‘The Root’: In Tribute to Veterans

Review by Bill Doughty––

The bombing was accurately described by Marine historian, journalist, and author Eric Hammel and his publisher as a “disaster”:

“At 6:22 a.m. on October 23, 1983, a yellow Mercedes truck raced across the parking lot of the Beirut International Airport in Lebanon. Crashing through a chain-link gate into the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit’s headquarters compound, it raced on, careening through a shack and into the open atrium lobby of a terminal building where the men were housed, many still asleep.

“The truck lurched to a stop. Seconds later, 12,000 pounds of high explosives piled in the bed of the truck exploded. The four-story steel and concrete building shuddered, then collapsed. Two hundred forty-one Americans were killed and many more injured in the disaster.”

The book’s cover sets the stage for “The Root: The Marines in Beirut, August 1982 - February 1984” by Eric Hammel (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985). Hammel arrived in Beirut Lebanon 40 years ago this month. He interviewed nearly 200 enlisted personnel and officers and reported on the who, what, when, where, and why of the devastating terrorist bombing of the barracks in a city the Marines nicknamed The Root. United States Marines and Navy and Army support personnel had been sent to Lebanon by then-President Ronald Reagan as part of a peacekeeping mission.

I was drawn to this book after reading and reviewing another contemporaneous account of the bombing, “Peacekeepers at War” by Col. Timothy J. Geraghty, USMC (ret.). Like Geraghty, Hammel brings forth fresh-at-the time details and rich context while focusing on the courage and sacrifice of service members involved. Hammel says upfront he is focused primarily on the Marines themselves:

“This is not a book about Beirut or Lebanon in the wake of the June 1982 Israeli invasion, nor is it about the Lebanese people, the Lebanese religious and political factions, Lebanon’s problems with its Syrian and Israeli neighbors, nor even the goals and aspirations articulated by the Reagan administration with respect to its hastily conceived and cosmetic solutions for the ongoing Lebanese tragedy. All those factors are part of this book only insofar as they impact upon Marines who were in Beirut.”

Beirut Memorial Run Oct. 20, Lejeune Memorial Gardens (LCpl. Ramsammy)

The relevance and parallels of what happened in Beirut 40 years ago to what is now happening in the Middle East are striking. 

Then, in 1983, the Israeli Defense Force invaded Lebanon after Islamist extremists in the Palestine Liberation Organization attacked villagers in northern Israel and established a “state within a state” within Lebanon, supported by the Palestine Liberation Army and Syria. Today, Israel is invading the southern sector of Gaza, after extremist Islamists in Hamas barbarically attacked innocent civilians in southern Israel with support from Iran and its agents.

In both cases, innocent civilians were and are caught in the crossfire of massive air and artillery bombardments. 

In both cases Islamist terrorists use civilians as human shields out of religious extremist beliefs justifying sacrifice for a greater good. 

And in both cases, the U.S. military assets respond in support of Israel in an attempt to deter an expansion of the war.

[Yesterday a U.S. MQ-9drone was reported to have been downed by attackers off the coast Yemen. Commenting in response, Neil Cavuto of FOX News said, “The war nobody wants to widen keeps stubbornly trying to widen.” Last night, most Republican candidates for president said in a televised NBC debate that the United States should attack Iran directly. Whether there will be further escalation, especially with Iran, is yet to be determined in that volatile region.]

Hammel describes a yawning “chasm that separates perception from reality in the Middle East.”

While the title of the book “The Root” refers to the city occupied by the Marines and other military personnel, there is also a possible double entendre. The root of the problem of the yawning “chasm that separates perception from reality” is religion –– A conflict between Moslems, Jews and Christians; a deadly feud between Shiite and Sunni sects; and a theocratic forever war by Islamist Jihadists against freedom, democracy, and diversity.

Clear-eyed reasoning can confront other root causes of world conflict and potential war: past imperialism, current overpopulation, and future climate change resulting in more mass migrations.

