.

My name is Doug Auclair, and I served, Active Duty, as an officer in the United States Coast Guard from 1989 to 1995 after graduating from the US Coast Guard Academy.

When I told my wife that'd I'd be speaking here at the Newport Vets Town Hall 2021, ... IN VERMONT, she asked me: "Why? Are you special?"

And I'd like to think about that question, because I'm not special. And I'm sure many of you think something similar. I bet many of you think: "Hey, I served. I did my duty, and it was an honor to serve. I'm not special. I just did my job." Because it's hard, isn't it, when people say: "Thank you for your service." To just say: "You're welcome. It was an honor to serve." Because it's not something special. It's just something you and I did.

My sister challenged me, too, to be brave, maybe even to be fearless, sharing my experience here.

And, I'm sorry, Beki, but I don't know how to be brave. I just did my duty. That's all. 22-hour days, some days, continuously, too, in the Bearing Sea, north of Alaska, saved 150 lives, but ... it was just me, and everybody else aboard ship, just doing our job. And I got that from my Dad who served in the Air Force, stationed in Greenland and Turkey, watching the skies, day after day, year after year, why? So the people he, you, and I, love here, at home, were able to go to bed, knowing that we were ever vigilant in the execution of our duties. For my dad, it was the air, for me, it was the seas.

Coast Guard Fore'er: we go out to sea, but it doesn't mean we get come back. Some of us didn't. I did. Why?

Some of you feel that way, too. I bet. "Why did I get to come home when my ship-mates didn't? Why are you thanking me for my service, when I got to come back? Why can't we honor the ones who didn't?"

But maybe, we are special. 

And maybe we are brave. 

And maybe bravery comes easily and naturally for you, maybe bravery is a fire in your heart, and more than just doing your job. But maybe you just did your job, like me, ... but that's needful, too. The warfighter can't be brave, without the rest of us supporting the effort, all day, every day. There is bravery, and honor, in 'just doing your job.'

Because why? Because you did serve. You did do your duty. And you do honor your fellow service members, the ones who didn't come back, you honor them today with your memory of them and you honor them with your life, your example, and your witness.

One thing I learned in the Service is this: we are family. We have a shared experience that's ineffable. When, going through TSA at Reagan National Airport in Washington D.C. to get here, I met an Air Force Academy grad, class of '90. We had a connection, a bond, that none outside the service will ever have. Suddenly, and instantly, we were brothers, and he cared more for me, and I for him, more than anybody else at the airport, and we had each other's back, just like that. 

Because we served. 

I talk how the military is family, it's a way of life. And nothing gets you thinking about life more than death. I came up to Vermont because the headstone was laid for my mom just this week. And, I am at a point in my life where my friends are dying. It will be my turn someday, too. This past year, I went to the funeral of my best man, Mike Malovic, Master Sargent in the US Army Chorus, and I accompanied my dad's friend, Lt Commander, USN, to bury his friend, Captain Jim Mathews, USN, both at the Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. with full military honors. 

I didn't know Jim, but, he was family, because of a friend of my dad in the military. But I got to know Jim in how his son and daughter honored him, Irish wake-style, and through the stories his comrades-in-arms told about him as they served together through the Vietnam era.

And I wonder: how will we be remembered? Family. For some of us, our closest friends are in the military, and they, and you, hold the stories of our lives in those moments of hard work, hardship, and comradery. For us in the military, how we live is important, but also, how we are honored and remembered when we die. I saw so many young people in attendance at both those funerals, seeing, perhaps for the first time how the military honors its own, with dignity and respect. 

Are our young people today honored with dignity and respect? Some young people have to be asking themselves that question. Were we treated with dignity and respect in the military?

Hell no! We were worked hard, then, pulled out of the rack after two hours of sleep, and worked hard, again. Were we thanked? Hell no! We did our job and were upbraided if we didn't do it right, and were rewarded with even more work if we did.

But where else do you get that hard line? I had 300 fellow shipmates' lives in my hands every day as the engineering duty officer, and I had the US border to protect, laws to enforce, and lives to save. And I did all that. Where else in the world can you have a job where what you do matters? In the USA, there are less and less places that people can contribute in a meaningful way. In the military, you can drive a desk or clean the latrine, sure, but you can also put your life on the line, or you can support the warfighter or peacekeeper who does put their lives on the line. Their lives directly depend on you doing your job.

