Embracing Your Innermost A**hole This Memorial Day Weekend
Annual Memorial Day Weekend Reminder
“They were killing my friends.” - Audie Murphy answered during an interview about why he manned the machine gun atop a burning tank during WWII. His actions that day single-handedly stopped an entire Nazi company’s advance. For his actions, he was awarded the Medal of Honor.
At my innermost core, I am an asshole. I know that because like many of us, I have had some near-death experiences in my life, and one of the more memorable ones popped back into my head this morning. It was at the Army Diver Pre-screen/selection course in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri which we call Phase 1 (Phase 2 takes place at the Dive School in Panama City Beach, Florida). In my case, Phase 1 was immediately after I graduated from Basic Training which means in the Army Diver lexicon I was an “off the street” trainee as opposed to someone who was already in the Army trying out to become an Army Diver. The selection process is basically a 3 week kick in the face that is designed to get you to either quit or fail early in the process thus saving the Army the cost and time of shipping you all the way to Florida just to have you wash out there.
So anyway, there I was at FLW during Phase 1 and we were in the base pool getting our butts kicked like usual. The particular task at hand was to retrieve 2 lead weights from the bottom of a 14-foot pool and return to the surface to tread water with them held up over our heads (one in each hand) in the approved military manner described by our instructors. Failure to perform the procedure exactly as instructed resulted in having your weights thrown back to the bottom for you to go retrieve, again. And again. And so on. The funny thing is that each failure required us to go back underwater with less and less time to catch our breath. It's almost like it was all planned out, hmmm strange. At this point, I was rapidly losing confidence that I could hold my breath long enough to search for the gray lead weights at the bottom of a gray pool with my eyes pretty well scorched from the chlorine (masks are a luxury item).
As I submerged yet again with my lungs still on fire from the last round, I hit the bottom of the pool and quickly felt a weight in my hand. Score. One more left, because failure meant some unforeseen horrible pain I’d like to avoid, I started to make what probably looked like underwater snow angels as I flailed around looking for another weight to grab so I could go find some of that sweet-sweet air up above. Much like sex, air is no big deal unless you aren’t getting any. It was at that moment that I ran out of air.
As my eyesight began to narrow into a black tunnel I had a very strong self-preservation urge to quit and head up to the surface. With my lungs bursting, my brain did two different things in rapid succession.
First, it said “Dude, you need air or you are gonna die”; then some other part of my brain began to shout in my head, “FUCK no, absolutely not. I would WAYYY rather die and make these asshole instructors come down here and fish my body out of this pool and do 50 years of Army paperwork than give them the satisfaction of watching me fail”.
Huh! Didn’t see that one coming, but “Inner Asshole Good Idea Fairy Kane” whipped “I Want to Be Alive Good Idea Fairy Kane”’s ass. I did not know this about myself.
Luckily my Dive Buddy Nick Marr was and is part fish, part water-polo star, in way better shape than I will probably ever be, and happened to be a pretty kick-ass friend. As I was daydreaming about how much trouble my instructors would be in after I died, I suddenly felt a lead weight get pushed into my left hand. Marr gave me one of his weights, smiled and waved, and I swear leisurely swam off without a care in the world to go find another, or maybe file his taxes or catch a movie, I don’t know. But I wasn’t sticking around to find out and jetted for the surface.
I tell this story not because it is in some way unique, but because it is probably common (add your stories in the comments, I would love to read them). This Memorial Day weekend I would ask you for three things:
One, read the link below which I republish every year. Written by Worth Parker, a Marine Raider, talented author, and occasional cookie dealer. There’s no way I can say it any better so I’m not even going to try.
Two, as I add the names of my friends to his list, maybe take a moment to say them out loud. They are never really gone as long as we keep their names, and memories alive.
Finally, embrace your inner asshole. We are all going to die someday, and at least for my friends and me, some things are just worth dying for. We have Irish Wakes for a reason.
The List by LtCol Worth Parker, USMC Ret.
CPT English, CPT Shawn Levi English…
SPC Gagnon, SPC Robert Leo Gagnon Jr…
CW3 Connolly, CW3 Ryan Michael Connolly…
CW2 Howard, CW2 Mitchell Nathan Howard…
ND1 Reyher, ND1 James E. Reyher…
ND2 Harris, ND2 Ryan Patrick Harris…
SGT Collins, SGT Sean Martin Collins…
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry. - Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms