Tom Glenn's Blog, page 88

Rerun: Cancer (2)

I know that the cancer was due to my many years of smoking cigarettes. During my thirteen years in and out of Vietnam, literally every adult I knew smoked. In the years that followed, as it became blatantly clear that smoking caused cancer, I realized I had to quit. I was so addicted that it took me years. But I did it. Ironically, I had quit long before my cancer showed up. That didn’t stop it from almost killing me.

I can’t claim credit for my excellent health that saved me from the cancer. It was due to a healthy lifestyle I clung to for no other reason than it gave me pleasure. I ran and lifted weights because I enjoyed both to the hilt. I regularly got runner’s high— a deeply relaxing state of euphoria, that is, a sense of extreme joy or delight—from weight lifting as well as from running.

I’ve written in this blog about the good fortune I’ve always been blessed with. In brief, I bumbled my way unintentionally into a lucrative career (spying) because of my flare for languages. That led to my early retirement which allowed me to fulfill my life’s calling of writing fulltime. My excellent health, cancer notwithstanding, is part and parcel of a life overloaded with good luck.

I have much to be grateful for.

Rerun: Cancer

My mention of having had cancer brought a query from a reader. I did a blog post on my cancer bout a couple of years ago. Here it is again, updated:

In 2013, I coughed up blood. My doctor at the time said it was nothing to worry about. He diagnosed me with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Early in 2015, I brought up blood again. Since my doctor had told me not to worry about it, I didn’t go see him until time for my regular checkup in May. He sent me for a chest x-ray. It showed that I had a large lung tumor.

I underwent maximum chemotherapy and radiation, and then, in November 2015, a surgeon removed the upper lobe of my right lung. Recovery took about a year, and even after that, I was too weak to resume working out. I kept trying. Finally, in February 2020, I was able to lift weights again. I’ve been at it ever since.

The surgeon and my oncologist were frankly thrilled at my ability to withstand the treatments and the surgery. I was, in every other respect, a pinnacle of health. I was a runner until my right knee gave out in 2013, and I’ve always been a devoted weight lifter. That meant that I had to watch my diet to be sure I stayed lithe enough to run and work out. The end result was that I survived both the cancer and the treatment with flying colors. And I’ve never returned to the physician who failed to diagnose the cancer in 2013.

The other factor that helped me was that I never stopped working. Even on my worst days, I wrote. When the Naval Institute Press (NIP) accepted my novel Last of the Annamese for publication in 2016, I redoubled my efforts. I worked on the proofs of Annamese and struggled through the editing process with a genuinely excellent editor from NIP to get the book ready for publication in March 2017. Then I turned my full attention to Secretocracy, a novel about malfeasance during the Trump administration. It was published in 2020. Next came my short story collection, Coming to Terms, published last August.

More tomorrow.

The Vaccine

I’m in no hurry to get vaccinated against the covid-19 virus. That’s not because I object to the vaccine or don’t believe in the danger. It’s because I have, for ten months now, avoided the virus by isolating myself from all human contact. Not everybody can do that. I can keep myself safe where others can’t.

At the urging of my children, I signed up with the Howard County Health Department to be vaccinated. But I’m more than willing to let others go ahead of me to get vaccinated. I’ll wait my turn.

I read in the press about people trying desperately to get ahead of others in the line of those to be vaccinated. Some are willing to pay huge amounts of money to be immunized immediately. Others are trying to claw their way to the head of the line.

Not me. When my time comes, I’ll welcome the protection. Until then, I’ll hunker down and avoid all human contact. I see no reason why I should be given preference.

I suspect that one of the reasons for my patience is that I know what it’s like to put my life on the line for others. I did that for the better part of thirteen years in Vietnam. Working under cover, I supported U.S. forces in combat with signals intelligence, the intercept and exploitation of the radio communications of the North Vietnamese. I did similar work in the years after the fall of Vietnam in 1975, but those assignments are still classified—I can’t talk about them.

So facing death is not new to me. Nor is risking my life to save others. But I’ll welcome the vaccine when it comes to me in due time. I fully intend to live to be at least a hundred years old. I have to. I have too many books left to write to die off now.

The U.S.P.S.

As a writer, I depend on the U.S. Postal Service. It carries my submissions to publishers and brings me responses. It also delivers to me copies of all the books I review. On the personal side, it handles mail between me and my children and, perhaps most important, letters between me and a former Navy Corpsman who cared for wounded Marines in combat during the Vietnam war. This man and I have been corresponding for over three years; we’ve each sent the other more than 300 letters.

