Tom Glenn's Blog, page 167

U.S. Income Disparity

I and another member of a discussion group disagreed about the widening gap between the wealthiest Americans and everybody else. So I gathered statistics to illustrate the case.

The figures below vary depending on what method the researcher used to derive them, but all show a striking inequality between the wealthy and the rest of us.

“By 2016, the typical American household had a net worth of 14 percent lower than the typical household in 1984, while richest one-tenth of 1 percent owned almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent put together. Income has become almost as unequal as wealth: Between 1972 and 2016 the pay of the typical American worker dropped 2 percent, adjusted for inflation, although the American economy doubled in size. Most of the income gains went to the top. In 2016, the annual Wall Street bonus pool alone was larger than the annual year-round earnings of all 3.3 million Americans working full-time at the federal income minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.” —from The Common Good by Robert Reich, 2018.

According to statistical data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) (in September 2016), the richest 1% of the American population had an adjusted gross income of $465,626 or higher for the 2014 tax year. But the Washington Center for Equitable Growth put the average household income for this group at $1,260,508 for 2014. The average income for a middle-class worker in 2014 was around $50,000.

A recent Pew Research Center analysis also found that the wealth gaps between upper-income families and lower- and middle-income families in 2016 were at the highest levels ever recorded. Although the wealth of upper-income families has more than recovered from the losses experienced during the Great Recession of 2008, the wealth of lower- and middle-income families in 2016 was comparable to 1989 levels. Thus, even as the American middle class appears not to be shrinking (for now), it continues to fall further behind upper-income households financially, mirroring the long-running rise in income inequality in the U.S. overall.

The wealthy sometimes explain the disparity in income by insisting that lower-class people are lazy or don’t try hard enough.

New Book Review

My review of Brian VanDeMark’s landmark history of how the U.S. became involved in Vietnam, Road to Disaster, is out today. You can read it at http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/bookreview/road-to-disaster-a-new-history-of-americas-descent-into-vietnam

Marine General Al Gray (3)

After the fall of Saigon, Al Gray continued his service to the corps, and in 1987, he was named Commandant of the Marine Corps. His reputation among the Marines spread, and ordinary people began to hear about him. Two of the three volumes of his biography by Scott Laidig are now in print. His close ties with the National Security Agency (NSA), my employer, became stronger. And in July 2018, Leatherneck, the “magazine of the Marines,” honored him with a cover story about his life of service. In that article, he is quoted as remembering the fall of Saigon as “some of the worst moments of my career.” You can read it at https://www.mca-marines.org/leatherneck/2018/07/general-alfred-m-gray-continues-serve.

Meanwhile, General Gray had made it his business to stay in touch with me through all these years since the fall of Saigon. In 2016, when I was severely ill with lung cancer that nearly cost me my life, he sent me a note saying that he was rooting for me.

Then, last Friday, on 7 September, he was given a party to celebrate his ninetieth birthday. The invitation to me to attend came so late that I couldn’t accept—I was preparing to participate in the Maryland Public Television Flea Market the next day—but I sent him an autographed copy of Last of the Annamese. I wrote, “I’m alive today because you saved my life on 29 April 1975.”

The retired Marine officer who took the book to him, Ed Hall, called me on Saturday to tell me what happened when General Gray read my autograph. According to Ed, the general was so moved he was almost in tears.

Marine General Al Gray (2)

Continuing the quote from my article about General Al Gray’s appearance at my door in Saigon as the city was about to fall:

“In my office, I told him [Al Gray] everything I knew about the military situation, but he knew more than I did. What he didn’t know in detail was what was going on with the friendlies. I told him about the unruly, desperate crowds jamming the streets and now ten to fifteen people deep outside the perimeter fence of our compound and my worry that the fence might not hold. He explained to me that he’d been named the Ground Security Officer—the man in charge—for the evacuation of Saigon once it was ordered.

“But the Ambassador was doing everything he could to throw roadblocks in Al’s way. He wouldn’t allow Al’s Marines to dress in uniform, fly their own helicopters into the country, or stay overnight. So Al and his troops, in civilian clothes, had to fly in and out each day from the 7th Fleet, cruising in the South China Sea, via Air America slicks, the little Hueys, the UH-1 choppers that could only carry eight to fourteen people.

“It didn’t matter. Ambassador or no Ambassador, the Marines had landed. They’d be ready for the evacuation the instant it was ordered.”

End of quote. The Ambassador had also forbidden me to evacuate my 43 subordinates and their families—he didn’t believe the overwhelming evidence that the North Vietnamese were about to attack Saigon. So I used every ruse I could think of to get my people safely out of the country. Before the end of April, all of them were gone except for the two communicators who had volunteered to stay with me to the end.

The evacuation of the remaining Americans and some Vietnamese started around 27 April. Al and his Marines, now in uniform and using Marine helicopters, flew in from the 7th Fleet and rescued us. That’s how Al Gray saved my life.

More tomorrow.

Marine General Al Gray

I’ve devoted a fair number of posts in this blog to Marine General Al Gray. He saved my life when Saigon fell. He has just come back into my life again, so it’s worth recapping what I’ve written about him before.

