When I was a little boy, it didn't take me long to learn about personal responsibility. My mom was a single parent (divorce) struggling hard to raise two kids with no help from my father. Early on, she sat my younger brother and I down, explaining the rules and chores we had to do to support her while she went out to be the bread winner. I don't know that anyone, mother or teachers, ever used the term personal responsibility, but I came to understand I was accountable for what I did. And that understanding would be reinforced by my extended family. Blaming something I did on some one else, or on something else, just didn't fly. Funny as it sounds, I can still hear my Mom (and others) asking me, as I tried to explain why it was someone else's fault, if I would jump off the Brooklyn Bridge just because everyone else did. Given a chore, I was expected to get it completed and not doing so meant I, and I alone, would be held responsible. And in those days, my derriere might feel my Mom's hand, or else the pin pong paddle, if I didn't do as I was asked. Worse yet, I might get that look that was enough to tell me that I had screwed up big time. I have to admit not being happy with having to own my stuff and had more than one tantrum about it through the years. However, I learned that being happy didn't necessarily have anything to do with being responsible for my decisions and actions.
It was the same at school. The good Sisters of St. Joseph, who taught me all through K-8, reinforced that idea of personal responsibility teaching us that while we had an obligation to take care of others, the decisions we made were ours and we needed to own them. Yes, I could ask for help, ask for advice, ask for whatever I felt I needed, but none of that meant being able to push off the ownership of my decisions to anyone else. In the Fourth grade, I "ran away" with a classmate and we remained lost the entire day and well into the evening with the police, sisters, family and neighbors looking all over the city for us. We were found by the school janitor and returned to the principle's office where Mother Superior separately read each of us the riot act. And it didn't work blaming each other for what happened. My mom was quiet when she arrived to pick me up. On our walk home, she would remind me of the same thing as she "warmed" my derriere. I made the decision and I had to own it and its consequences.
As I moved on into the military, personal responsibility was certainly the order of the day. Yes, you learned how to work as a Team but each team member was responsible for his own shit (term that combined everything) and trying to blame someone else for what you were suppose to do didn't work at all. You learned quickly that there was no shame in asking for help or guidance but at the end of the day, you were responsible for keeping your shit together. And if you didn't, then you could expect that your Marine Corps brothers would help you to learn it, even if it meant giving you a "hard" kick in the ass.
I took all of the above learning into my work/schooling once I left military service. However, over the years I have discovered that the concept of personal responsibility has somehow morphed to "I'll own it so long as it's good but when the shit hits the fan, it belongs to anyone but me." Personal Responsibility has become selective, clouded by this "who me?" attitude. Something goes wrong and you ask about it and find no one owns anything but the finger used to point the blame elsewhere. Victimization has become one of the escape routes for some in avoiding personal responsibility, but ya know, after all these years, I have finally come to realize that's pure, unmitigated BS. I personally understand victimization but have no tolerance for people using their victimization to avoid personal responsibility for the decisions and actions they take. More troubling however, are the young people I meet today who have never been taught that each of them is responsible for the actions/decisions they make. We seem to have developed a "herd" mentality where it's easier to go with a particular herd than to think and be responsible for yourself. It's not easy sometimes to take personal responsibility for what I've done but failure to do so diminishes me as a person. I build it, I do it, I decide it and I own it. That Truth didn't always make me popular with some of the people I worked with, or managed, but I would not go back and do anything differently.
I wish my mom were still living but I am so thankful (esp for the sometimes warm derriere) that she taught me to never step back from being responsible for the decisions and actions I make in this Journey of Life. I haven't always made the best choices, and my actions haven't always been the best, but I have always owned them and that has been a very good thing.
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
The Journey-Nam
I must admit to a smile when I thought about doing a blog. I mean, what do I have to blog about but here I am, and hopefully what you find will be meaningful, if only for what it will tell you about the author. Some of it will be funny, some of it sad, some of it crazy, some of it serious, and some of it will just be all of the above. It will also be about what I've learned from this journey so far. I have found Life to be such a great experience even when I have absolutely no idea about what the hell it all means :-). So here is hoping you enjoy it.
It's raining today and that seems to the projected weather pattern for the coming week. Rain brings back so many memories. Viet-Nam and a young Tony who wondered what the hell a monsoon was and soon learned that perhaps I might have wanted to put off that learning for a while, if not forever. I mean what does one do after 30+ days of non stop rain. I remember us joking about who was going to get web feet first. Funny to see a tent full of Marines showing off their wet feet to each other to see if anyone had developed web feet. We learned that there was being soaked, and then there was Being Soaked. I can't explain how it felt to be wet without really drying out, because even the dry stuff you had was damp. Our tents had pallets for floors so we were able to stay "on top" of the water making it way like a snake through the camp. We use to joke that we had learned how to walk on water. And then there was the night we all had to be rescued by chopper. I mean, here we are on the perimeter of the base, standing guard duty and suddenly we are being flooded and in serious danger of drowning. Do you know how funny it must have looked like to have Marines climbing ropes up to a hovering chopper in the middle of the night? Thinking back,, it's a wonder we didn't get shot, but I think the Viet Cong must have been dealing with the same problem. I have never complained since that time about the rain. Of course, I also remember a moment in time when the person I was in love with went walking in the rain and upon their return tapped on the window and drenched to the bone tried to write "I love you" on the window. Yeah, I am a terrible romantic. :-)
Viet-Nam was one of those consequential moments-happenings in my Journey of Life. I spent 12 months, 27 days and 7 hours in what was then known as the Republic of South Viet-Nam. I arrived there in October of 1967 and left in November of 1968. I made it in time for the Tet Offensive which was a major turning happening in the war. I remember waking up to the sounds of explosions and wondering WTF as I grabbed for my pants, boots, rifle and flak jacket. You would be surprised at how fast you can get every thing on when the world is blowing up around you :-). We ran to our gathering spot in a night sky lighted by tracer rounds and somehow I knew my heart had stopped when the first of what would be many rounds flew past my head. We heard shouts and soon were moving out toward the lines that the enemy had been broken through and suddenly, all the combat training I had, kicked in, but this time, with the realization that it was for real. I grew up that night and for the first time in my life, I put a rifle to my eye and shot to kill another human being. That night lives with me to this day. It wouldn't be the last time I would shoot at others but something about the first time doesn't leave you. We spent three days and nights on the lines fighting and once that fighting was done, we had time to get some grub before loading up on trucks that would take us to the city of Hue where we would fight for the next several weeks to push the enemy out of what had been a beautiful city. I understood then just how savage and brutal war is as I saw the bodies of men, women and children spread throughout the city. After that, we returned to what would be a new base being built in Quang-Tri Province, and for the remainder of my time in Nam, it would be were I was stationed. You turn off in war, I think, or at least, I did. You watch guys die every day, watch guys get wounded in ways you never fathomed, hear the screams of your comrades wanting to die, watch the inhumanity that man can inflict on other men, and pretty soon you just stop.