I have relied on the post office all my life and have never been disappointed—until last May. That’s when President Trump ordered the U.S.P.S. board of governors to appoint one of his major contributors, Louis DeJoy, to the job of Postmaster General and commanded him to slow down the mail so that vote-by-mail wouldn’t work to defeat Trump in the November election. Ever since, mail deliveries have been erratic. Some days I get no mail at all, and my outgoing letters are not picked up from my mailbox. Other days the box is stuffed to overflowing. It sometimes takes two weeks for my letter to reach my corpsman friend or for his to reach me.

Nor is there likely to be any solution soon. The Postmaster General is not appointed by the president but by the U.S.P.S. board of governors, now made up entirely of Trump appointees. The president does choose members of the board, but he has to wait until their term of office expires. He can only fire a board member “for cause”—not likely anytime soon.

So we’re stuck with poor mail service for the foreseeable future. One more curse laid on us by Trump.

My Three Issues

The United States of America is, without question in my mind, the greatest nation in the earth’s history. It has achieved more than any other country, and its citizens are, for the most part, free and able to prosper.

But the U.S. is a long way from flawless. Its biggest historical stain is slavery. We condoned and even encouraged the owning of one human being by another until the civil war. And we live today with racial and religious prejudice which deprives Blacks, Hispanics, Jews, and Asians of the lives guaranteed to other Americans. We are improving, but we have a long way to go.

Meanwhile, three national flaws that concern me personally are getting little attention from the public these days. They are lack of firearm control, failure to tackle global warming, and retention of the electoral college.

It’s well established that the number of deaths due to guns is closely connected with the number of guns in the society. We have an estimated 120.5 guns for every 100 people in the U.S. That’s the highest ratio in the world. Over 19,000 people died in gun violence in the U.S. in 2020, almost 25 percent more than in 2019. And we do nothing to reduce the plethora of weapons that is killing our people.

According to the Global Climate Change Network, “Earth’s global average surface temperature in 2020 tied with 2016 as the warmest year on record, according to an analysis by NASA.” And the U.S. is a primary contributor to global warming. President Trump refused to believe that the earth was heating up and did nothing during his four-year administration to reduce action contributing to it. And the earth goes on heating up.

The U.S. electoral college was created by the nation’s founders to allow the southern slave-owning states greater power in electing the president. The enslaved population in those states was not included in the count of citizens. As a result, those states’ population was far lower than that of the northern free states. Election of the president by the electoral college restored the equality of power to southern slave owners.

The net effect today of the electoral college is to unfairly favor Republican presidential candidates over Democratic one. Example: in 2016, Clinton beat Trump by almost 3 million votes but lost the election because Trump got more electoral college votes.

These three flaws in our national culture are all curable. I am more optimistic than I have been in many years that Biden will move quickly to heal these fissures.

Respect the Elderly

I’m used to being treated with respect. The way I carry myself invites deference. I go by the title of “doctor” (academic degree). I have published six books. And the history of my work on the battlefields of Vietnam for the better part of thirteen years often precedes me when I go into a new setting.

But as I have aged, I have noticed a difference in the way people act toward me. The regard people show me is, these days, tinged with condescension. Others treat me as though I am impaired and require special handling. I sometimes get the sense that they see me as a child—or perhaps as an old person in his second childhood. None of this seems to be based on what I have done or said but simply on how old I look. That makes it all the worse because there is a general consensus that I don’t look as old as I really am.

The whole situation is made worse by my deafness. Time in combat and the shelling during the fall of Saigon damaged my hearing. It has gradually worsened as I aged. Because of lip reading and careful attention (and hearing aids), I rarely fail to understand what is being said to me. But if I’m looking away while others are speaking or there is recurring background noise, I sometimes ask others to repeat what they’ve said. Too often, younger interlocutors then proceed to slow down their speech, raise their voice, and simplify their words as though they were talking to a child.

As I’ve noted before in this blog, my body does not, in fact, work as well as it did when I was younger. All my senses have declined, my muscles and coordination are less reliable, even my breathing is more labored. The worst is my brain. It doesn’t work as fast or as smoothly as it once did, and my memory regularly fails me.

That said, I am better able to think than I ever was. My mind, that incorporeal function that sees, judges, and concludes, grows sharper every year. It is with the mind that one writes. My writing continues to improve.

So I ask others to look upon me and others who are aging with the respect we are due, not because of how old we are, but because of the human beings we are. We are people. See us that way. Treat us that way. And love us for who we are.

Alexei Navalny

Vladimir Putin tried and failed to murder Alexei Navalny, a Russian who has openly challenged Putin’s tyrannical rule. He arranged to have Navalny poisoned, but Navalny escaped to Germany where doctors were able to save his life.

Navalny, now recovered from his toxic bout, has returned to Russia where he was immediately arrested. He continues to call upon Russians to fight for freedom, even from his jail cell. His courage is extraordinary.

