Review by Bill Doughty––
It’s jarring –– for several reasons –– to read in 2020 about climbing a monument, shoulder to knee, foot to face, shirtless and maskless, with other classmates.
Until 2020. The book was published as the COVID-19 pandemic was impacting the world, eventually causing the Naval Academy to cancel the 2020 Herndon Climb and other events, including a public induction and even a public commencement ceremony.
It’s jarring to read what the current plebes and midshipmen are missing in closeness and camaraderie. The Herndon Climb is like a giant sanctioned college prank. The second year class uses 50 pounds of vegetable shortening to grease the monument, and the plebes build a human pyramid and climb atop each other to knock off a “dixie cup” hat and replace it with an officer’s combination cover. It can take hours of sweat, slips, strains, and sprains, “while standing on a footing as unsteady as the deck of a storm-tossed ship at sea.”
 |
| May 20, 2019. (Photo by MC3 Josiah D. Pearce) |
“The Herndon Climb” is filled with rich history of the tradition and of the Navy, as well as literary references. The authors write of John McCain, “Moby Dick,” Mark Twain, Matthew Fontaine Maury, and James H. Webb, Jr. We read poignant accounts of shipmates Chris Bianchi, Barbara Ives, Josh Williams, Brian Weaver, Karen Halverson, Michael Germand, and Kristen “Dink” Dickmann. The book has great photos and a wonderful first-person feel throughout.
Of particular interest is the evolution of acceptance of women at the academy and as part of the Herndon Climb and the integration required to achieve full equality.
“From the suffragettes of the early twentieth century, who fought and ultimately won the right for women to participate in elections of their government representatives; to the first female members of the Navy, who filled critical noncombat jobs in both world wars; to pioneers like Janie Mines, class of ’80, who as the first black female graduate of the Academy battled against a double dose of discrimination; to more modern times, the struggles and triumphs of women on an unfairly angled playing field continue.”
Strategies and strength are important in conquering the obelisk. “You quickly realize that tightness and closeness are the keys to establishing a strong base at each layer in the human scaffold of plebes.”
“Tightness and closeness” is a metaphor for a successful naval career. As naval officers, the men and women figuratively stand on the shoulders of predecessors. They build a framework of cooperation and collaboration even as they compete for promotion to reach the pinnacle of their potential.
 |
| Cmdr. William Lewis Herndon |
Perhaps most jarring is learning about the namesake of the monument. Commander Herndon was a veteran of the Mexican-American War who was involved in the Navy’s support to the pre-Civil-War Gold Rush and who went down with his ship in a hurricane 163 years ago today, Sept. 12, 1857, after heroic attempts to save passengers, crew and his ship.
He was also an advocate of slavery.
In 1851, just 20 years after Charles Darwin’s voyage of the Beagle and eight years before Darwin’s “Origin of the Species,” Herndon captained his own exploration of the Amazon to carefully document native flora and fauna. “Herndon bemoaned what he perceived as untapped economic potential across vast, sparsely populated regions rich in mineral wealth, timber, and plants with medicinal and food value,” the authors write.
Herndon was a “firm devotee of the principle of ‘manifest destiny,’” who promoted colonization, slavery, and even genocide. From Herndon’s observations:
“Let us suppose introduced into such a country the railroad and the steamboat, the plough, the axe, and the hoe; let us suppose the land divided into large estates, and cultivated by slave labor, as as to produce all that they are capable of producing. And with these considerations, we shall have no difficulty in coming to the conclusion that no territory on the face of the globe is so favorably situated … Civilization must advance, though it tread on the neck of the savage, or even trample him out of existence. Throw open the country to colonization, inducing people to come by privileges and grants of land. I am satisfied that in this way if the Indian be not improved, he will at least be cast out…”
Compare that with Darwin’s view at the conclusion of his “Voyage of the Beagle,” published in 1939:
“On the 19th of August we finally left the shores of Brazil. I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country. To this day, if I hear a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, when passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard the most pitiable moans, and could not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew that I was as powerless as a child even to remonstrate. I suspected that these moans were from a tortured slave, for I was told that this was the case in another instance. Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have stayed in a house where a young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten, and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the lowest animal. I have seen a little boy, six or seven years old, struck thrice with a horse-whip (before I could interfere) on his naked head … I will not even allude to the many heart-sickening atrocities which I authentically heard of; –– nor would I have mentioned the above revolting details, had I not met with several people, so blinded by the constitutional gaiety of the negro as to speak of slavery as a tolerable evil.”
We can evaluate Darwin’s and Herndon’s views of the world in the context of history, but we can also analyze their views in the realm of ethics and true morality.
Will the Herndon Monument climb return again to the Academy? Can it evolve?
No comments:
Post a Comment