Thank you for your Service

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. 

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.

ἥρως

 

The ancient Greek word for 'a man' is 'ἥρως' ('hero').

And, ... men are heroic, stoic ones at that. (Although the ladies may argue that a man with a cold is nothing like a stoic hero). But we're also supposed to 'open up.' We're supposed to share our thoughts and feelings. Because that builds better relationships and happier families.

But does it? Where does this advice come from, because, it seems to me, that this is a modern invention, and not tested with ... well, not tested at all, by any measure, other than a 'well, that's what you're supposed to do.'

But are we?

I had a twinge today, over my heart.

So, the modern approach would be to share this with my family. But I know what would come from that: we would rush to the ER, the ER would rush me through tests, the doctor would review the tests and, like every other time (even when I had my heart attack), the doctor would see every single indicator in the nominal range, but, the doctor, being a doctor under modern liability constraints, would recommend I convalesce at the hospital under 24-hour observation.

A visit to the ER costs $2400 if I'm driven there (more if I'm escorted in an ambulance) (much more). An overnight stay at the hospital?

I don't even want to think about that cost.

So, instead of baring my heart and sharing my feelings, I went for a walk.

Yeah. Like a man, I decided to walk it off.

And that worked.

This time.

But what if it didn't?

Well, the first time I decided to run my heart attack off, that didn't work, and I almost died (twice) and was rushed to the ER, WHO FOUND ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH ME, until I ended up on the operating table with a stent.

Yay.

So, either way, walking it off worked. And, even when it didn't, I turned around, came back home, told my family, and we rushed to the hospital WHO SAID NOTHING WAS WRONG WITH ME because they're used to the modern man, who eats junk food, doesn't exercise, and dies in a very obvious way, not with a guy who exercises every day and whose body adjusts around bad genetics.

What does it profit my family that I share with them 'I have a twinge over my heart'?

The profit, actually, the cost, is that they worry unto death, all day, waiting, again, for a no-result from the hospital and a $2400 bill for the trouble.

Men, ... women, too: be a burden on your families, that's what God put you on this good, green Earth for, to help each other make your way through this day. You can't help, nor be a help, if you have to do everything all by yourself. If the world hinges on you, alone, then what, even, is every other person in your life for? Each person in your life is a gift from God. Thank God for these gifts by being there for them and allowing them to be there for you.

But don't be an unnecessary burden. Don't impose yourself onto people. Don't smother them, don't worry them, don't crush them out of the one-sided conversation you harangue them with. You are here for them which means if you have a plan or a problem, include them in helping to solve it, if you have a worry, share it, but only insofar as they can help you get over it.

Fine line?

Nope. You know when you're being a jerk.

Don't be a jerk to your family. Be their help, and be their hope.

"Anguish"

So, I've gotten my whole family to read Salinger's "For Esme: with Love and Squalor," so: my work here is done. Mission: accomplished. Life: complete. Dad level: shining star.

What is the point of "For Esme: with Love and Squalor"? And why is it Salinger's Magnum Opus? (No, not "Catcher in the Rye," that unfortunately generation-defining work.)

World War II changed us. Read Wilfred Owen's "Dulce Decorum Est." But it changed us in a more profound way than that. Sartre wrote "Nausea" in answer to the question: "What if there is no God, really?" And he got sick of it, the idea that there's nothing, is nothing, and when we die, will be nothing. World War II caused an Existential Crisis that not only we have not recovered from, but, looking at this generation, we continue to go down the spiral to Oblivion, screaming: "XANAX AND DOLLARS! XANAX AND DOLLARS!"

Nausea. We are sick, but we don't even know we are sick, because we're pretending that 'everything's fine' and 'I know what I'm doing' because 'there's got to be a point to all this, ... doesn't there?'

Doesn't there?

Salinger addresses this question, head on, in "For Esme: with Love and Squalor." What is the point? And he addresses it with us: the most unreliable narrator.

Take X. What does he say? ever? in this story? He does speak, but note how he does: "I told her that..." "I relayed my ..." "I felt that I should ..."

He addresses the other Platonian Shadows in this story not as himself, but as a narrator through himself.

The Narrator has crossed himself out of this story, and is using his own person as a shadow-puppet to redirect our attention away from him to ...

... to, well, anything and anybody else other than him.

He doesn't want to be seen.

Esme sees him.

Esme, bored Esme, hiding her yawn in the choir loft, sees that he sees her, and seeing her, sees her for exactly who she is. She is above all this 'normalcy' this ... SQUALOR of the Every Day, so far above it that she does these common-place things -- singing, asking: "what are you doing here?" -- at a level beyond the normal: she exists in a higher plane than everybody else, because, unlike them, these walking shadows, she does exist, she is alive, and vibrantly so. She sees our narrator, sees him seeing her, and in seeing him, gives him life, and hope, and joy, and meaning, and purpose, ...

... for one microsecond of his lifeless life.

