3 Days.

"Went back home to the refinery. Hiring man said 'Son if it were up to me...'. Went down to see my V.A. man. He said 'Son, don't you understand?"

:Bruce Springsteen "Born in the U.S.A."


I remember it like it was last week. I sat on the other side of this guy's desk in a freshly pressed suit. I was wearing the spit shined D.O.D issued oxfords that every soldier, sailor, airman and Marine had been issued but only Marines ever seemed to keep and maintain. My hair was still so short that  if you were standing behind me you could clearly see the coin slot scar at the crown of my head that I got when I was seven which has always caused me to be a bit selfconscious.
          He held my resume in his left hand as he extended his right to shake mine and thanked me for coming in for an interview.  He told me it was always an honor to meet someone who'd been in the service and that I out of respect for me he would be up front and tell me that I wasn't getting the job. He didn't think I'd be a "good fit", he went on to say that given how disciplined and focused I appeared to be, he doubted that I would be looking for work for very long.
           I have friends who are veterans who've told me similar stories.  Many soldiers, sailors and Marines leave their branch of service and seek employment only to be told they're "unqualified". Some re-enlist others elect to use their G.I. bill benefits and get an education only to be told they're "over qualified" when seeking work. At what point was the veteran qualified "enough"?  This problem is hardly new.  Many vets feel as if they're on the "fringes" of society as if they are alienated by society as a whole. In 1932, 10,000 veterans of world war one marched upon Washington because they'd been given certificates for "cash bonuses" which had yet to be honored. This lead to the G.I. Bill of rights.

     At the end of the second world war many called ex soldiers and sailors living on unemployment "drains on society" and many struggled to adjust to post military life.  Korean war vets fared slightly better, but Vietnam seemed to change the rules.  Veterans of the conflict in Southeast Asia were often ostracized and treated with hostility.   In 1972 David Morelle wrote the novel "First Blood" which chronicled Congressional Medal of Honor recipient and prisoner of war John Rambo who after the war couldn't keep a job parking cars and became a drifter who gets into a small war with a small town sheriff in Oregon who arrests him and roughs him up for "vagrancy."  In the novel Rambo takes on the sheriff's department and seriously injures the sheriff and several of his men. The conflict ends when Rambo's former commanding officer arrives to take him into custody and hand him over to we assume State Police.  The Rambo character is portrayed as a sensitive soul who became a killing machine who felt discarded by a nation he loved and saw his friends dying to protect.
    I'm mentioning the Morelle  novel because in my lifetime I've turned on my television to see a veteran of the first gulf war named  Sergeant Tim McVey blow up a Federal Building in Oklahoma city.  I saw a former Gulf War Vet Sergeant John Muhammad randomly kill innocent men and women in the District of Columbia.  L.A.P.D officer and Naval Reserve Lieutenant Christopher Donner went on a killing spree that crossed state lines before being killed by an incendiary device.  Former Sailor Aaron Alexis went on a killing spree at the U.S. Naval yard in Washington DC, and most recently in the Cities of Dallas and Baton Rouge Army reservist and Afghan war vet  Micah Johnson and Marine Corps Sergeant  and Iraq veteran Gavin Long went on rampages killing eight police officers between them.

      What is my point?  Let me say off the bat that I DO NOT CONDONE the actions taken by those I've mentioned, nor do I in any way justify them.  What I'm attempting to say is that veterans (especially war vets) need the government whom they were willing to give their lives to protect to have their backs.  They need access to doctors and mental health services. They need vocational training.  Many need access to mental health care professionals as they've seen things that most of us can't even imagine.  I'm just some schmuck who served in the military during peace time. I don't think I warrant the respect due to combat veterans but I definitely feel they deserve far more than they get.
      Let's face it this country has a seriously short attention span and a "what have you done for me lately" attitude. There seem to be three days on the American calendar when Veterans receive the respect of the American people: Memorial Day, the fourth of July and Veterans day.  Vets are often turned down for work by the same people who might have put up red white and blue streamers the day before and thanked them for their service a week earlier without much thought.

       I'm weary of listening to politicians from major parties telling me how they will fix the Veterans Administration system and hospitals. I hear this empty rhetoric from men and women with elephants and donkeys next to their names (some of whom ARE veterans themselves) but at the same time I see their colleagues in the House of Representatives and the Senate blocking bills that would give veterans hospitals more funding or give vets greater access to psychiatric help simply because the bill in question MAY have been put forth by someone from an opposing party and they deemed it more important to score political points. As that bickering goes on I find myself driving past men and women near freeway over passes who may or may not be homeless veterans.
  
     Navy Seal and American Hero Chief Petty Officer Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield were both shot and killed while attempting to counsel former Marine Eddie Routh at a gun range.  Which leaves us to ask, if Routh had greater access to mental health care would  Chris Kyle be alive today?  If this nation's love for veterans extended beyond three days a year, would any of the homicidal veterans I've mentioned have committed their atrocious acts?

