Tom Glenn's Blog, page 32

“I Never Served”

I’ve mentioned several times in this blog my sense of being in a rapidly diminishing population of those who have served in combat in the defense of our country. Combat veterans are now a tiny fraction of a percent of the population. Nearly every man I meet these days reacts to my history of time in combat by saying, “I never served.”

My sense, as recently expressed in my blog post about restoring the draft, is that service in the military makes us better men. It certainly made me a better man. My tendency is to feel sorry for men who never served. They were deprived of the advantages I have as a result of my time in the military and especially deriving from my time in combat. They will never know the honor of having defended their homeland. And they will never experience the bond between men who fight side for side for their country, the strongest bond I have ever felt.

So for those of you who have never served, forgive me if I pity you. You have missed one of the great experiences of life.

Bring Back the Draft

The compulsory draft, run by a U.S. government agency called the Selective Service, requiring all young men to do military service, ended in 1973. That means that all American men who turned eighteen before 1973 were, unless exempted, compelled to serve in one of our military branches for a minimum of two years. To avoid the draft and to be assigned to the Army Language School (ALS), later known as the Defense Language Institute (DLI), I enlisted for a three-year tour in the army after I graduated from college (and was not longer protected from the draft by college deferral) in 1958.

That enlistment changed my life. The army taught me a language I had never heard of, Vietnamese. Back in those days, we didn’t call that part of the world Vietnam; we called it French Indochina. When I finished the year’s intensive training, I was assigned to an agency I had never heard of, the National Security Agency (NSA), at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. When my enlistment was completed in 1961, NSA hired me and sent to Vietnam for the first time in 1962. For the next thirteen years, I spent more time in Vietnam than I did in the U.S., working under cover as an enlisted man in whatever unit I was supporting, exploiting the radio communications of the enemy. Then, in April 1975, I escaped under fire when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese.

None of that would have happened had the draft not been in effect. Nor do those events reflect the most important ways the army changed me. Training in boot camp and infantry school taught me what I was capable of as a man. I became strong, lithe, and physically effective. I learned to think on my feet. Perhaps most important, I discovered the intense love that a fighting man has for his buddy, the guy fighting next to him. In short, the army changed me from a boy to a man.

Almost all the men I meet nowadays never served in the military. Veterans, especially those who served in combat, are becoming rare. I only know two men who saw combat. Combat veterans are now a tiny fraction of a percent of the U.S. population.

So I would favor restoration of the draft. The training I received in the army has proven invaluable. All young American men could profit from military service.

Death Penalty

I have argued before in this blog that the death penalty should be abolished at all levels in the U.S. Capital punishment is now widely recognized as being inhumane and immoral. As of this year, more than 70 percent of the world’s countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. The United States is one of only five advanced democracies and the only Western nation that applies the death penalty regularly. Its use is also unquestionably racially biased—in the U.S., people of color are far more likely to be executed than white people, especially if the crime victim is white. Nor does it deter violent crime. The FBI has found the states with the death penalty have the highest murder rates.

It is also substantially more expensive than imprisonment. In Maryland, a comparison of capital trial expenses with and without the death penalty found that a death penalty case costs approximately 42 percent more than a case resulting in a non-death sentence. In 1988 and 1989, the Kansas legislature voted against reinstating the death penalty after it was informed that reintroduction would involve a first-year cost of more than $11 million. Florida, with one of the nation’s most populous death rows, has estimated that the true cost of each execution is around $3.2 million, or approximately six times the cost of a life-imprisonment sentence.

Despite all that data, President Donald Trump was determined to bring back the death penalty which had not been used by the federal government since 2003. He resumed executions in July 2020. By January 2021, he had overseen thirteen deaths. But when the Biden Administration was in power, executions were stopped. On July 1, 2021, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that a moratorium on the Federal death penalty was being reinstated. We, as a nation, have returned to moral sanity.