Where else can you say that? And, where else can you do that with your shipmates that will build friendships that will last the rest of your lives?

We are the American Fighting Men and Women. We serve in the forces that guard our Country, and our way of life. We were prepared to give our lives in their defense.

And that is something that we were given: a blessing, an honor, a burden, and a privilege. And I thank God for that honor and that privilege, and I thank God for you, my brothers and sisters, who served in our Armed Forces.

Thank you for your service.

Comrades-in-arms

The military is family, it's a way of life. And nothing gets you thinking about life more than death. I came up to Vermont because the headstone was laid for my mom just this week. And, I am at a point in my life where my friends are dying. It will be my turn someday, too. This past year, I went to the funeral of my best man, Mike Malovic, Master Sargent in the US Army Chorus, and I accompanied my dad's friend, Lt Commander, USN, to bury his friend, Captain Jim Mathews, USN, both at the Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. with full military honors. 

I didn't know Jim, but, he was family, because of a friend of my dad in the military. But I got to know Jim in how his son and daughter honored him, Irish wake-style, and through the stories his comrades-in-arms told about him as they served together through the Vietnam era.

And I wonder: how will we be remembered? Family. For some of us, our closest friends are in the military, and they, and you, hold the stories of our lives in those moments of hard work, hardship, and comradery. For us in the military, how we live is important, but also, how we are honored and remembered when we die. I saw so many young people in attendance at both those funerals, seeing, perhaps for the first time how the military honors its own, with dignity and respect. 

Are our young people today honored with dignity and respect? Some young people have to be asking themselves that question. Were we treated with dignity and respect in the military?

Hell no! We were worked hard, then, pulled out of the rack after two hours of sleep, and worked hard, again. Were we thanked? Hell no! We did our job and were upbraided if we didn't do it right, and were rewarded with even more work if we did.

But where else do you get that hard line? I had 300 fellow shipmates' lives in my hands every day as the engineering duty officer, and I had the US border to protect, laws to enforce, and lives to save. And I did all that. Where else in the world can you have a job where what you do matters? In the USA, there are less and less places that people can contribute in a meaningful way. In the military, you can drive a desk or clean the latrine, sure, but you can also put your life on the line, or you can support the warfighter or peacekeeper who does put their lives on the line. Their lives directly depend on you doing your job.

Where else can you say that? And, where else can you do that with your shipmates that will build friendships that will last the rest of your lives?

My Friend, Mike, Died

 My friend, Mike Malovic, far left in the picture, just died. Cancer.

Mike was a good man. I moved to the Washington, D.C. area in 1992 and met Mike soon after at the St. Michael's choir. We were both military, so we connected in that way, and he asked me if I kept my options open for business opportunities. I did. So we talked, and I joined his organization in Amway.

Now, I'm sorry if you had a bad Amway-experience, or, more likely: you heard that your mother's second cousin's friend-from-work-sister's girfriend "lost all her money in Amway and had to go live in Topeka, Kansas with her mom."

But my experience with Amway wasn't like that, and nor was Mike's, and here's why.

Mike cared. Mike cared for his family, and he knew he wasn't going to make it in the Washington DC-area off a sergeant's salary, and he knew he definitely wasn't going to make it off a sergeant's pension. So he looked at starting a business. He started a few, was successful in a few, but they still couldn't provide. He put the same amount of work into Amway that he put into his job and his other businesses, and Amway worked for him. So he shared that message of success with others, including me.

And here's the thing. Amway didn't work for me, because I didn't work Amway like Mike did. I played at it, tried it out, but I didn't work it like a full-time job, like Mike did, so I didn't become an Amway millionaire. But here's what I did get out of Amway: respect for people who worked at it, or at their businesses, respect for my Country, respect for my God, and my lovely wife. Pinky, Mike's wife, introduced me to Diane: "You know, Doug, Diane's really smart and sweet. You should talk to her. Like: now."

So, yeah: I'm not an Amway millionaire, like Mike may be, but here's the thing about Mike.

Mike cares.

Mike is a man who cares about you more than he cares about himself. He always has a word of encouragement, he always asks after you and your family, he always looks you in the eye when he shakes your hand, and he always treated me as a friend, whether I made him rich in Amway, or whether I didn't.