Then he, before and after, descends right back into the Squalor of the Every Day, pretending to be normal, pretending to be 'fine,' and utterly failing to fool anybody, even and most particularly, himself.

So.

Where is the hope in this hopeless story?

"Seymour: an Introduction" tells us the answer.

"The Artist screams [crying out in Anguish] and when we run to him and ask him: 'What's wrong,' he can't say. He cannot speak it. But it is his EYES! It is his EYES that see the pain and the lost and the emptiness of this life, and cannot unsee it. And that is what kills the Artist. His EYES."

The hope, in "For Esme: with Love and Squalor," is that Esme sees the Narrator, just for that one second, and, in a totally free act of kindness, reaches her heart out to his heart, and says to him: "I see you. I see your weaknesses. I see your strengths. You are alive. I love you. I see you."

And being seen, before, during, and after, living in the squalor of the Normal he creates for himself, yes, but in that Squalor, he now has that. He was seen. He was real to someone. He brought Joy to her: happiness, delight, recognition, hope.

And that is what he will have to his dying day.

And that is something no one can take away from him.

Ever.

Not even himself.

Baited then switched: what to do? Grin and Bear it?

So, okay, you've been baited into a meeting under a pretense, then, BAM! they switcheroo'd on you. Now you in this ... 'meeting'? do I call it a 'meeting,' when really it's an inquisition. So, you're in this thing, and your back is against the wall.

What do you do?

Here's what you don't do.

What I did: I played along, played nice, and survived the 'meeting' with this or that platitude, as required.

That's the default, right? "Let me just survive this and get the hell out of here."

No.

Why survive a meeting? Why lick the boots of the bossman (and, in my case: bosswoman), cower, and snivel?

For a job? Really? Because you really need this job? Really?

Let me tell you about this job.

It's a job. You do your work, it's part of your life.

You are investing your life into your job.

You only have this life, and then: you are going to die.

And, you're not doing yourself any favors, sniveling and scraping, and you're also not doing your boss any favors, right? You know that, right?

If your boss is being a little tyrant, then that's all they are: little, and a tyrant. So why, even, are you there, if all you are is a yes-man?

I am four years into my second chance. I had two heart attacks – the second one almost killed me – each day, now, is a gift from God Almighty. Am I going to waste this gift in servitude?

I'm an expert in my field. I have 25 years of experience working with some good managers and some bad ones, but they are all human beings, like me (maybe). I don't need to kowtow to my boss. I need to work for my boss to get the job done.

And the job won't get done if I check out as a yes-man. And the job won't get done when the boss is a little tyrant, demanding everybody be afraid of him or her. How can you get your job done if you check out? How can your team get the job done if you're spending time playing mind-games, trying to make people agree with everything that falls out of your mouth?

You can't. They can't. Nobody can.

Try this.

If you don't agree with something, say that. If you get gamed, say that.

"Look, I'm not ready to discuss this now at this meeting. Can we set up another meeting to discuss this?"

That's all you need to do. If they start to wander into mind-games, you call them on it, and say you won't play, because you're here to get work done.

Aren't they?

You do it the right way, they'll appreciate the correction. You do it the wrong way, or the wrong person is your boss, you've made an enemy, and you lost your job.

No big deal. Count yourself blessed to have an enemy who is a little tyrant. Count yourself blessed that you got fired from a job that going to is pure hell. You got out of hell. Get a different job that's better!

But if you don't speak up, it's your fault that your job sucks. And if you do speak up, and your job does get better, then:

Then: your job is better. Not just for you, but for everybody on your team. Because of you.

Think about that before you decide to grin and bear it again.

Think about that.

Bait-and-Switch Meetings

This is the second 'Bait-and-switch'-meeting I've gone to, and I don't appreciate it. If, at the beginning of the meeting, you say: "Oh, and besides X, I also want to talk about you, and your Y," then you've just committed a bait-and-switch. The meeting's agenda is the meeting's agenda, and if you have different things you want to talk about, you set up a different meeting. 

Now, you may say: "Well, I didn't tell you, because I wanted your honest opinion." Three things here: 

1. You're saying I'm dishonest otherwise? 
2. You came prepared, but you're not giving me the courtesy of coming prepared? 
3. and who has the power in this conversation. Are you caught off guard? 

Let me ask you: if your management team called you in for a meeting to talk about administrative stuff, and then they turned it around and asked: "I hear your team is having personality issues, why are you screwing up?" How would you feel? Imposed upon. Look at it as feedback. If you're given feedback, unprepared, and it's hard-hitting, you're reeling from the blow, and don't have the frame of mind to absorb that feedback, much less respond to it with a level head. 

Bait-and-switch meetings are bad, and they come from cowardice. What they do is this: they destroy trust. I now no longer trust going into a meeting that the published agenda is not the actual one, and now I don't want to say anything anymore. You may 'win' your bait-and-switch, by throwing the recipient off-guard and asserting your position of authority, but you lose, big-time: you have now lost the participation of me, up-to-now, a contributing member of the team.