It is long since time that Congress passed and President Biden signed into law a measure abolishing capital punishment. Let us join with the civilized nations of the world and stop killing people.

Awards Wall

I have devoted a wall in my dining room to the awards plaques I’ve been given. They celebrate my Who’s Who awards (both national and worldwide), my being named a top professional and a top artist, and the Top 100 Registry certificate of inclusion “for outstanding career achievement and leadership.” Fourth down from the top is the plaque I’m most proud of: the “Last Man Out Award” given to me by the 43 guys who worked for me in Saigon and their families. It thanks me for having risked my life to get all of them safely out of Saigon before the city fell to the North Vietnamese and I escaped under fire.

My thanks to my neighbor, Dustin Moraczewski, for the photograph.

Global Warming

All the warnings from climate scientists are coming true. Global warming is here. It is bringing all-time record temperatures to Western Europe. Yesterday, the U.K. saw the hottest temperatures ever recorded, 104 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat wave killed more than 1,700 people in Spain and Portugal. The heat triggered wildfires from Portugal to the Balkans. Some areas, including northern Italy, are also experiencing extended droughts.

The heat wave has also hit the U.S. At least ten heat records have been broken in cities across the southwest and central parts of the country. Cities and towns in Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas all saw record highs. The National Weather Service warns “it will get worse . . . before it gets better.” Then temperatures spiked in Oklahoma, heading for at least 110 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday. This morning’s Washington Post reports that President Biden is considering declaring a climate emergency. There is little question that he would be justified in doing so.

We know what’s causing the extreme heat. Human activities are the main driver of climate change. Despite knowing we are contributing to rising temperatures, we go on burning fossil fuels (like coal, oil, and gas) which produces heat-trapping gases. As greenhouse gas emissions blanket the earth, they trap the sun’s heat. This leads to global warming and climate change.

All of the above is common knowledge. Yet we go on releasing emissions that cause what will soon become temperatures that are barely survivable and some that will kill. And we refuse to pass laws that would alleviate the situation. Last week, Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) rejected efforts to include about $300 billion in tax incentives for a raft of clean energy sources in the Democrats’ reconciliation package, H.R. 5376 (117), dashing hopes for major climate change legislation.

What will it take to force us into action?

Civilian in Combat (2)

I survived all my time in combat and am now a hale and hearty eighty-five-year-old. Through it all, soldiers and Marines accepted me as one of them. They found my payroll signature name, Thomas L. Glenn III, absurdly pompous and made fun of it by assigning me the radio callsign of TG3. Guys in Vietnam even went so far as to make a desk name plate for me that shows “TG3” in black and white marble from the Marble Mountains near Đà Nẵng. That name plate now holds a place of honor on my desk.

I learned in the process several invaluable lessons.

First, the commitment between fellow combatants is probably the strongest bond people can feel. Soldiers, sailors, and Marines don’t call it love; men are not supposed to love each other. Never mind. It is the strongest love I have ever felt. The song, “My Buddy,” which I quoted here a while back, captures that feeling.

Second, love of country—and love of the guy fighting next to you—is an ennobling emotion second to none. Nothing I have done in my life has equaled my willingness to risk my life for my country and for the guy fighting by my side.

Third, that I was a civilian during my years in the trenches is unimportant. It didn’t matter what uniform I wore. It mattered that I was willing to do it.

I am proud of my service to my country. That I did it as a civilian is immaterial.

Civilian in Combat

As far as I can tell, I’m unique in that during all my time in combat, I was a civilian. I had finished my military service before I was hired by the National Security Agency (NSA) and sent abroad. For many years I operated overseas under cover as an enlisted man in whatever unit I was supporting. I spent more time in Vietnam than anywhere else. Between 1962 and 1975, I was in Vietnam more than I was in the U.S. I had two three-year PCS (permanent change of station) tours there with my wife and four children—they lived in Saigon while I was in the field with the troops. Then, in April 1975, I got my family out of the country just twenty days before the North Vietnamese seized Saigon. I was evacuated under fire on the last day after the North Vietnamese were in the streets of the city.