Hammel’s carefully researched and reported accounting of the Beirut tragedy is presented in who (including the names of U.S. service members killed in Lebanon September 1982 through February 1984), what (excellent descriptive writing), when (a chronological narrative), where (helpful maps and diagrams), and why (a scathing conclusion in the book’s epilogue).

He recounts the heroism of the Marines and Navy personnel who doggedly tried to make their mission a success despite growing attacks and other incidents of violence, including sniper fire in the months leading up to the bombing. “As nearly as any of the American servicemen who were directly involved could tell, the August 28 fighting in and around Beirut was precipitated by the desecration of a Maronite Christian church with posters depicting the Ayatollah Khomeini.”

Hammel describes the suicide bombing of the barracks with attention to detail and through the eyes and voices of the service members who experienced the horror. His matter-of-fact style brings forth the true heroism of the service members who responded, rescued and recovered their shipmates as well as the aftermath of dealing with the tragedy on the home front.

The epigraph of the book reads: “For the Marines, Sailors, and Soldiers Who Died in Beirut –– and for their families.”

This book is a good read as we approach Veterans Day and the Marine Corps Birthday, both occurring this weekend. Forty years ago the Marine Corps Birthday Ball, which is held anywhere in the world in which there are Marines, was a solemn event worldwide. There are moments of solemnity and remembrance at all Marine Corps birthday commemorations, where a table is set aside with empty chairs to remember the Marines who had made the ultimate sacrifice.

Leaders who send service members in harms way must always consider the why.

“The Root” hits home the truism that those who do not learn the lessons, mistakes, and disasters of history are condemned to repeat them.

Hammel died three years ago. He is remembered and honored by the Beirut Veterans Association as a “final muster,” publishing a note from Hammel’s son Daniel at the time of Eric’s death: “My dad wrote a lot of books about a lot of people, but there was no group that he was more in touch with than yours. I know that he touched many of your lives and many of you touched his. He saw you all as brothers, even though he didn't serve, he loved you all."

Top photo: U.S. Marines with the 2d Marine Aircraft Wing Band and U.S. Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa prepare to enter a memorial service during a Beirut bombing commemoration in Lyon, France, Oct. 21, 2023. The Beirut bombing memorial commemorates the 40th anniversary of the attacks conducted against the French and Americans. (LCpl. Mary Linniman)

A True Patriot and Statesman: Max Cleland

By Bill Doughty––

When Joseph Maxwell "Max" Cleland spoke at the 72nd Pearl Harbor Day commemoration ceremony, Dec. 7, 2013, with Pearl Harbor itself as a backdrop, he was nearly overcome with emotion. He saw the dozens of World War II veterans seated in the front rows of the audience, and he thought of his father. Cleland spoke without notes, from the heart, about the sacrifice of military service and the joy of homecomings.

Army CPT Max Cleland in Vietnam

Hugh Cleland, Max’s dad, joined the Navy after the attack on Oahu in 1941. In 1965, Max volunteered for the Army to serve in combat in Vietnam, where he earned the Silver Star and Bronze Star.

Cleland was severely wounded and nearly killed. Yet, he personified resilience to become head of the Veterans Administration and a U.S. Senator.

Cleland died earlier this week. He was a great statesman, military veteran, and advocate for veterans, especially those with lasting physical and mental wounds.

President Joe Biden issued a statement November 9 on Cleland’s passing:

“Max Cleland was an American hero whose fearless service to our nation, and to the people of his beloved home state of Georgia, never wavered.

As a 25-year-old serving in the 1^st Cavalry Division of the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, Max lost both of his legs and his right arm in a grenade explosion at Khe Sanh. After grueling months in the hospital, enduring multiple surgeries and a long road back to recovery, Max turned his pain into purpose. He continued his distinguished public service, becoming a lifelong champion of the dignity and rights of working people and America’s wounded veterans. His leadership was the essential driving force behind the creation of the modern VA health system, where so many of his fellow heroes have found lifesaving support and renewed purpose of their own thanks in no small part to Max’s lasting impact... He was a man of unflinching patriotism, boundless courage, and rare character... He will be remembered as one of Georgia’s and America’s great leaders.”