I believe that Navalny is a genuine hero. He has always known that his outspoken opposition to the Russian government’s clamp down on personal freedom invited severe repercussions, but he proceeded fearlessly. He is once again imprisoned and his life hangs in the balance.

The western democracies have decried Putin’s detainment of Navalny. Putin knows that he will be internationally condemned if Navalny dies. My guess is that censure from other nations will not hinder Putin. One day, sooner or later, we’ll learn that Navalny is dead.

The effect is that Navalny offered his own life as a way to call for liberty and justice in Russia and to disgrace Putin. I am in awe of a man of such supreme bravery and self-sacrifice. May we all learn from his example.

Freedom of Choice and Masks

These days, I read about people who refuse to wear covid-19 masks citing their right to choose. They bridle at the suggestion that anyone can order them to do something they do not want to do. I have no sympathy for them, and I condemn them for failing to protect the health of others.

And now, the Biden administration has urged us all to wear masks. The irresponsibility of the Trump administration is past.

The wearing of a mask, as I understand it, gives more protection to others than it does to the wearer. Put differently, we wear masks less for our own good than for the good of our fellow human beings. We have no more right to subject others to danger than a troublemaker has, citing freedom of speech, to yell “fire!” in a crowded theater.

The wearing of masks has become politicized. Conservatives and Republicans mimic Trump’s refusal to recognize the pandemic—which has now killed over 400,000 people—and see mask wearing as a Democratic-progressive practice. They risk thousands of lives by condemning the wearing of masks as liberal.

It’s time for us Americans to wake up, move beyond Trump’s corruption, and work together for the good of all. So I say to my fellow countrymen: wear a mask!

The Inauguration and Patriotism

As I watched the inauguration ceremony yesterday, my emotions surprised me. I kept tearing up as the vivid moments of the event took hold of me. The sweeping shots of the Capitol as the sun came out, the sound of the Marine Band as the colors were presented and later withdrawn, my recognition of former presidents sitting across from newly-elected Biden and his wife—all of it moved me to the core. And when the newly inaugurated president gave his address, my heart was with him all the way.

There was never any question in my mind as to why the inauguration touched me so deeply. It was the fulfillment of the reasons why I risked my life in service to the nation. I put my life on the line because I believe in the goodness of my country. Put differently, I’m deeply patriotic.

So often during the Trump administration, I found myself asking, “Is this why I went into combat for the good of the nation?” My disgust at Trump’s corrupt, self-serving moves that damaged all of us became, toward the end of his time in office, a daily occurrence. I was especially sickened when he designated men like me and those who died at my side in combat as “suckers” and “losers.”

We haven’t heard the last of Trump. He still has knowledge of the nation’s secrets and a thirst for vengeance. Many millions of Americans still support him. Much malfeasance that he was able to conceal while in office will now come to light. And he will almost certainly be indicted for crimes, a danger he was protected from while president.

But we have, at last, a new president devoted to bringing us together. Watching his inauguration, I felt more keenly the bond I share with those who fought by my side and especially with those who didn’t survive the battlefield.

Once again, our sacrifices are remembered and honored.

Inauguration Day

Today, the worst part of the Trump nightmare will be over. Trump will be replaced as president by Joe Biden who will be sworn in at the Capitol at noon. Security for the event will be the greatest the nation has ever seen involving some 25,000 National Guard personnel. That number apparently does not include multiple police forces who will help assure that no attempt at violence will disrupt the swearing-in.

The ceremony will be held just two weeks after a White supremacist mob ravaged the Capitol at Trump’s behest. According to the New York Times, “A mob, incited by the president of the United States, stormed the halls of Congress in an effort to prevent it from certifying the president’s electoral defeat. During the attack, the mob killed a police officer and went looking for members of Congress.” Four other people died during the mêlée.

The House of Representatives impeached Trump for egging on his followers to attack Congress and prevent validation of Biden’s election. The Senate will decide whether to convict him after he has left office. Meanwhile, corporations and businesses have stopped contributions to the Republicans who support Trump, Facebook and Twitter no longer allow him to use their services. And some Republicans have joined ranks with Democrats to convict him.

This series of events elicits two observations from me. First, Trump and his Republican supporters have brought the U.S. top a new low. We are shamed before the world. We are so damaged that it will take considerable time and work for our country to resume leadership of the western democracies.

Second, the Trump nightmare will continue as long as he is a free man able to continue his stream of lies and to disclose classified information. A sizeable portion of the U.S. population still believes Trump’s claim that he won the November election, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And Trump has detailed knowledge of the country’s most secret data, both defense and intelligence. He could reveal that information to the nation’s foes in revenge for his election defeat.

My guess is that Trump will shortly be indicted for various crimes and may end up in prison. For the good of the nation, I pray that he does not escape unscathed. He continues to pose a threat to our country. We must stop him.