Tom Glenn's Blog, page 8

Never Stops: Words (2)

Back to it:

Klutz: a clumsy or awkward person. It’s a very recent word, dating back only to 1967. It derives from the Yiddish klots, meaning a clumsy person or blockhead. The word’s literal meaning is block or lump. It derives from Middle High German klots—lump, ball.

Slew: a large number or quantity. The noun is from the Irish-Gaelic sluagh, meaning multitude. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word dates from 1839.

Blitz: The word is derived from blitzkrieg, an intense military campaign intended to bring about a swift victory. Blitzkrieg in German means literally “lightning war.” So “blitz” has come to mean a sudden overwhelming attack, not necessarily military or even physical.

Punk: something or someone worthless or inferior. It can also mean a young and inexperienced person. By extension, it means a young gangster or hoodlum. Its etymology is a mystery. It might be derived from Delaware (Algonquian) ponk, literally dust, powder, or ashes.

Niggle: to trifle, to spend too much effort on minor details. Its etymology is unknown. One guess is that it derives from a Scandinavian source. The Norwegian dialectal nigla means to be busy with trifles.

Amok: an adverb that means in a violently raging manner. The only usage I could find was with the word “run.” “Run amok” as a verbal phrase was first recorded in the 1670’s. The word derives from the Malay (Austronesian) amuk meaning attacking furiously. Earlier the word was used as a noun or adjective meaning “a frenzied Malay,” originally in the Portuguese form amouco or amuco.

More the next time the spirit moves me.

Never Stops: Words

Time for me to delve into my favorite subject, words in the English language.

I start with hightail. Often used with “it,” the word means to move at full speed, especially when making a getaway. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it’s U.S. slang from cattle ranches (animals fleeing with tails up) that first appeared in 1890.

Next, hag. Merriam-Webster says that the word means a woman who has compacted with the devil, a witch, or simply an ugly old woman. The Online Etymology Dictionary says that the word originated in the early thirteenth century meaning “repulsive old woman,” probably from derived from Old English hægtes, hægtesse  meaning witch, sorceress, enchantress, or fury.

Bulwark: a solid wall-like structure raised for defense but not too high to fire a gun over. Online Etymology Dictionary: from early fifteenth century meaning a fortification outside a city wall or gate; a rampart, barricade. Its origin was the Middle Dutch bulwerke or Middle High German bolwerc, probably derived from “bole”—plank, tree trunk—and “werc,” meaning work.

Bode: to be an omen of, to portend, to presage. The word has quite a history. It comes from Old English bodian—to proclaim, announce beforehand, or foretell. That word, in turn, comes from boda, meaning messenger, probably derived from Proto-Germanic budon- from Proto-Indo-European root bheudh, be aware, make aware. Whew. But wait, we’re not through. With “good” or “ill,” bode means to give a (good or bad) portent or promise. It’s had that meaning since the late fourteenth century. As a shortened form of “forebode,” meaning to presage (usually something evil), it dates from 1740.

Gobble: to eat greedily, swallow hastily. The word has apparently existed in its current form since sometime around 1600. It was probably imitative of the sound of someone eating rapidly and based on “gob” via gobben—to drink something greedily (early fifteenth century).

And finally (for today, anyway), fracas. It means a noisy quarrel, a brawl, fight, or altercation. The first noted occurrence of the word was 1727. It’s from the French fracas—crash, sudden noise, tumult, bustle, fuss. That word comes from the Italian fracasso, meaning uproar or crash. Fracasso is a back-formation from fracassare—to smash, crash, break in pieces, from fra-, a shortening of Latin infra—below—and Italian cassare, to break.

More next time.

U.S. Monetary Inequity

We are a nation in which monetary inequality is rampant. Note the following statistics: between 1979 and 2019, the average income of the richest 0.01 percent of households, a group that today represents about 31,500 people, grew more than nine times faster than the income of the bottom 20 percent of earners. With average household income of $43 million, they bring in 1,807 times more income than the bottom 20 percent.

It gets worse. In the third quarter of 2022, 68 percent of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10 percent of earners. In comparison, the lowest 50 percent of earners only owned 3.3 percent of the total wealth. That top 10 percent make more income than the next 90 percent combined and since the end of the recession, 95 percent of income gains have gone to the top 1 percent of earners. The average CEO pay is 271 times greater than the average annual salary of typical American workers.

I could go on, but you get the picture. Part of problem is that the wealthy don’t pay much federal tax. By 2018, the 400 richest Americans paid a lower overall tax rate than almost anyone else. Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, paid no federal income taxes in 2007 or in 2011.

Inequality is higher in the U.S. than in other rich countries. In fact, the U.S. has the greatest income disparity among the developed nations of the world.

We must address our inequity.