I was fortunate to help plan the Navy’s Pearl Harbor Day commemoration ceremony in 2013 and to hear Max Cleland speak about honor, courage, and commitment –– as well as true family values and patriotism.

In 2013 I posted a Navy Reads review featuring Cleland’s autobiography, “Heart of a Patriot.”

Cleland, who chaired the armed services subcommittee on personnel in the Senate, was known for working closely with both Democratic and Republican colleagues.

Cleland reads about JFK.

From Navy Reads: “His colleagues, mentors and friends in the Senate included fellow combat veterans Chuck Hagel, Dan Inouye, John Kerry and ‘my Vietnam veteran brother’ John McCain. Cleland describes the pride of wearing his dad's WWII Navy peacoat as a U.S. Senator during a presidential inauguration.”

Prior to serving in the Navy for three years during WWII, Max Cleland’s father, Hugh, had served in the Civilian Conservation Corps, an environmental infrastructure program created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. FDR was an inspiration to a young Max Cleland. Cleland loved books and reading. He authored several books.

Like Biden, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a statement about Senator Cleland’s passing; fittingly, Austin includes references to literature.

In part, SECDEF Austin says:

“The Department of Defense stands united in mourning the loss of Senator Max Cleland, an extraordinary public servant and a great patriot…He served his country and his community from a wheelchair, following in the gallant tradition of his hero President Franklin Roosevelt.”

SECDEF Austin notes that as head of the Veterans Administration, Cleland “fought fiercely for his fellow veterans, made PTSD an official VA diagnosis, and helped create the groundbreaking Vet Centers program. Later, after being elected a U.S. senator from Georgia, he continued his passionate focus on defense and veterans' issues, serving with distinction on the Senate Armed Services Committee and leading on such issues as health care, bioterrorism preparedness, and homeland security. He also served on the 9/11 Commission before being nominated for the board of the Export-Import Bank. His final act of public service was leading the American Battlefield Monuments Commission. When battle maps of Vietnam were added to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii, he asked to add an inscription from the poet Archibald MacLeish: ‘We leave you our deaths: give them their meaning.’

With courage and grit, Senator Cleland struggled with PTSD and depression—seeking help through counseling, medication, and attendance at a recovery group. He said that he drew strength from being around his fellow veterans and wounded warriors, including those from Iraq and Afghanistan. As the head of the VA, he made psychological counseling available to his fellow veterans. And I hope that his example will encourage others carrying unseen wounds to seek out the help they need and deserve. 

Senator Cleland liked to quote Hemingway, who wrote, ‘The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.’ He surely was. Max Cleland's civic-minded spirit, optimism, and resilience will stand as an inspiration to every American.”

Funeral services are planned for early next week.

Senator Max Cleland, RIP.

Vietnam War veteran Max Cleland, a triple amputee, holds a photograph of himself as a child with his father, Hugh, and mother, Juanita, at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl in 2013. (Jamm Aquino, Honolulu Star-Advertiser)

The Senate had six Vietnam combat veterans in January 1997. Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., is in the front. Behind him, from left: Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., John Kerry, D-Mass., Chuck Robb, D-Va., and John McCain, R-Ariz. This photo was taken by The World-Herald during Senate orientation the previous month. (Kiley Cruse, The World-Herald)

Top photo: Secretary Max Cleland, American Battle Monuments Commission, delivers keynote remarks during the 72nd anniversary commemoration of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Oahu. This year’s commemoration theme, “Sound the Alarm,” examines how thousands of Americans answered the call to duty in the wake of the attack. More than 2,500 people attended the Pearl Harbor commemoration. (MC2 Nardel Gervacio)

Good Leadership at the Top

Review by Bill Doughty

Walter Isaacson distills the qualities that make a good leader in "Profiles in Leadership: Historians on the Elusive Quality of Greatness" (W.W. Norton, 2010), featuring essays from writers including Evan Thomas,  Alan Brinkley, Glenda Gilmore, Robert Dallek and David M. Kennedy.

The "toughest part of political leadership," he contends, "is knowing when to compromise versus when it is necessary to stand firm on principle."