You Can't Hide Forever...we WILL find you...(satire)

I've imagine the scenario more than once. It's always at night and he's running down darkened streets. We walk in a large group knowing full well that he wouldn't be able to evade us. No matter where he turned we were seconds behind him until finally he runs into either an alley or is standing before an abandoned store front and finds himself desperately pleading with us. "Guys. You...you can't be serious! It was 1981." One of us would angrily say "Why not Larry, or Bobby or Steven? Hell you could have even gone Matthew!"
He would then plead with us "Come on guys it's just a song." and before we set upon him one of us would defiantly  yell "It's your damn SIGNATURE song!"  We would then rain kicks and blows upon him and as we left, one of us would start to whistle the melody of the song with which we'd been tortured and maybe one of them would look back at him as he lay in the street and taunt "Hey Springfield...this is all just a bad dream. If anyone asks remember...Jesse is a friend" and then sing "and yes he is a good friend of mine...but lately somethin's changed..."
              I'm sure Rick Springfield has had this dream but usually wakes up from it in terror.  The greatest writer in the history of the English language once said: "What's in a name? It is neither hand, nor foot, nor any other part belonging to a man." Shakespeare said this in Romeo and Juliet, but at the time when he wrote it "Bill" (one of the shortened forms of the name William) wasn't an annoying note one got for services rendered at the end of a month, and it certainly wasn't a song in which the lovely Marilyn McCoo was asking him to her.  Had either been true he might have thought twice about the use of the brilliant phrase.

            Being the muse for a brilliant musician or even a mediocre one has to be quite the compliment, but if you just happen to share a name with someone about whom a song is written and that song becomes a huge hit,  it can be more annoying than those tiny lose hairs that always seem to be on your neck after you get a haircut. When Beethoven wrote "Fur Elise" (whose name was Therese by the way) you have to know she was flattered, but how many women named Elise have wanted to bludgeon the genius for having written it?

Doubt me? Find any woman who grew up in the 1970s named Caroline and serenade her with the Neil Diamond classic which bears her name. If she doesn't lunge at you with murderous intent consider yourself lucky. Neil Diamond probably has round the clock security simply to protect himself from women named Caroline.  The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson probably could wall paper his Malibu home with copies of the restraining orders he's had to get against women named "Barbara Ann" who want to take his hand and punch him in the face with it while asking "Why ya hittin' yourself? Why ya hittin' yourself?" They might want to see him "rockin' and a rollin' " and even "rockin' and a reelin' " down the hill his house sits on into the Pacific. Who knows one of them might have so much "Fun, Fun Fun" she'll drive off in a T-bird till LAPD takes it away. Yes those were horrible puns. I regret nothing.
 
        Ask any woman named Janie if she's "Got a gun". Stephen Tyler is smart enough NOT to do so. Women named "Nikki" don't like to be told how "Darling" they are. Women named "Layla" don't like to be told that you've got them on their knees. conversely women named "Donna" and "Peggy Sue" would most likely be sending hate mail to rock and roll legends Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holley and while Micheal Jackson was one of his generations greatest entertainers women named Billie Jean probably used to throw things at him in airports. Have women named "Lucille" or known as "Long Tall Sally" stopped wanting to assault Architect of Rock and Roll Little Richard? Hell your given name doesn't even have to be IN a some for someone to annoy you with it.  Don't believe me? Sing the song "Tomorrow" from the musical Annie to ANY woman named Tamara and replace the title of the song with her name.

        Lest you think everyone whose name is used in a song is annoyed by it, I've never met any woman named Angela who didn't love David Bowie's tribute to his wife "Angie" as she was leaving him as sang by his friend Mick Jagger.  Peter Chris' (formerly the drummer of KISS) wife "Beth" still hasn't dumped him despite having written one of the most ANNOYING ballads in the history of music about her circa 1970 something.  Most women named "Bernadette" love the Four Tops song which bears their name and there are women named "Michelle" who adore the Beatles song which bears their name.

        Before you call the FBI and tell 80s Australian actor/singer Rick Springfield that  kabal of guys named Jesse are hunting him down, I'm kidding! Most of us mean Rick no harm, except maybe guys named "Bruce" who hated being immortalized in his tongue in cheek song "Bruce" about once having a groupie confuse him for rock legend Bruce Springsteen. Hell I have to admit I actually like the REST of the guy's music.

       To musicians out there who feel inspired to write a song about someone, take a lesson from some of the greats. Carley Simon has YET to tell us the name of the guy who was "So Vain" that he probably thought the song was about him...well wasn't it?  Alanis Moiressette to this day hasn't divulged the name of the guy to whom she gave fellatio in a theatre. Dave Coulier from the 90s sitcom Full House claims it was him and truthfully if I'd dated Alanis Moiressette before that song was written I'd probably say it was about me. Wouldn't you? Jim Morrison died without telling us the name of the girl to whom he walked up and proclaimed "Hello I love You."  Who was the "Lady" Lionel Ritchie sang of? He must have loved her because he wrote a second song about her (with the same title) and let Kenny Rogers sing it. "The Girl from Ipanema" enjoyed relative anonymity as did the "Island Girl" of whom Elton John sang.
       At the end of the day, those of us who have been inadvertently immortalized by song writers consider ourselves somewhat fortunate.  Somewhere out there is a guy named Fong who would love to hear his name in a song. Don't worry Fong my man, some love struck girl is probably immortalizing you as you read this. Hope her song's a hit.