Reagan’s Vendetta

Ronald Reagan is one of the most popular U.S. presidents of modern times. He has an approval rating of 72 percent, second only to that of John F. Kennedy, rated at 86 percent. But he is my least favorite president. In 1988, the last year of his presidency, he attacked me personally. Here’s the story:

I was an employee of the National Security Agency (NSA) but was on assignment to work in the office of the Director of National Intelligence as a budget specialist in preparing that year’s intelligence budget. President Reagan proposed a very large expenditure for a highly classified operation. But I refused to fund it because it violated U.S. law and contravened treaties we had with a large number of countries. Reagan was furious. He stripped me of my security clearances and assigned me to a warehouse in the slums of Anacostia with no work to do, hoping I would resign. He couldn’t fire me outright because I could then sue him for illegal dismissal.

I refused to quit. I used my time to work on a novel I was writing at the time. In November, George H. W. Bush was elected to replace Reagan. As soon as he was in office, he restored my security clearance and returned me to NSA where I resumed my career. I came away with the distinct impression that both Bush and NSA were embarrassed by Reagan’s treatment of me and wanted to quietly reinstate me so I wouldn’t make a ruckus.

I used the story of my bout with Reagan as the plot in my 2020 novel Secretocracy, but in the fictionalized version of my story I made the president Donald Trump—who had also attacked budgeteers who refused to do his illegal bidding.

So I’m no fan of Ronald Reagan. But his attack on me if anything ended up helping my career. I went on to be promoted to the top levels of the Senior Executive Service and retired with a handsome annuity. That’s allowed me to write fulltime with no money worries. I now have six books of fiction and 17 short stories in print.

Thanks, Gipper.

Leadership and Humility

My recent post on Al Gray, the finest leader I ever met, focused my attention on the importance of humility in leadership. As I have reported here before, the essence of leadership is uplifting the subordinates to be the best they can be. That means urging them, encouraging them, giving them the tools and training they need, and rewarding them. The leader must direct public attention and recognition not on himself but on his followers. That means he must be humble.

John Ruskin put it well: “I believe that the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his own powers. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.”

And Thomas Merton was succinct and precise: “Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.”

General Al Gray, who ended up as Commandant of the Maine Corps, is famously humble. He always gives credit not to himself but to his followers who have achieved amazing results.

 So if you want to triumph, be humble and lead. Give all the credit to your subordinates. They’ll respect you, follow you, and accomplish results even they didn’t know were possible. And over time, the world will respect you for being their activator.

Al Gray (3)

And it was indeed Colonel Al Gray who managed my flight from Vietnam when it fell to the communists. By the time I had gotten all my 43 guys and their families safely out of Saigon, the North Vietnamese were already in streets. On the night of April 29, 1975, Al arranged for me to escape on a little Huey helicopter. Granted, it took so much lead in the fuselage from groundfire that I didn’t think we were going to make it. But we did. As soon as we were over water, the pilot dropped us suddenly down to just above the ocean, and my stomach stayed up in the sky. He told me later he had to do that because the North Vietnamese has surface-to-air missiles and might try to shoot us down. He flew straight to the flagship of the 7th Fleet, the Oklahoma City. In the pitch black and the pouring rain, the pilot circled and circled. Finally he went down very slowly and landed on the floodlit helipad on the ship. He told me afterwards that he, a civilian pilot, had never before landed on a ship.  

That’s how Al Gray saved my life. I consider him to be a great man. And despite all his achievements, he is a humble man. He is a great leader because he has only two goals: to achieve his mission and secure the welfare of his subordinates. He never asks his men to do anything he won’t do himself. Instead, he gives them every support and urges them to be the best they can be. As a result, they outdo themselves and achieve amazing results.

Some years ago, I asked Al why he had never married. He told me that if the Marine Corps had wanted him to have a wife, it would have issued him one. In July 1980, when he was rising in the ranks and was expected to have a wife, he did marry a woman named Jan Goss. She died in 2020.

You may ask me why I always capitalize Marine. It’s to show the great respect have for that branch of service. And much of that respect is due to one man: Al Gray.

So when I learned that Al Gray was going to be at the February 18 celebration, I made sure I got there and participated. It was worth it. I got to speak to Al Gray one more time.

Al Gray (2)

After spending more time in Vietnam than I did in the U.S. from 1962 to 1974, I was assigned to command the clandestine operation in South Vietnam whose mission was to work with the South Vietnamese in exploiting North Vietnamese radio communications. As it became obvious to me that the North Vietnamese were going to conquer South Vietnam and seize Saigon, I struggled to get all 43 of my guys and their families safely out of Saigon before the North Vietnamese attacked the city. Because the U.S. ambassador, Graham Martin, had forbidden me from evacuating my guys, I had to lie, cheat, and steal to get my people out. But I did it. Meanwhile, I got my wife and four children out of the country only twenty days before Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese. Then I vacated our villa and moved out to my office where I slept on a cot in the front office of our office suite (my office) with a .38 revolver under my pillow.