An advisor to presidents, Benjamin Franklin, 81 years old at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, proposed a compromise between small and large states: "a House proportioned by population and a Senate with equal votes per state." Franklin united the convention and nation with his compromise.

Isaacson writes, "Compromisers may not make great heroes, but they do make great democracies."

Unfortunately, Franklin also compromised on the issue of slavery, a position that "soon haunted him" and propelled him to become an abolitionist.

"He realized that humility required tolerance for other people's values, which at times required compromise of one's own; however, it was important to be uncompromising in opposing those who refused to show tolerance of others."

In an essay perfect for Veterans Day, Sean Wilentz reintroduces us to Ulysses S. Grant, who as a former Union general and U.S. president visited Berlin, Germany in 1877 and met with Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.

Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant

In conversation with Bismarck, Grant corrected the perception that America's Civil War was fought only to save the Union. Grant told him, "As soon as slavery fired upon the flag it was felt, we all felt, even those who did not object to slaves, that slavery must be destroyed. We felt that it was a stain to the Union that men should be bought and sold like cattle."

According to Wilentz, Grant, who, like Washington and Jefferson, had his own complicated history as a slaveowner, had to clean up "the mess left behind by the pro-southern obstructionist president Andrew Johnson." Grant eventually strongly opposed Johnson when Johnson "hardened his defense of white supremacy and obstructed congressional efforts to guarantee the civil and political rights of the ex-slaves."

During Reconstruction and the years that followed, Grant took on the Ku Klux Klan and "subterfuges that might disqualify black voters" and intimidation "with the express purposes of scaring black voters from the polls." But President Grant, "as a career military officer, was particularly sensitive about any display of executive power that might be interpreted as the actions of a would-be Caesar."

Like every leader, Grant had blemishes, but his achievements should be recognized and appreciated, according to Wilentz.

"Grant left behind the most admirable and politically courageous record on race relations of any president from Abraham Lincoln to Lyndon B. Johnson. For that leadership, he sustained broad approval among the American people – but he earned the enmity of southern racists and northern 'liberal' reformers of his own time and then earned, from generations of later historians, a lasting reputation for incompetence and worse. It is long past time that the reconstruction of our understanding of Reconstruction came to include President Ulysses S. Grant."

The essay writers in "Profiles in Leadership" examine a diverse groups of leaders and influencers including, among others, George Washington, Pauli Murray, Charles Finney, Chief Joseph, W.E.B Dubois, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Wendell Willkie and Dwight Eisenhower.

"Wendell Willkie is an interesting, and overlooked, case of a leader who was both principled and willing to seek common ground with his political opponents. As David Levering Lewis explains in his essay, when Willkie won the 1940 nomination of the Republican Party, his best political strategy would have been to embrace the prevailing isolationist Republican sentiment and oppose any intervention in what was to become World War II. But Willkie followed his own principles and supported a consensus approach on foreign policy. After his loss Willkie helped devise, with great clarity of vision, a Republican internationalism."Eisenhower was also good at eliciting consensus, as David Kennedy points out in his essay. When given a clear mission, he was able to bring people along and nurture a practical optimism. He did this not by being assertive. He never bought the notion that bullying and leadership were synonymous. But he was bold in his conduct of war because he was given a clear goal. Eisenhower was less effective, however, when he had to develop his own sense of mission and his own moral vision. That is why, Kennedy argues, he was timid on the race issue. He also valued comity over disruptive crusades for social justice. Added to that, I think, was that Eisenhower, like many people in the [1950s], did not believe integration was something that should be rushed."

Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Justice too long delayed is justice denied," Martin Luther King Jr. would write a decade later in his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" when he was imprisoned in Alabama.

While Eisenhower, who David Kennedy calls "no bigot," showed tolerance for integration to a point, including finishing what Truman started with integration of the military, he failed to call for integration on the national stage and he stalled legislation for civil rights.

"The walls have ears."

He also did not condemn the murder of 14-year-old Emmet Till or other acts of violence and discrimination against blacks, offering no opinion on the subject of racial justice. His armed intervention in the face of riots in Little Rock, Arkansas was based, he said, on "his duty to maintain order and respect for the directives of the federal courts."

Isaacson, author of "The Innovators" and biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Steve Jobs, recently published what promises to be a fascinating study on Leonardo da Vinci.

Isaacson sees patterns and context in history, creativity and leadership. He commends humility, integrity, commitment and the courage of one's convictions – all important leadership qualities.

He concludes, "The history of a nation is probably best served by a mix of leadership styles over the years, sometimes creating a pattern of reactions and then counterreactions to what went before ... The greatest challenge of leadership is to know when to be flexible and pragmatic, on the one hand, and when it is, instead, a moment to stand firm on principle and clarity of vision." Like a lot of things in life, it's 'the wisdom to know the difference.'"

Vietnam, Suicide and Choosing Life

Review by Bill Doughty

My preteen grandkids know who Thomas Edison is. Their grandkids will know, in the same way, about J. Craig Venter.

Venter is a Navy Vietnam Veteran who faced challenges in life, made mistakes in and out of uniform, turned his life around, and eventually became one of the foremost experts in genetics. He mapped the human genome, created synthetic life in this century and is now working on ways to support life on Mars.

I read a passage to my grandsons from a chapter in Venter's autobiography, "A Life Decoded - My Genome: My Life" called "University of Death." The boys were fascinated by his capture of a deadly poisonous snake while Venter swam in the warm waters off China Beach. Two species of poisonous snakes in the South China Sea, Venter says, "travel in large herds measuring miles long and up to a half-mile wide."

Venter, a former Navy Corpsman who spent a lot of his off time swimming in the sea, felt the snake bump into his leg and reached down to grab it, fortunately getting it near the head and not the flattened tail:

"I knew I could not let go. Its jaws were wide open, and it was trying to bite. Sea snakes are strong swimmers, and it was all I could do to hang on. Swimming with one arm while being tumbled by ten to twelve-foot waves and holding on to a writhing snake is not something I would recommend. Finally I was able to stand and started to run but was knocked down by a wave once more. Stumbling breathlessly toward the beach I saw some driftwood and used it to hit the snake on the head until it stopped moving. A friend took a photo of me holding my trophy, recording one of those crossroads in life that, with the wrong luck, could easily have led to death. I did not want to forget what had just happened. I took my knife, skinned my attacker, and back at the hospital, pinned it with hypodermic needles to a board to dry in the sun. I still have the snake skin hanging in my office as a reminder of the encounter."

Venter, who says he always felt a need to race – bicycles, boats, people – and take chances, describes his childhood and early adulthood in "A Life Decoded" through a deep understanding of the mind and effects of the Y chromosome, now that he's literally in touch with his genes.

I didn't read to the grandkids about his suicide attempt (which also involved the sea) or the time his girlfriend's dad held a gun to his head or some of his other risk-taking behaviors.

A turning point came from an English teacher in high school who introduced him to "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger, but Venter admits to being a lousy student overall. A major turning point came in the mid-60s when he was drafted.

"I was very conflicted. I was personally against the war but had a long family history of military service. One ancestor was a fifer and medic during the Revolutionary War. My great-great-great-grandfather served in the cavalry during the War of 1812. My great-grandfather was a sharpshooter in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. My grandfather was a private in World War I, serving in France, where he was badly wounded and had to crawl for miles to safety. And, of course, both my parents had been Marines."  (Venter's parents were in the Marine Corps in World War II, serving on "different shores of the Pacific." They met at Camp Pendleton, California.)

Venter, front row, fourth from left, on his high school swim team.

Venter chose the Navy rather than be drafted into the Army. He hoped to be named to the Navy Swim Team, but those hopes were dashed when President Johnson amped up American involvement in Vietnam and Venter got his orders.

As a skilled corpsman he faced war and devastation in Da Nang, caring for injured Marines, civilians, enemy soldiers and other casualties of the war in a Quonset hut intensive ward. He helped at an orphanage, and he provided triage during the TET offensive of 1968.

"Vietnam would teach me more than I ever wanted to know about the fragility of life," he writes. "Death is a powerful teacher." No doubt the snake skin reminds him of overcoming fear, facing death, choosing to live and dealing with snakes along the way.

Venter is lauded by Clinton in 2000.

In "A Life Decoded" Venter lays bare the science, politics, setbacks and glorious achievements in his life and the various human egos he encounters as a scientist. He tracks in detail his race to understand the building blocks of life and his pursuit of the human genome. But the narrative returns to the biggest turning point and moment of insight: Vietnam.

After Venter mapped the human genome, he was invited to the White House June 26, 2000 by President Bill Clinton. Clinton compared the human genome map to the Thomas Jefferson-commissioned map by the Lewis and Clark expedition that "forever expanded the frontiers of our continent and our imagination." Clinton called Venter's and others' work "the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by humankind."

"Decoded" includes Venter's remarks from that day, as well as the deep emotion he felt as his watershed discovery was explained to the world.

"... in Vietnam I learned firsthand how tenuous our hold on life can be. That experience inspired my interest in learning how the trillions of cells in our bodies interact to create and sustain life. When I witnessed firsthand that some men lived through devastating trauma to their bodies, while others died after giving up from seemingly small wounds, I realized that the human spirit was at least as important as our physiology. We're clearly much, much more than the sum total of each of us. Our physiology is based on complex and seemingly infinite interactions among all our genes and the environment, just as our civilization is based on all the interactions among all of us. One of the wonderful discoveries that my colleagues and I have made while decoding the DNA of over two dozen species, from viruses to bacteria to plants to insects, and now human beings, is that we're all connected to the commonality of the genetic code in evolution. When life is reduced to its very essence, we find that we have many genes in common with every species on Earth and that we're not so different from one another."

Venter transcended and redeemed himself after his near-death experiences. "Life was my gift," he writes. He chose to understand life at the most fundamental levels. Today, he chooses to make a profound difference to help others. "We're all connected." A good lesson for everyone's grandkids.

(This is part I of essentially a two-and-a-half-part series of posts related to the life and work of Dr. Venter, the Thomas Edison of our time.)

Tribute to Veterans

by Bill Doughty

CNO Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert delivers Veterans Day remarks. 

(U.S. Navy photo by MC2 Jacob Sippel)

Veterans are being honored today from coast to coast and around the world.  Today, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert delivered remarks at Madison Square Park during the New York City Veterans Day parade opening ceremony.  This year the Navy is the parade’s featured service.

In San Diego, the Navy hosted a history-making sports event aboard a historic aircraft carrier.  More about that in a moment.

Last year Navy Reads reflected on Veterans Day and Sailors who transited both the Atlantic and Pacific.  The context was Tom Ashbrook’s On Point radio interview with Commander, U.S. Pacific Command Adm. Willard and Simon Winchester, author of Atlantic. We also discussed a special radio interview with veterans, including a conversation with former Command Master Chief Jim Taylor, Pearl Harbor Survivor Liaison for Commander, Navy Region Hawaii.

Since then we’ve featured other posts of interest to veterans.

In “Faith, Fear and Tom Hanks” I reprinted some of Hanks’s remarks at a commencement address at Yale, including his challenge to the college graduates about veterans, especially wounded warriors, returning from Iraq, Afghanistan and other deployments.  His words are worth reposting today:

"Whatever your opinion of the wars, you can imprint the very next pages of the history of our troubled world by reinforcing faith in those returning veterans," Hanks told the seniors. "Allowing them rest, aiding in their recovery ... empathizing with the new journey they are starting even though we will never fully understand the journey they just completed, even though we will never understand what they endured. We will all define the true nature of our American identity not by the parades and the welcome-home parties, but how we match their service with service of our own."

Over the past year I reviewed Army veteran Wes Moore’s remarkable book, The Other Wes Moore.  Moore talked about the key that unlocked his passion for education, his mother’s encouragement to read Mitch Albom’s Fab Five, a book about the Michigan University college basketball team.  Moore writes: 

I was riveted by that book.  The characters jumped off the page, and I felt myself as engulfed in their destiny as I was in my own.  I finished Fab Five in two days.  The book itself wasn’t what was important -- in retrospect, I see that it was a great read but hardly a work of great literature -- but my mother used it as a hook into a deeper lesson: that the written word isn’t necessarily a chore but can be a window into new worlds.

Navy veteran Nancy Harrity guest-reviewed two windows into new worlds of strategic thinking, Seven Deadly Scenarios and Power Rules.  Always insightful and thought-provoking, Nancy has a new review on the way. Stay tuned.  

In a review of Ganbare! I discussed the juxtaposition of achievements of the veterans and heroes like the 442nd Regimental Combat Team with what happened to some of their families -- the WWII interment of Americans of Japanese ancestry.

Guest reviewer Theresa Donnelly reviewed Use Your Head to Get Your Foot in the Door, a book that can help new veterans who face challenges after leaving the service.  Theresa wrote, “This is why it is important to have a robust plan in place for your post-military transition.”

Since last November we wrote other posts with with a focus on veterans: a review of USS Arizona’s Last Band, Culturnomics (Honor/Courage/Commitment) and Revolt of the Admirals in the Centennial of Naval Aviation, with some interesting history and perspective on Congressman Carl Vinson and his vision of a two-ocean Navy.  Revolt ties in nicely, by the way, with the latest post on Courageous Followership and an interview with author Ira Chaleff.

The Navy Reads blogpost on the late Navy veteran “Amazing Grace” Hopper and her 2011 milestones was reposted on a number of other blogs, including GHC Bloggers in conjunction with the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing going on now (Nov. 9-12) in Portland, Oregon.

Rear Adm. Grace Hopper’s namesake, USS Hopper (DDG 70), recently transited the waters of the Battle of Leyte Gulf and observed a moment of silence exactly 67 years to the day of that historic battle. You can read about the veterans of WWII who fought in “the U.S. Navy’s Finest Hour” in Leyte and off Samar, Philippines in James D. Hornfischer’s Tin Can Sailors.

This Veterans Day, 2011, in addition to tributes and commemoration ceremonies around the world, the Navy is hosting a season-opening college basketball game aboard USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) in San Diego.  The Commander in Chief and First Lady attended the Quicken Loans Carrier Classic featuring the University of North Carolina and Michigan State University.  That’s a pretty cool, all-American thing to do for and with our veterans.  The game is going on now as I post this.  

The University of North Carolina team practices aboard USS Carl Vinson. (U.S. Navy photo by MC2 James R. Evans)

Check out how USS Carl Vinson was transformed, and see ESPN’s “a look at life on USS Carl Vinson.”  ESPN also featured a Veterans Day profile of J. P. Bolwahnn, a 34-year-old former Navy SEAL, who plays football at the University of San Diego as a walk-on.

Faith, Fear and Tom Hanks

by Bill Doughty

Tom Hanks was a military dependent, a Navy family member whose dad served in the Pacific in World War II.   

Tom Hanks has acted in some of the most memorable films of our time — Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, Apollo 13, Sleepless in Seattle, The Green Mile and Charlie Wilson’s War.  He produced From the Earth to the Moon, Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers, David McCullough’s John Adams and the controversial, powerful The Pacific.  And, he’s no doubt achieved immortality -- as the voice of Woody in the Toy Story trilogy.  

Tom Hanks transcends genres.  

He is a champion of history and reading, and he frequently encourages people to pick up a book.  Reading — especially reading nonfiction — has nourished his intellectual curiosity and ability to put history in context.

Former Navy Captain NASA astronaut James "Jim" Arthur Lovell, Jr.,
makes a cameo appearance in Tom Hanks' Apollo 13.

Yale University invited Tom Hanks to speak to its 2011 graduating class recently where he said their imprint on history would be determined by how well they handle fear and inspire faith.  Here’s what Yale Bulletin reported: 

In the ceremony... (May 22), Hanks urged the soon-to-be graduates to begin their future by coming to the aid of the U.S. veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars, whose "faith in themselves is shadowed by the fear of not knowing what is expected of them next," he said.