I went on to do the same kind of work in other places around the globe after Saigon fell in April 1975. But whereas my work in Vietnam is now declassified, what I did after April 1975 is still secret. I can’t tell you where I went, what I did, or who I worked with. I was fluent in seven languages, so much of the world was open to me.

The whole time, I remained a civilian disguised as a soldier or Marine depending on who I was supporting. I lived with the troops, slept on the ground next to them, used their latrines, ate C-rations sitting by their side, and went into combat with them. I formed with them the strongest bond I have ever known, the love of the man fighting next to you in combat. And when one of them was killed, I learned the greatest grief I have ever known.

The miracle is that I wasn’t killed or even wounded. The worst physical damage I suffered was after the fall of Saigon. I had been holed up for days in the comms center of my office while I struggled to get my 43 subordinates than their families out of the country safely. When I finally flew out on a helicopter, I was suffering from dysentery, pneumonia, exhaustion, and severe ear damage from the shelling (rockets and artillery) we were subjected to before my escape.

More next time.

Men’s Strong Points

An observation by a companion the other day brought me up short: “Why are all your friends men?” The answer, much as I hate to admit is, is that I don’t see women as equals but as potential mates. That’s partly because I am alone after the death of my partner, Su, two-plus years ago. Ironically, I considered her not only my beloved but also my best friend. It’s also partly because women are indeed not my equals. I’m bigger and stronger than the women I know. My voice is deeper. I’m a great deal hairier. Never mind that women don’t tire as quickly as I do or that they think faster or that they have more patience than I do.

Nor do I pretend to understand women. The way they think and express themselves, the logic they favor, and their approach to life all mystify me. The way they respond to me—with warmth at something I said or annoyance at something I did—leaves me bewildered. I find myself agreeing with Henry Higgins in Lerner and Lowe’s 1956 musical My Fair Lady who put it this way:

     Why can’t a woman be more like a man?

     Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;

     Eternally noble, historically fair.

     Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat.

     Why can’t a woman be like that?

Men’s virtues are obvious to me. They trend to be open-minded, logical, and clear-headed. They are used to being in control—to the point that they will try to use physical strength first and mental acuity only when sheer muscularity fails. But they are generous about admitting inferiority when out-thought or out-worked.

Why can’t women be like that?

Professional of the Year

Strathmore Worldwide has named me a Professional of the Year. You can read their citation at https://www.pr.com/press-release/861481

Please take a look and let me know what you think.

Foreign Languages (2)

Vietnamese and Chinese are not only non-grammatic, but they are also monosyllabic and tonal. That means that the vocal pitch applied to a syllable determines its meaning. Vietnamese employs six tones: mid-level (Thanh Ngang), low falling (Thanh Huyền), high rising (Thanh Sắc), low rising (Thanh Hỏi), high broken (Thanh Ngã), and heavy (Thanh Nặng). The syllable “ma,” for example, depending on the tone, means ghost, but, cheek, grave, effigy, or to plate with metal.

Chinese Mandarin (or National Language, gwo yu) has four tones: one flat, one rising, one that falls and then rises, and one falling. But some other dialects have more—Cantonese has nine. And Chinese dialects are not mutually intelligible.

I found learning to speak Mandarin easier than Vietnamese, but writing the language proved to be the most difficult task I ever tackled in my language studies. Writing Chinese characters is an art to which many Chinese devote their entire lives. I spent years studying characters. I got to the point that my characters were legible, but I never mastered the art of writing them. Few Chinese even reach that level.

To sum up: I found knowledge of multiple languages to be of immense help in writing in English. Different ways of thinking, expressing, and understanding led to subtle variations in my writing that I could have discovered no other way. I knew by the time I was six years old that I was born to write. That was the same age I began to study foreign languages. I don’t remember at the time seeing any connection between the two. Only now, a whole lifetime later, do I see that they were intertwined.