And then you come home. I, along with several other Marines, got spit on in the LA airport. That's another thing that never leaves you. Over the years I have heard people make light of that but I have to tell you that you can't understand the true sting of that spit without spending almost 13 months watching all too many of your team mates get killed. After the first Gulf War, it became trendy to suddenly remember Viet-Nam Vets, but somehow, the thanks seemed a little late after 25years. But then, I guess it's better late than never. It took me almost 40 years to go to Washington to see the Viet-Nam memorial. I saw the name of one of my best friends there and I cried. I don't know how to describe all the thoughts that went through my mind but it was good to be there and see it. I won't go back ever again but I am glad they built it. We owed it to 56+thousand who never made it home.
Till next time.
It's raining today and that seems to the projected weather pattern for the coming week. Rain brings back so many memories. Viet-Nam and a young Tony who wondered what the hell a monsoon was and soon learned that perhaps I might have wanted to put off that learning for a while, if not forever. I mean what does one do after 30+ days of non stop rain. I remember us joking about who was going to get web feet first. Funny to see a tent full of Marines showing off their wet feet to each other to see if anyone had developed web feet. We learned that there was being soaked, and then there was Being Soaked. I can't explain how it felt to be wet without really drying out, because even the dry stuff you had was damp. Our tents had pallets for floors so we were able to stay "on top" of the water making it way like a snake through the camp. We use to joke that we had learned how to walk on water. And then there was the night we all had to be rescued by chopper. I mean, here we are on the perimeter of the base, standing guard duty and suddenly we are being flooded and in serious danger of drowning. Do you know how funny it must have looked like to have Marines climbing ropes up to a hovering chopper in the middle of the night? Thinking back,, it's a wonder we didn't get shot, but I think the Viet Cong must have been dealing with the same problem. I have never complained since that time about the rain. Of course, I also remember a moment in time when the person I was in love with went walking in the rain and upon their return tapped on the window and drenched to the bone tried to write "I love you" on the window. Yeah, I am a terrible romantic. :-)
Viet-Nam was one of those consequential moments-happenings in my Journey of Life. I spent 12 months, 27 days and 7 hours in what was then known as the Republic of South Viet-Nam. I arrived there in October of 1967 and left in November of 1968. I made it in time for the Tet Offensive which was a major turning happening in the war. I remember waking up to the sounds of explosions and wondering WTF as I grabbed for my pants, boots, rifle and flak jacket. You would be surprised at how fast you can get every thing on when the world is blowing up around you :-). We ran to our gathering spot in a night sky lighted by tracer rounds and somehow I knew my heart had stopped when the first of what would be many rounds flew past my head. We heard shouts and soon were moving out toward the lines that the enemy had been broken through and suddenly, all the combat training I had, kicked in, but this time, with the realization that it was for real. I grew up that night and for the first time in my life, I put a rifle to my eye and shot to kill another human being. That night lives with me to this day. It wouldn't be the last time I would shoot at others but something about the first time doesn't leave you. We spent three days and nights on the lines fighting and once that fighting was done, we had time to get some grub before loading up on trucks that would take us to the city of Hue where we would fight for the next several weeks to push the enemy out of what had been a beautiful city. I understood then just how savage and brutal war is as I saw the bodies of men, women and children spread throughout the city. After that, we returned to what would be a new base being built in Quang-Tri Province, and for the remainder of my time in Nam, it would be were I was stationed. You turn off in war, I think, or at least, I did. You watch guys die every day, watch guys get wounded in ways you never fathomed, hear the screams of your comrades wanting to die, watch the inhumanity that man can inflict on other men, and pretty soon you just stop.
And then you come home. I, along with several other Marines, got spit on in the LA airport. That's another thing that never leaves you. Over the years I have heard people make light of that but I have to tell you that you can't understand the true sting of that spit without spending almost 13 months watching all too many of your team mates get killed. After the first Gulf War, it became trendy to suddenly remember Viet-Nam Vets, but somehow, the thanks seemed a little late after 25years. But then, I guess it's better late than never. It took me almost 40 years to go to Washington to see the Viet-Nam memorial. I saw the name of one of my best friends there and I cried. I don't know how to describe all the thoughts that went through my mind but it was good to be there and see it. I won't go back ever again but I am glad they built it. We owed it to 56+thousand who never made it home.
Till next time.
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