I first met General Gray when he was a Marine captain. That was in the early 1960’s in Vietnam. Over my thirteen years in-country, I kept running into him out in the field, with combat units. Then, in April 1975, as the fall of Saigon was getting closer, he showed up at my door. Here’s the story, quoted from my article, “Bitter Memories: The Fall of Saigon” (http://atticusreview.org/bitter-memories-the-fall-of-saigon/):

“I started doing regular physical recons of the DAO building. Sometimes I took out a load of burnbags to the incinerator in the parking lot and burned them; other times I just wandered around. I wanted to be sure I knew beforehand if the North Vietnamese were going to breach the perimeter fence. As I walked the halls and crisscrossed the compound, I saw brawny young American men with skinhead haircuts who had appeared out of nowhere. They were dressed in tank tops or tee-shirts, shorts, and tennis shoes. When two or three walked together, they fell into step, as if marching.

“Marines in mufti! I knew all the Marines in country, and I didn’t recognize any of these guys. What the hell was going on?

“I found out that night. I was trying to grab a little sleep in my office. The door chime sounded. I grasped my .38 and went to the door. Through the peep hole I saw a middle-aged red-haired American man in a neon Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and rubber flip-flops. He gave me a flat-handed wave and a silly grin. It was Colonel Al Gray, a Marine officer I’d worked with over the years in Vietnam. I’d never before seen Al out of uniform—I didn’t think he owned any civies—and I knew he made it an iron-clad rule never to spend more than 24 hours in Saigon—his work was with his troops in the field and he disliked bureaucracy. I lowered the .38 and opened the door. “Hi,” he said. “Can I come in?”

More tomorrow.

The Tomb of Lê Văn Duyệt

More than a year ago, I wrote a brief post in this blog about the tomb of Lê Văn Duyệt, located in that part of Saigon that was, in my days there, called Chợ Lớn, which means “large market.” It was in the southern quadrant of Saigon, and its population was predominantly Chinese.

The tomb itself is in a stately park surrounded by high walls. Its entrance gate is two stories tall, and inside the walls are several temples ornately decorated with ceramics. I first visited the tomb in 1962. It was an imposing shrine, stately and moving. I visited it periodically during my time in Saigon. I saw it for the last time in 1975, not long before Saigon fell, and found it in shambles as the chaos of the war led to general disarray. From pictures now on the internet, it appears that the communist government of Vietnam has restored it to something like its former glory.

Lê Văn Duyệt (1763 or 1764 – 3 July 1832) was a Vietnamese general who helped Nguyễn Ánh—the future Emperor Gia Long—put down the Tây Sơn rebellion, unify Vietnam and establish the Nguyễn Dynasty. After the Nguyễn came to power in 1802, Duyệt became a high-ranking mandarin, serving under the first two Nguyễn emperors Gia Long and Minh Mạng. The Nguyễn dynasty continued to rule Vietnam, at least nominally, until 1954, when Vietnam was divided into the communist north and the republican south. The last of Nguyễn, Bảo Đại, lived in exile in France until 1997.

The character of Tuyet in Last of the Annamese is a member of the Nguyễn clan. She is a princess forced to marry a peasant for the good of her family.

The tomb of Lê Văn Duyệt appears in my novel, Last of the Annamese. In the spring of 1975, Colonel Thanh takes his family—his wife Tuyet, his niece Lan, and his six-year-old son Thu—to the tomb on a family outing. The trip is not a success. The tomb, which Thanh remembers from his youth, has been neglected and is overrun with beggars. Worse, a VC assassin shoots Thanh in the shoulder as the family searches for a taxi to take them home.

When I think back about my days in Saigon, Lê Văn Duyệt’s tomb is among my favorite memories. It was a serene place surrounded by a city that became more chaotic as defeat came closer.

The Story of Shay (3)

The last installment of Shay’s story. His father is telling what happened:

“Everyone yelled, ‘Run to second, run to second!’

“Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base.

“By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball. The smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team.

“He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher’s intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman’s head.

“Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home. All were screaming, ‘Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay!’

“Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, ‘Run to third! Shay, run to third!’

“As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, ‘Shay, run home! Run home!’

“Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team

“That day,” said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, “the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world.

“Shay didn’t make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming home and seeing his mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!”

The end of Shay’s story. My thanks to Larry Burbank.

The Story of Shay (2)

Continuing from yesterday the story Larry Burbank sent me:

“In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay’s team scored again.

“Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat. At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game?

“Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn’t even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.

“However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay’s life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact.

“The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed.

“The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.

“The game would now be over.

“The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game. Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman’s head, out of reach of all team mates.

“Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, ‘Shay, run to first! Run to first!’

“Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.”

More tomorrow.

The Story of Shay

Larry Burbank, another Vietnam veteran, sent me the text below. I pass it on to you.

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question:

“When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does, is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?”

The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued. “I believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically disabled, comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.”

Then he told the following story:

“Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, ‘Do you think they’ll let me play?’ I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

“I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, ‘We’re losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we’ll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning.’

“Shay struggled over to the team’s bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted.

“In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay’s team scored a few runs but was still behind by three.

“In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands.”

More tomorrow.

Robert Reich’s The Common Good (3)

The Reich book, as I said at the beginning of this series of blog posts, shocked me. I didn’t realize the degree to which we Americans have abandoned the common good. Reich devotes roughly the last third of his text to methods of restoring American devotion to the common good. He emphasizes leadership, shaming the perpetrators of disinformation, resurrecting the truth, and fostering civic education in our schools. While I believe in Reich’s recommendations, I’m concerned that the countervailing tendencies may be too strong.

With President Trump and his supporters telling us that “truth isn’t truth” and that we ought to believe “alternative facts,” our search for factual information—critical to the common good—is impaired. As President Trump told veterans in July, “Just remember, what you are seeing and what you are reading is not what’s happening.”

George Orwell’s 1984 is upon us.