Because I didn't make him rich in Amway.

But.

I made him rich in life.

Mike is a very private, quiet person, and, for him, talking with people is hard, and tiring, and scary.

But here's something I learned from Mike, too.

You can live your life lonely, and alone, or you can talk with other people, and they can hurt you, yes, but they can change you in how you see the world as they see the world, and they can care, and they can hope, and they can dream, and they can enrich your life when they share that care, that hope, and those dreams with you.

That's what I learned from Mike. Introversion isn't an excuse. It wasn't for him, and, because of his example, it isn't for me. I learned my life is better when I make somebody's life better.

Today.

I learned that God put me on this Earth, today, to make somebody else's life better, and I ask myself, everyday: "Who did I make smile today?" and I better have an answer, today, by God, because I bet you anything, God will ask me the same question when I am called to task, like Mike was called to task.

Today.

My last visit with Mike breaks my heart, because I came prepared. I read up on him. I was going to ask him all about his life and adventures. "Sure," he said, "I was born in England, but I moved to the States when I was one year old. How is your dad? Is he okay?"

And from there, the conversation went, him asking about this or that, and commenting on how proud he was of me to work with the Air Force, to have my girls raised so polite and proper, to ...

It breaks my heart, that, to his dying breath, he didn't want to talk about himself, at all, he wanted to talk about me, and how I was faring in this world. Mike, he was done with this world, and ready for the next.

Mike, I know you're an Army man, but from this Coast Guardsman, I wish you, dear friend: fair winds and following seas.

God bless you, and keep you in His care.

Discouraged by Burdens

Dear LORD,

Thank You for today.

Some days — today — it's harder to say that than others. You rain down plentiful blessings today, as You do, every day, but some days I make it harder on myself to be open to receiving them.  I started this day on a meditation on death, but ended up becoming dogmatic, self-righteous, and now regret writing anything about it. There's a lesson: write, then stop and pray about it for a day first.

Today we had biryani for lunch, and free, too, but I'm still stuck on yesterday's lost free lunch because Jesumine was sick? Please, LORD, reform my heart and restore Jesumine to good health and happiness, too. But I am caught up in secular things: my system isn't working, and I don't know why, and I'm angry and frustrated about that. Nish is leaving to lead a team at thirty dollars more per hour, and I'm happy for him, but also sad that I feel stuck in this high-paying job that I'm buffeted about in and am still not meeting the bills.

I am thankful to have had the conversation with my wife about the costs of living here and living with paying off our debts, as that is one burden she shared instead of continuing to carry that burden by herself, but I'm sad to be the one to have put us there that she has to bear this burden of us getting out of it, and now the IRS with a three-thousand dollar penalty besides? When they tax us for a year with no income? It screams of injustice, and I don't want to play this game any more, but I don't know how to walk away from the table (responsibly), so I keep playing a game I'm losing at, and I'm becoming a sore loser, besides. 

And, all the while, everyone around me is supportive, hopeful, and encouraging: they are confident that I'm competent and will do well, and that, even, is a source of discouragement for me. How can they believe in me, when I don't? Do You feel the same way about me, too, LORD? Why?

I plead for Your Divine Help in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen.

The Meaning of Life

"I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m finding that ..." people are obsessively concerned that they are obsessively concerned about Death.

Why is that?

I'm concerned.

I'm concerned that people are obsessing over the wrong things, and are therefor living disordered lives. The sole end of your life, your entire 'reason' (your 'end') is your death.

And you're concerned you're concerned about that?

You celebrate the completion of something. "Completion." Guess what that means? To complete something is for you to 'kill' it and for it to 'die.'

That's why so many people never get anything done. They'd rather, obsessively, prolong, artificially, the life of something: their project at home, their dead-end job, than to complete it, naturally, 'kill' it, and move on with their lives, no longer attached to that thing.

But no, they keep feeding the external thing with their own lives so that this thing, this job, this doctor's thesis you've been working on for seven years now, this room you're going to tidy up 'when you get to it' but you never do, this just-this-one-more-level-in-this-video-game that never ends, this whatever-in-your-life-you're-attached-to that you keep feeding with your attention grows bigger and bigger in your life, until it is everything, it sucks up all your time and all your attention, it's the big, white elephant in the room, and the only thing that isn't there any more is you. Your husband can't talk with you, because he's talking to your job, not to you, any more.

