Would You Kneel? A College Coach and a Veteran on the National Anthem

Tree House Letter ^ | 9-25-20 | MyLinh B. Shattan

[grayhog]

“Good morning,” Tom said. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. Our conversation.”

Tom and I had met years ago at a college camp though he likely hadn’t remembered. He was a coach from an elite college and my older child attended his sports camp. We knew a lot of the same pros and players. And now, both of our younger children were in competitions together. This particular weekend we were settling in on a beautiful crisp morning near the water, the breeze cool on the skin.

Tom came over soon after I arrived, because he wanted to share something he had on his mind. He said he had decided. But first, let me tell you about the discussion and how it started the day before.

*

...“What do you think about kneeling?” Tom asked me.

I wasn’t sure I heard him right and looked away from the players towards him.

“The anthem. I’m kind of tired of hearing it,” he said. I sensed a cynicism in his voice. The glory I’ve always ascribed to coaching seems natural in a society obsessed with sports and entertainment, but a coach has a job like any job, with its petty challenges and people, its routines and boredoms. And how many games did his team play a season and during the year? That’s a lot of anthems. Plus, all the news about professional sports and kneeling....

[grayhog]

Love this story (though some liquid leaked out of my eye as I read it) - person to person contact changed the mind of a major college coach. Hope his players see his example and it has a ripple effect.

[PIF]

Would You Kneel?

—
No and stick it u no where

[Tell It Right]

I kneel to Jesus. That's it.

I don't kneel to the Blame Lighter Melanins movement.

[blueunicorn6]

I had three “Additional Duties” that were really tough.

1. Funeral Detail Officer
2. Casualty Notification Officer
3. Casualty Assistance Officer

These were tasks that, if you screwed up, it could mean the end of your career.

You also still had your normal duties to complete.

It took me years to finally see the wisdom of having Officers pull these details.

My unit was taking part in a simulated combat exercise. One of the Company Commanders lost about 90% of his Soldiers. I screamed at him for being so nonchalant about losing people.

Then, it hit me.

These details show Officers the effect of casualties upon families.

You see the crying mothers, wives and children.

Your Soldiers suddenly become more dear to you.

Those “Additional Duties” made me a better Officer.

[grayhog]

Great story and insight - thanks for sharing!

[blueunicorn6]

I honestly believe that we should have a civilian version of these details.

It should be like jury duty. All voters are eligible for selection.

Their job would be to be “Witnesses”.

They would have to see the effects upon the family.

They would have to videotape a report.

Too many of our fellow citizens have no contact with the military.

They don’t know any Soldiers.

We don’t have a military caste in this country.

I am the son of a millworker and medical transcriptionist.

I am just like every other American.

People should remember that about their Soldiers.

[Retain Mike]

In a new world view, indicating purity for all becomes defined around manipulating people into codependent relationships. A fashionable consensus defines success as one group adjusting their behavior to validate the emotional damage others have decided to inflict upon themselves by filtering events through a paranoid screen allowing only perceptions of brutality, prejudgment, and slights to shape their lives. The instigators re-segregate themselves to reside as fragments in a swarm and trade adulthood and dignity found as individuals for a prestige lacking dreams to pursue or accomplishments to celebrate. The subservient parties refuse to confront their decline in civic courage and reject the classic liberal principles that formed the basis for our Constitution in order to receive effortless addictive compassion as a drug of choice.

This novel moral superiority only requires fabricating disgust for themselves and for this country. Both parties then shelter within a joyous cacophony of mutually supportive orations validating the miseries of their own making and delighting in any opportunity for escalating their rhetoric into expressions of lawlessness. They allow those apparitions to provide definition and live out their years in prisons of their own creation.

This practice disgusts me. I see both parties as feckless and their methods for correcting social injustices as frivolous and squalid.

[blueunicorn6]

That is some deep thinking.

[Retain Mike]

I write stuff like that as anger management therapy. It probably took me 2-3 years to get there.

[Svartalfiar]

It's an old article, but one well worth reading. The book as well, if you really have some time.

Absence of America's Upper Classes From the Military


https://www.amazon.com/AWOL-Unexcused-Absence-Americas-Military/dp/0060888598

[blueunicorn6]

It is a concern.

I’m not sure that keeping the rich out of the military is good for the military or the nation.

I didn’t worry about our nation’s leaders because they grew up just like I did.

But that’s not the case.

We have way too much glorification of the rich in this country. We exalt our entertainers not for their talent, but for their wealth.

I think that’s why there’s so much stealing in our country. You HAVE to be rich. Your life is worthless unless you are rich.

Big problems.

[Svartalfiar]

I’m not sure that keeping the rich out of the military is good for the military or the nation.

It's not that we keep the rich out of the military, it's that the rich keep themselves out of the military. Of course, that applies country-wide, large portions of this country have no family members serving, or may not even know anyone in uniform... But the big issue with the rich is that they are most of the ruling class: politicians, business leaders, etc. They are basically the ones running this country.

[blueunicorn6]

The constant battle for humanity is whether our brains can win out over our feelings.