America. Black and Blue

Thursday July 7, 2016 I turned on CNN and saw my friend Christina's block in downtown Dallas on TV.  There was a Black Lives Matter protest which both CNN and Fox News agreed was "peaceful." The event had been peaceful UNTIL a sniper decided to open fire on the Dallas Police and Dallas Area Rapid Transit Police from a parking garage. I sat there trying not to cry and feeling as if I'd been kicked in the gut.
        

Let's back up. For as long as there have been black communities there have been police in them.  Richard Penniman who is better known as the self proclaimed "Architect of rock and Roll" Little Richard's father ran a bar in Macon Georgia and was shot and killed by one of the bar's patrons. The police detained the murderer but released him and explained that one black man killing another wasn't a crime worth wasting "tax payer money" to bring to court. Richard was infuriated but there was nothing that could or would be done.
       In 1955, Chicago teen Emmet Til was kidnapped at gun point from his cousin's home in rural Mississippi where he was tortured and killed for being "fresh" with a woman whose husband owned a local store. Two men were arrested and tried for the teen's murder but were found not guilty. The reason? Til was black and the two men who killed him were white.

      The Ku Klux Klan once used as a major selling point in recruiting that none of its members had ever been convicted of killing a black man. When John Lewis (now an elderly congressman) was one of the "Freedom Riders" who attempted to integrate interstate buses in the 60s was traveling across the South, J. Edgar Hoover's Federal Bureau of Investigation called local sheriff's departments and let them know when bus loads of "agitators" and "trouble makers" were to arrive.  The result was usually the sheriff letting local hotheads know when the buses would arrive and then when the sheriffs department would arrive.  Essentially the sheriff's departments were giving the local thugs a good 10 minutes to crack skulls and leave before they arrived. In the minds of many people of color the police were the guys who kept you in line and who protected those who brutalized and slaughtered you. Luckily the 60s brought about laws that enabled persons of color to integrate universities, vote, become civil servants (like police officers and elected officials) and to sit on juries.

          Let's put things into context here.  During the 1960s black cops were as rare as four leaf clovers. In many cities and states the idea of a black police officer male or female seemed laughable. Things have changed. Police randomly placing a random black man in jail because a crime was committed are over, but generations of this occurring have lead to a degree of distrust that has been passed along like a horrible disease.  Police brutality at one point WAS rampant in this country no matter what  your race. Blacks (in my opinion) probably felt more "victimized" because the criminal justice system more often than not gives them harsher sentences than whites accused of similar crimes.  The criminal justice system is harsher on defendants who can't afford good legal representation and as many of the impoverished are persons of color this creates the appearance of a bias. 

        Being a cop is like being president of the United States. There are those who love you and in whose eyes you can do no wrong, some who can be objective to you and what you do and those who vilify everything you do. Your actions have an impact and you have to make decisions upon which the lives of others hang in the balance.  It's not a job any geek of the street could do. The great thigns you do will often be ignored and your every error will be hung around your neck like an albatross.
    
       I can't claim to be an expert in the "black experience". My "black experience" was growing up with both parents in a working class neighborhood. I can't speak for someone who grew up in a much poorer neighborhood with a single parent. I can't speak for someone who grew up literally afraid to cross a street in the North or Midwest for fear of entering an Irish or Italian neighborhood because I have no idea what that's like. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said last week according to Time Magazine:  “If you are a normal, white American, the truth is you don’t understand being black in America and you instinctively under-estimate the level of discrimination and the level of additional risk.” If I said the exact same thing I'd be called a whiner or simply ignored or dismissed.  I do however know what it's like to be unfairly stereotyped and judged by the actions of others OR by the preconceptions of others and to that end I'll wager most cops do too.
      Cops and men of color have much in common. Entirely too many people are quick to assume the very worst about both us to be true. Many make snap judgements about both of us based on the actions of a handful of sociopaths who in no way represent all of us. Both groups have to deal with stereotypes and prejudice from people who have limited (if any interaction) with us.  Sadly both groups have detractors who wouldn't lose a wink of sleep if large numbers of us were brutally killed.

Oh and we have one other thing in common,  neither of us seems to want to listen to the other.  There are serious similarities between men of color and the cops and differences. What needs to happen is a dialogue in which we take a good look at the common ground we share and stop looking at our ugly history.  We should think about where this country is headed and make sure that one day when or if we hear about a man being shot by police, we don't ask his race but rather what events lead to the confrontation between he and local police.