Congratulations, you're not concerned about Death, you're concerned about doing a good job at your job, a perfect little cog in whatever wheel that feeds the beast ...

... by sucking out your soul.

You know when I know that I haven't reached down deep enough into me, and how I know that I really haven't opened up my heart, in my writing?

I look at my stats. If I don't see 'Death' there, I know I haven't done my work. I haven't tried hard enough. I didn't let go of this or that compulsion.

I haven't truly lived, if I don't truly die.

My daughter celebrates a birthday. Death.

I get promoted to 'Senior developer.' Death.

We have a new baby. Death.

I finish my taxes. Death.

I write a new chapter. Death. I publish that chapter. Death.

OMGosh, I finally, finally write 'The End' to "My Sister Rosalie."

Death. Death. Death. And that death, I'm scared (death), just might kill me.

Isn't that what you're afraid of? That if you actually do something, and face your fear, and walk right up to it, embrace it, and with it, move forward into that new chapter of your life ...

... aren't you actually afraid you'll die?

And, this time, the fear is justified: you actually will die. The old you will die, and the new you will be born, and you'll actually live, for goodness sake, unencumbered by that stupid, pointless thing that was tying you down to who-you-used-to-be, and because why, because you were so frikken attached to that something, that pointless thing, that nothing: that job, or that thesis, or that Mommy van and everything that it says about you (that is: everything that you think other people think about you, but nobody really cares about you, and if they did care about you, you know: really care about you, WOULDN'T IT BE LOVERLY?).

But no, you're too scared to think on your final end — you are dust, and everything you do is empty and meaningless — no, you'd rather care about your job, or about how you think other people think about you, than actually kill those things binding your life, constraining it into this tight little box that you can pretend to control, so that you can 'live' your 'life' on 'your' terms, worrying, obsessing, over everything, and accomplishing nothing.

When you accomplish something, you kill it in your life, so that it becomes free of you, and gets to live, and so that you become free of it, and you get to live.

But, oh, noes! That's too scary and unpredictable (Death), and We. Can't. Have. That.

Death.

The autocracy of 'oh, I'm not scared of death, I don't even think about it, because that so not cool!' has moved Death from ever before you, so now it's behind you, biting at your heels, the invisible monster under the bed you refuse to confront, so that, paradoxically, you nerve more and more about it: you're giving Death life, and killing yourself in the process. You're scared to die, but you won't admit that, not even to yourself, so you will never truly live.

I'd prefer to put Death front and center. And you know what? When I do: it is so liberating. I am going to die. I am going to die today; I am going to die tomorrow. I don't know when, precisely, but I do know that it will happen in my life.

So, is this thing, this little thing worthy of my time and effort? Yes? Then I will do it, and put my hand on the oar and pull with all my might and pull this ship into battle, for ... Today is a good day to die.

No? Then fuck it. This little thing is not worthy of my time nor of my attention? Fuck it, and fuck your petty fear of death, refusing to live, and refusing to let me live and revel and dance gleefully in this life I'm given. You can live your small, little, mousy life in your little, tiny box, scared of everything, but not concerned with death, because that's not P.C., but you're not going to drag me down into the sewer of your empty, grey, and only-existing-and-not-truly-living life.

I'd like to start a new trend here, standing against this wave of fear and conformity I see at present. I'd like to be the one to stand up, and to be proud of the fact that one of the things, and, most times, the primary thing, I'm concerned about is Death. I'd like to propose that when you, dear writer, check your stats to see how Buster and Kellianne, and Dr. James W. Pennebaker have to say about what you say to yourself in your writing, as opposed to how you truly think and feel about yourself (eh, you'll get there, ... or you won't), and how you see Death prominent, or even preeminent, that instead of being afraid or angry or perplexed, that ...

That you're proud.

"I'm thinking of the final things, the last things," you say to yourself, proudly.

I'm letting go of this, so that I can choose that. I'm dying, in my writing, and, projecting: I'm dying. Full Stop.

I'm dying.

I am but dust, and to dust I shall return.

How then, shall I live?