A Veteran of the American Experience
“Scouts were a big part of my childhood till I was about 15 when the war was starting. All of a sudden we didn’t have any leaders. The oldest in the group was a 17 year old. He was a tremendous guy and he sort of took us on for a while when the scout leaders were gone. He took us guys to the opera, which I thought was interesting then, even more now, that a kid that age would have the sense to take a troop of scouts to the opera. I knew him when he came home from the war too. He applied to a job coming home and was told there wasn’t room for any more, there are just too many fellas coming back from the war, we don’t have enough work for you. And he told the manager “Well the little work I’d do, you’d hardly notice.” He was hired on the spot.”
The stories Tom told of his past shine with humor and wit, like a well-scripted play. He recalled one of his first jobs at a bank, taking deposits.
“A customer came in with a $10,000 check and I went to prepare him his deposit slip. Now this is when deposit slips were punched with a key for each digit place. I hit the $1,000 key on his slip and we said our goodbyes before I realized what had happened. So I got to work setting it aside, I was going to fix it in our records when I hear a shout from halfway across the lobby, “You cheated me out of $10,000!” I couldn’t help but yell back, “It was only nine!” which got a laugh across the bank, and even a begrudging smirk from my offended customer.”
In the army, he recalled if everyone could laugh, tension and fights wouldn't make it to a boiling point.
“There was a particularly blustery colonel that came by once to grill the guards once when I was on duty. He sort of swaggered up to a buddy of mine who was guarding a gate and asked him “what would you do if I tried to take your carbine soldier?” Now this colonel was a big guy, over 6 foot hefty, imposing, and the guard he was talking to was one of the smallest in our unit. The colonel, to put it mildly, did not like that answer so he started yelling, “what do you mean you’d call another guard, are you no guard yourself? Why in the world would you need to call someone else to do your job?” And the little fella turned his face up and said, “Sir, someone would need to haul your dead ass away if you tried to take my carbine.” The whole room laughed and he was steaming from the ears but there’s no way to make that situation aggressive with everyone laughing.
When I got older from scouts, I went to ROTC, my brother Mac was in ROTC and he got to cadet captain. I got to cadet colonel in ROTC so I outshone him there and that’s the last time that ever happened” he grinned. Tom was deployed in Korea and Vietnam but the moments he talks about are his non-military ones. Even from his time in the army, he told stories of civilian moments, like the time he was working in a Nike Ajax Missile facility, and they put on a Thanksgiving dinner for everyone’s family. “The men found some white chefs coats that looked much better than I ever expected and we had a proper illusion that we knew what we were doing.””
Tom, 89, says the America of his memory is different from what he sees today.
“People were, as a whole, more self sufficient. They didn’t feel like they deserved anything. If they wanted something, they’d work more, if they were in the army, or get another job if they were a civilian, or they’d make it from scratch with their own hands. Now there’s a sense that people should just get something because they want it. I definitely think America is not going as straight as it used to be. These days if people don’t like something they protest, break windows, loot cars, instead of working from the start to change things. People feel entitled to getting everything they want without working for it or respecting the authority of those who are
In the army, we knew the importance of authority and order. Without it, nothing gets done. Even when we disagreed with the order from the top you needed to give the benefit that maybe those people calling shots had some idea of what they were doing. It’s the same in politics: when you disagree with someone they’re the enemy but there’s no sense that maybe they have good ideas too.
I think some of that is the politician’s fault too. I grew up with Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president. He had a sense of working for the constitution and the country generally. Kennedy was on the right path too. Nixon though was the first one I remember being motivated so much by ego. Since then there’s so much “me me me” in politics from politicians and people. People governing entirely based on how it makes them look or what they can get instead of what the constitution says or for the good of the country. Without that I don’t know if America has the will or ability to keep improving like we used to.”