In the middle of that pandemonium, one day when I was trying to get some much-needed rest on my cot, the office doorbell sounded. I took my .38 to the door and looked out the peephole. Outside I saw an American man with reddish hair dressed in the wildest Hawaiian shirt I had ever seen—colors so bright they hurt my eyes—shorts, and flip-flops—this in a war zone. He gave me a wave, and I recognized him. It was Al Gray. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’d never before seen Al out of uniform—I didn’t think he owned any civilian clothes—and I knew he never came to Saigon because he hated bureaucracy, and his job was in the field with his troops.

I opened the door and invited him in. We went in my office and talked. I told Al all I knew about the current situation, but he knew more than I did. What he was not aware of was that mobs ten to fifteen people deep had surrounded our compound demanding evacuation. He told me he had been named as the officer in charge of the evacuation of South Vietnam once it was ordered, and he and his troops were flying in on helicopters from the U.S. 7th Fleet cruising out of sight of land in the South China Sea to prepare for the evacuation.

But Ambassador Martin did everything he could to make life difficult for the Marines. He wouldn’t allow them to fly in on Marine helicopters; they had to use the little Air America Hueys configured to carry only eight men at a time. And he wouldn’t allow them to remain overnight—at the end of each day they had to fly back out to the ship they had embarked from. Al’s form of protest was his wild civilian outfit.

Never mind. Ambassador or no ambassador, Al Gray and his Marines had landed. I knew that the instant the evacuation was ordered, they’d get me out.

More next time.

Al Gray

From where I sit at my desk as I write this, I can see on my bookshelves the two-volume set titled Al Gray, Marine: The Early Years, 1950-1967 Vol 1 and Al Gray, Marine: The Early Years, 1968-1975 Vol. 2, both by Scott Laidig. I’m mentioned in the second volume which relates, among other things, the fall of South Vietnam to the North Vietnamese communists in April 1975. Al Gray, then a Marine colonel, saved my life—I escaped under fire by helicopter.

I have stayed in touch with General Gray over the years since the fall of Saigon. But I don’t call him Al anymore. That stopped when he became first a Marine general and then the twenty-ninth commandant of the Marine Corps. Ever since, I have called him sir.

Because of my relationship with General Gray, I was invited to attend a banquet hosted by the Iwo Jima Association of America at the Hilton Crystal City Hotel in Arlington, Virginia on February 18, 2023. General Gray was there, and I approached him and spoke to him briefly. That made the trip worthwhile.

I first met Al Gray in the early 1960s when he was a Marine captain, and I was moving all around in South Vietnam intercepting and exploiting the radio communications of the invading North Vietnamese. He was commanding Marine combat units attacking the North Vietnamese invaders.

More next time.

Marjorie Taylor Greene: Shameful

The Republicans, dragged down by Donald Trump, continue to shame themselves with dishonorable behavior. The worst recent example was Marjorie Taylor Greene’s despicable performance during President Biden’s State of the Union address a week ago Tuesday. Dressed to the nines in showy clothes, she interrupted Biden by shouting “Liar!” at him after he said that Republicans wanted to end entitlement programs like Social Security.

My sense is that the damage inflicted by Trump on his own Republican party is so great that the party, as we know it, will not survive. The GOP needs to renounce Trump in no uncertain terms but apparently is unwilling to do so. I expect that Republican defeat in 2024 will be more pronounced than it was in 2022.

If I’m correct that the GOP will fade from prominence, then the Democrats will eventually divide into two parties, probably representing the more progressive and the more moderate elements.

We’re headed for a whole new ballgame. The 2024 election will be the most important in years. I await it with impatience.

Annamese Origin

My post on the origin of my novel No-Accounts brought a question about another of my books, Last of the Annamese.

First an explanation of the word “Annamese.” An alternative name for Vietnam is An Nam. The name Việt Nam is derived from the Chinese Yuènán (越南), which means (those who) cross over to the south or the troublemakers in the south. That’s the name the Chinese gave to the non-Chinese tribe living in southern China many centuries ago who eventually moved south into what is now Vietnam. The Chinese words Ān Nán (安南) mean “peace in the south.” In Vietnamese, that becomes An Nam, one of the names for the Vietnamese nation during the many centuries of its existence. A resident of An Nam is called an Annamese.

One of the principal characters in Last of the Annamese is South Vietnamese Marine Colonel Thanh. He loathes the name Việt Nam because he doesn’t like being considered a troublemaker. He much prefers the name An Nam—he sees himself as a peacemaker. The question left for the reader to answer is, as South Vietnam falls to the northern Vietnamese communists, which of the characters in the story is the last of the Annamese.

Last of the Annamese is the story of my escape under fire when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese on April 29, 1975, fictionalized by attributing the events of that disaster to people other than myself. I wrote the book to help me cope with my Post-Traumatic Stress Injury (PTSI) by venting. No event described in that novel is fabrication—it all really did happen.