Boys Into Men

I went to a quiet meeting yesterday at the local Veterans Resource Center in the small rural county where I live. At the meeting were 25 vets, family members of vets and a few others. From that small group flowed gut-wrenching  stories of suicides, addictions and shattered minds and bodies.

As a young man I’d gone to war in Vietnam for the adventure of it. What a fool I was.  But I was hardly alone. Every war has recruited eager young men looking for adventure, seeking to prove their worth as men. And every war has left behind the wreckage that these young men did not foresee or chose to ignore.

Steven Slater, Baseball, and the Anger of America

By now certainly you’ve heard of Steven Slater, the flight attendant who, suffering one too many abusive passengers, cursed the last offender over the intercom, activated the plane’s emergency escape slide, grabbed a beer and slid to the tarmac. Slater became an instant folk hero. “Free Steven Slater” T-shirts are popping up all over the country.

Slater had finally had it with wrongs he was supposed to accept. When that passenger slammed the lid of an overhead bin on his head, airline rules told him he had to act with restraint. This time, he didn’t.

Americans identify with Steven Slater. When economic recovery means upticks on the Dow and no real progress in creating jobs, we’re supposed to be accepting. When our country engages in misbegotten and/or unwinnable foreign adventures, we’re supposed to watch the coffins coming home and salute. When our elected leaders fail to even address serious problems like climate change and energy, we’re supposed to wait until the next election, as if that will change a system of governance corrupted by money and cowardice. When we see the gap between rich and poor destroying the very fabric of our public life, we’re supposed to try harder to be rich ourselves.