Tom Glenn's Blog, page 24

Politicians Threatened

I am more and more disturbed by the bellicosity of the Republicans, especially those closely aligned with Donald Trump. An editorial in yesterday’s Washington Post pointed out that threats against members of Congress, especially Democrats, are on the rise. It notes that while political violence used to be a fringe issue, it has now moved to center stage, “thanks largely to the dangerous rhetoric of former president Donald Trump.”

In a speech toward the end of summer, President Biden put the issue bluntly: “Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very republic.” Most recently, Trump, in an apparent incitement to violence, wrote on his social media website that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) “has a DEATH WISH” because McConnell wasn’t intense enough in his opposition to the Democrats.

I have to believe that physical attacks against politicians will start soon. That’s one more wound that Trump has inflicted. And the Republicans have not moved or even spoken out to counter the trend.

Have we really sunk so low?

Windhorse Prayer Flag Garlands

Hanging on the bookshelves in my office are two prayer flag garlands. They consist of five paper squares, 2½ by 2½ inches hung on a white string a little over three feet in length. The squares are blue, white, red, green, and orange. Printed on each in gold is a stylized picture of a horse with an elaborate chair-saddle surrounded by writing in a script I don’t recognize. According to the English-language label that came on the garlands, this decorative piece is called “Windhorse Prayer Flag Garland.” It was made in Nepal by the Tibetan Handicraft Industry for the International Campaign for Tibet (www.savetibet.org).

Curious, I visited the website. It says, “Inspired by the vision of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the International Campaign for Tibet promotes human rights, democratic freedoms and self-determination for the Tibetan people.”

I have no memory of where or when I acquired the garlands. The best guess is that I picked them up during my travels for work before I retired thirty years ago. As readers of this blog are aware, I spent more time in Asia than elsewhere, though where I went and what I did there remains classified.

But websites were uncommon back then. So maybe I acquired the garlands more recently. I simply don’t recall.

Ideal Man (2)

Life has a way of disrupting the most valiant efforts to achieve the ideal. Early this year, I came down with an eye disorder in which the lower eyelids lost their elasticity and drooped. Last June, I underwent surgery on both eyes and ended up with one eye completely covered with bandages for several months. As a result, I haven’t been able to read at my usual pace, and I had to stop weightlifting altogether. My muscles are going soft, and I’m actually developing a bit of a belly. My eyes are now almost completely healed, so I’ll resume working out soon, probably within the week. I’ll try to return to being the best man I can be in all three aspects.

I know only one man who has sustained superiority in all three aspects of manhood, the physical, the intellectual, and the artistic. This man holds (like me) a PhD. He is a scientist by trade who keeps in shape by running. In his free time, he is a musician who performs with musical groups. If he has a flaw, it might be one we share: a bit of an ego. Somehow, I can’t blame him for that.

One reward for keeping myself in shape is that I am invariably taken for being as much as twenty years younger than I am. I’m inclined to believe that my sensitivity to being as old as I am results from being used to being in top form. My body is unquestionably slowing down. That really bothers me.

So I’ll go on trying to be an ideal man. And I’m finding a new source of pride: being as old as I am and still in good shape physically, mentally, and artistically. Maybe I’ll achieve my goal of living to be over a hundred and still able to write up to the end.

Time will tell.

Ideal Man

Almost all the men I know are superior in one way or another. Some are in excellent physical shape, others intellectually exceptional, still others artists to be admired. But almost all of them are deficient in two out of three of those aspects. Well-built men are too often renowned for their ignorance; intellectuals are expected to be in poor physical shape; and artists are famous for ignoring everything but their art.

I try, with some meager success, to achieve a modicum of superiority in all three respects. I look after my body by watching my diet, eating primarily fruits and vegetables, and by lifting weights for more than two hours every other day. To keep myself intellectually agile, I read constantly. Because I am a book reviewer, I am regularly exposed in depth to information not within my realm of specialties (seven foreign languages, music, writing). And I am an artist by trade, the author of six books of fiction and 17 short stories.

It’s also true that I wouldn’t be able to maintain such a healthy lifestyle if I didn’t have plenty of money. I’ve written in this blog at some length about my good fortune at being so adept at signals intelligence on the battlefield that I was promoted repeatedly throughout my career and reached the top levels of the federal government’s Senior Executive Service ranks, allowing me to retire in my fifties with a generous annuity so that I could write fulltime. And I deliberately arranged my life to free myself of unwanted responsibilities. Several years ago, I bought a house without a lawn that requires no outside upkeep beyond trimming shrubs along the walkways twice a year.

More next time.

Hickory Ridge Flea Market

Next Saturday, October 8th, I’ll be manning a table to sell and autograph my books at the Hickory Ridge Flea Market. It will be held in the parking lot of the Hawthorn Center, 6175 Sunny Spring in Columbia, Maryland. The market opens at 9:00 a.m. and lasts until noon.  

Do stop by and say hello. Even better, buy one of my books. I just did a blog post on each book. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Fierce Clarity of Autumn

Autumn is here. And as is true every year, I am left breathless by its beauty. Where I live in Columbia, Maryland, humidity is high during the warm summer months. That means the air is always at least a little misty, even on clear days. When the days turn cooler and shorter, the haze disappears; the sunshine turns sharp, bright, and crisp; and colors become more vivid.

I am seeing the first hints of the leaves changing color. Here and there I detect a suggestion of red, orange, or yellow. But for the most part, autumn leaves have not arrived—they still lie ahead. Since I live in a forest with mature trees everywhere, I anticipate being surrounded by fall colors.

And the impatiens I have growing in flower boxes atop the railing that surrounds the deck at the back of my house are outdoing themselves in bloom. My guess is that they like cooler weather. All I know is that they are producing more blooms now than at any time earlier this year.

The downside of the end of summer is that it is getting decidedly cooler, and the days are getting shorter. As I’ve mentioned several times in this blog, between 1962 and 1975, I spent more time in the tropical heat of Vietnam than I did in the milder climes of the U.S. I became acclimatized to temperatures normally above 90 degrees between April and August. When I returned to the U.S. after I escaped under fire during the fall of Saigon, I found U.S. weather far too cool. Much to the amusement of my friends and family, I went around bundled up.

I’m still doing it. I never readjusted to U.S. temperatures, especially during the cold months. I resent having my days shortened by fall and winter darkness. I can’t wait for spring when warmth returns.

So here I am looking forward to the brilliance of the autumn with its magnificent leaves while, at the same time, dreading the onset of coldness and darkness. And today, blanketed in rain, is worse than usual.

As with everything else in life, weather is a mixed bag.

Books in the Works

Over the past six days, I have posted a blog about each of my six published books. But despite my advanced age and inevitable enervation, I still have books I want to write. Aging has slowed me down in just about every respect: I walk more slowly and with a limp; I sleep every chance I get; all of my senses have weakened; and I lack the energy to do what used to be routine tasks. Despite all that, my ability to think, and with it to write, is better than ever.

The two books I’m working on are, as always, drawn from real experiences in my past life. One is based on my more than twenty years with Su, my partner who died a little over two years ago. She was in many respects the love of my life. The time I spent with her gave me some of my happiest memories.

The other book is about the 1967 battle of Dak To in Vietnam’s western highlands. I was deeply involved in that conflict. It was during my years in Vietnam as a civilian working undercover as an enlisted man in whatever unit, army or Marine Corps, I was supporting. I wore their uniform, lived with them, slept on the ground next to them, ate C-rations sitting in the dirt next to them, and went into combat with them.

In the summer and fall of 1967, I was supporting the U.S. 4th Infantry Division and 173rd Airborne Brigade in the foothills of Vietnam’s western highlands. The guys thought it was hilarious that a civilian who outranked their commanding officer was living with the troops. They snitched my fatigue uniforms and paid a local tailor to sew nametags over the breast pockets. One read “Glenn,” and the other read “Civilian.” They couldn’t stop laughing as I wore the uniforms and insisted on taking my picture. Since I was operating undercover, I usually didn’t allow any photos of me. But I made an exception in this case. Here’s the result:

Coming to Terms

The last of my six published books that I’ll write about here is Coming to Terms, a collection of ten short stories. Only one of them is about Vietnam. All of them are about, as the Foreword says, “men and women confronted with pain as a consequence of love and hate, goodness and evil.” As is typical of my writing, the stories tell of events that really did happen; once again I have engaged in fiction in name only. These are all sets of events I stumbled across during my life as a husband, father, soldier, and caregiver for the dying.

In preparing this post, I flipped through a copy of Coming to Terms and read fragments. The stories and the predicaments of the characters to this day still bring tears to my eyes. I wrote about people I care deeply about.

Secretocracy

During the years after my return from Vietnam in 1975, my employer, the National Security Agency (NSA), sent me abroad on a number of assignments but also posted me to other agencies. One of those postings was to the office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to work on the national intelligence budget before it was submitted to Congress for financing. While in that job, I refused to fund a program submitted by the then-president because it violated U.S. law and treaties we had signed with other nations. The president was furious. He stripped me of my clearances and assigned me to an empty warehouse in Anacostia, the D.C. slums, with no job to do. He couldn’t fire me without cause because he knew I could sue him—he was hoping I’d resign. I didn’t. When the end of his term came and he was replaced by a new president, I was reassigned back to NSA, my clearances were restored, and I resumed my career as if nothing had gone wrong. I got the clear impression that the government was deeply embarrassed by the former president’s treatment of me.

So I wrote a novel about my experience. I set it during the Trump administration, because Trump had in fact persecuted intelligence budgeteers who refused to approve his illegal programs.

No-Accounts

The next book is different from all the rest. Here’s how it came to be:

When I returned to the U.S. after the fall of Saigon, I had a severe case of Post-Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI). I knew I needed to focus my attention away from myself on people who needed my help. By the 1980s, the AIDS epidemic was raging. The disease was invariably fatal, and we didn’t know how it was transmitted. People were terrified. Men were dying on the street because no one would go near them, let alone help them. I knew that if I volunteered to take care these men, I’d run the risk of contracting AIDS. Risking my life wasn’t new to me, thanks to my time in combat. So I volunteered to help fatally ill men die.

Over the next five years, I cared for seven men who died of AIDS. We eventually learned that the disease was transmitted by the transfer of bodily fluids, so I was safe. Granted, I did once stab myself by accident with a hypodermic needle I had used to inject one of my patients, but I never came down with the disease.

I was so moved by my experience that I wrote a novel about a straight man caring for a gay man dying of AIDS, No-Accounts. The author Juris Jurjevics had the following to say about the book: “Tom Glenn lived his novel seven time as a volunteer assisting HIV infected men to die. This is fiction taken from life written by a hero who accompanied the terminally ill as far as any mortal could, devoting himself body and soul to their comfort and helping them make their exit with dignity. It is one man’s story of committing unconditionally to another.”