Keep up the good work.

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.

The Joy of the LORD

meditations on Divine Mercy Chaplet.

"Why are you religionists so bound to this patriarchal imposition on you? Be happy! Be free! Get rid of your superstitions and join us Shiny, Happy People."

Let's talk, for one second, about you shiny, happy people: you atheists.

Where is your joy?

I've met several kinds of atheists, some are very ill-informed, spouting The Narrative that they've been fed from the feeds they've been spooned from the Gubmint, the Shool (the Gubmint, again), the parochial shool (sadly, but well-known for a century now), and The MEDIA.

"God is ded. We kilt'm. Long live mother Earth/Pachamama/Shiva/SCIENCE and stuff."

Wait. Didn't you just replace God with your gods that you just created in your own image and likeness?

Let's look at your own image and likeness.

You're fat. You're lazy. You're slothful. You're vicious. You're perverted.

And you're not happy.

Angry. Bitter. Sad.

But not happy.

This is the gods the atheists want us to worship: "THINK FOR YOURSELF! [but only if you think OUR way]. FREE YOURSELF FROM YOUR OPPRESSIVE GOD! [to be aborted, divorced, and used as a sex-object]. FIGHT DA MAN! [to drink his corporate coffee, litter the streets (forcing poor workers to clean up after your pollution), and make photocopies as he cheats on his wife with you... in the supply closet. Only to dump you and fire you when he's done with you. How romantic.]"

Is that what you want?

Because that's what you get when you go the way that the World offers you.

I've met some mellow individuals who are atheists, but they are the thoughtful, and truly independent ones. They don't spout anybody else's nonsense, except their own, and usually, they are self-aware enough to know that they don't know. These are the very, very few atheists I have met.

Maybe one person. Maybe two.

The rest ...?

The rest, I pray for you, but that's all I can do. I can't stop your one-way, determined, grim charge straight down to the pits of hell, not without me being caught up in that entangled mess of self-hate, self-loathing, and self-destruction. So: good luck to you, and buy an asbestos suit, because you're going to need it.

And, yeup, me, too. I'm not exempt because I'm pious or self-righteous. Jesus made that very clear, and I hear Him. I don't 'deserve' heaven. Nobody does. Heaven is a gift from God, freely given, and all we have to do is accept it by loving Him.

If ye love me, keep my commandments.

It's really that simple. His commandments are not oppressive. His commandments are posts in the ground: "There's a cliff beyond this mark. Stay on this side, My side, and be safe. Step out of the line, and you die."

That's comforting. Dad told you: "Son! Don't touch the stove!" But did you listen? No, and you got burned. Dad doesn't say: "Don't touch the stove!" because he's a meanie and he's so disempowering to you. Dad said "Don't touch the stove!" because he loves you and he doesn't want you to hurt yourself.

"Son, don't rape children. Daughter, don't sell your body for love, because you'll get sex, and not love, and no self-worth. Son, don't cut your dick off."

What do the atheists say? What does LBGTQBBQIDGAF say? The exact opposite.

And are they happy?

Fatherlessness is the cause of unhappiness. People who have sex-change operations regret it. Homosexuality is 1% of the population but over 25% of pedophilia. Black Live Matter seeks to destroy the nuclear family to destroy what is good for the children.

"We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure..." ~ Black Lives Matter: What we believe.

This is the present that atheists, Black Lives Matter, and feminists ("Down with the Patriarchy! Women should be free to destroy their bodies with chemicals now [birth control] to be used as sex-objects and chemicals later [Xanax] when the depression hits and they ask themselves: 'why have we destroyed all the good men?'") want you to have.

What about God's Presence?

3 pm is the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Yeup, one of those long Catholic prayers that we're 'forced' to do.

Except, what are you doing this quarantine, this Sunday? ... besides reading my blog?

My daughters belong to a group of young men and women, who, every day for a certain part of the day, turn their eyes toward God as a community of Faith.

Boring, no? Onerous, no?

No.

They run to the laptop to join the zoom to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet, and afterwards, for a good hour now, they meet with their friends and talk and laugh and laugh and laugh.

The Joy of the LORD will be my strength

They pray, they obey, they are homeschooled, and, instead of being 'not socialized' (to what norm? kids in their swim team are having sex at the age of 14, ... so they can be like everybody else and be liked), they are centered, they are respected, they are leaders among their peers.

Why?

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.

They fear the LORD, and they obey their parents. Honoring your parents is the first Commandment where God promises blessings. Honoring your parents brings honor to your family and honor to yourself. Honoring your parents gives you a touchstone that centers you for the rest of your life. Where this generation (and all generations) are cut adrift it the sea of 'my rights, my self, my stuff,' these kids, these few kids who honor their parents and honor the LORD are...

... are happy, and joyful, and free to give themselves because they are fed from the wellspring that never runs dry.

Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Lord, give me this water.