Hanks spoke about the positive and negative aspects of technology for the perpetually plugged-in and connected graduates.  While Facebook and Twitter and other e-media ensure “boredom is vanquished” and certainly help us communicate, there’s a certain shallowness to the celebrity-driven culture that’s being created, he said.

Again, from the Yale Bulletin:

The continual instant access and instant communication, Hanks suggested, has also created a world where fear easily becomes contagious and divisive.

"Fear has become the commodity that sells as certainly as sex," Hanks told the seniors. "Fear is cheap, fear is easy, fear gets attention.... It's fast, it's gossip and it's just as glamorous, juicy and profitable. Fear twists facts into fictions that become indistinguishable from ignorance."

Tom Hanks on Navy’s John Paul Jones and faith and fear:

Hanks... told the seniors that he has a passion for history because of the lessons it teaches. He quoted American naval commander John Paul Jones: "If fear is cultivated, it will become stronger. If faith is cultivated, it will achieve mastery."

"Fear or faith — which will be our master?" Hanks asked the seniors.

"Throughout our nation's constant struggle to create a more perfect union, establish justice and ensure our domestic tranquility, we battle fear from outside our borders and within our own hearts every day of our history," Hanks commented. "Our nation came to be despite the fear of retribution from the king across the sea. America was made strong because people could live free from the fears that made up their daily lives in whatever land they called the ‘Old Country.' Our history books tell of conflicts taken up to free people from fear — those kept in slavery — in our own states, and to liberate whole nations under the rule of tyrants and theologies rooted in fear...

Tom Hanks on a commitment to Veterans and service:

"But we live in a world where too many of us are too ready to believe in things that do not exist," Hanks continued. "Conspiracies abound. Divisions are constructed and the differences between us are not celebrated for making us stronger but are calculated and programmed to set us against each other."

Tom Hanks at Yale: "Move forward, move ever forward."

Hanks told the seniors that they will make choices between fear and faith every day of their lives. He urged them to "take the fears [of U.S veterans] head on" for at least four years — the same amount of time they've been at Yale.

"Whatever your opinion of the wars, you can imprint the very next pages of the history of our troubled world by reinforcing faith in those returning veterans," Hanks told the seniors. "Allowing them rest, aiding in their recovery ... empathizing with the new journey they are starting even though we will never fully understand the journey they just completed, even though we will never understand what they endured. We will all define the true nature of our American identity not by the parades and the welcome-home parties, but how we match their service with service of our own."

The soon-to-be graduates' new "career," Hanks said, is a permanent one: "To stand on the fulcrum between fear and faith — fear at your back, faith in front of you.

"Which way will you move? Move forward, move ever forward," he encouraged them, "and tweet out a picture of the results."

According to Douglas Brinkley, in an insightful profile last year in Time magazine, “Hanks has become American history's highest-profile professor, bringing a nuanced view of the past into the homes and lives of countless millions. 

Brinkley reported that Hanks became intensely interested in military history after reading the two-volume, 1,882-page Library of America Reporting World War II: American Journalism (1938 to 1946).

Hanks read William Manchester and John Hersey.  His Pacific is based on Eugene Sledge's With the Old Breed and Robert Leckie's Helmet for My Pillow.  He was inspired by McCullough, Ambrose, Barbara Tuchman and Doris Kearns Goodwin.  According to Brinkley, “Leon Uris's fact-anchored novels — Mila 18, Armageddon and Exodus — taught Hanks to feel history in a way no high school teacher ever did.”  

According to Brinkley, author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, “There's no such thing as a definitive history. But what was once a passing interest for Hanks has become an obsession. He's a man on a mission to make our back pages come alive, to keep overhauling the history we know and, in the process, get us to understand not just the past but the choices we make today.”

I heard the Tom Hanks Yale address on one of my favorite podcasts, Tom Ashbrook’s On Point, from WBUR Boston.  Tom is also a big champion of books, authors and reading.