Posted on 09/13/2008 4:45:38 PM PDT by neverdem
I am unusual, apparently. It’s not because I am a coffeehouse dweller, or an NPR listener, or prone to wear loafers with jeans. In the world I inhabited until recently, all of these are quite normal. Rather, it is that I am also a field artillery officer in the U.S. Army. Which places me in that subdemographic of New York lawyers who wear suits and work in office buildings until they decide to join the military and blow things up. (Trust me, there are some; just not many.) For this decision, I now endure lingering looks of concern from people who care about me.
I knew that friends and colleagues would be surprised. Prior to 2004, the year I left for basic training, I had shown no tendency toward reckless acts like joining the military. Nor did my colleagues know that members of my family had, in previous generations, routinely done stints in the armed services during times of national need. So I was prepared for a certain range of responses in New York, from puzzlement to backslapping support to outrage.
What I wasn’t prepared for was the quality of some people’s reactions—not simply surprise or distress, but something deeper and more permanent. People I had known for years started behaving differently toward me. This is a tough thing to put your finger on—but you can sense it. You can tell when you are being discussed, when people are trying to decide if they know you as well as they had thought.
At first, I thought this deep concern was mostly grounded in politics: a good proportion of my friends and colleagues in the civilian world had opposed American action in Iraq. But that wasn’t it. At the time, at least, even adamant opponents of the original invasion tended to agree that our continued presence in some capacity was now necessary in order to “do right” by Iraq. Nor was it my age (I was 32 when I left for basic training). To the extent that my former colleagues knew people in military service, those people were largely reservists—JAG lawyers in mid-career, for example—who tended to be older than the average active-duty service member of equivalent rank. Nor had I started speaking in military lingo and wearing ranger T-shirts.
No, at the end of the day, the issue was simply that I had joined the military. And that act was just too foreign for some in my old circles to recognize as having arisen from the normal range of motivations—chosen as one might choose to go back to school, or perform charity work, or embark on any other course that might prove rewarding. In their cosmopolitan world—my former and sometime world—wartime stints in the military just aren’t done. Not when one has other options—which everyone in that world always has.
Thus my decision demands psychological explanation. Perhaps I am in personal crisis. Perhaps I believe that Saddam Hussein knocked down the buildings that used to stand a block from my old office. Perhaps I am angry. The possibility that I am doing an ordinary thing done by many ordinary Americans at all times seems not to have occurred to them.
And so their puzzlement continues. One distressed friend, hearing of my present employment, pounds the table and unleashes obscenities. Another tells people she thinks I’ve “changed.” (My oldest friends tell me I haven’t, which is a comfort.) And another tells me that she’s happy “that you’re doing something you care about,” with the forced enthusiasm of a supportive parent. All of which I try to take with good humor. But I wonder how we came to a point at which young persons—of a class that once viewed military service as an ordinary expression of its own privileged relationship to the state—could come to see the act of entering service as an oddity requiring special explanation.
I say to those concerned looks and furrowed brows: Relax. I’m still me. I’m not suffering an early midlife crisis (or any other kind). I’m not searching for something or running away from something else. I’m not angry, and I’m not trying to make a statement. I’m just doing some military service, at a time when that service can do some good.
John Renehan is a captain in the U.S. Army’s Third Infantry Division. He was formerly an assistant corporation counsel at the New York City Law Department.
New Yorkers blowing things up ping!
This country needs more like him. We’re not all brain washed robots. We have our doubts, questions and fears, but do the job anyway.
I’m listening to Darryl Worley’s “Have You Forgotten” right now. Perfect article to read. Thank you for your service and God bless you John Renehan.
From the age old playbook of how to live your life....
I don't give a 'Rat's ass care about what other people think. Never have, never will. You live YOUR life as YOU see fit.
Ya done good!
There really isn’t a delicate way to put this — but what your friends are experiencing is pretty much what the rest of the country feels about homosexuality...IMHO.
Great article and a testament to the small mindedness your coworkers and professional peers.
Then again, some people will use any excuse to get out of lawyering.
But why did he go into artillery? In this age of JDAMs, Mavericks, and Hellfires, old-fashioned, dumb artillery is starting to look like a lost art.
Maybe he likes to actually see his target explode.
Artillery has benefits other than destruction. While for the cost of a few cruise missiles you can rain shells every couple of minutes for 24 hours into a position to rattle them and make them fight exhausted.
Fire for effect is what it is called I believe
True about JDAMS but ask any person who has been on the receiving end of an artillery bombardment and they will tell you that it is the most frightening, maddening,deafening and terrifying experience they have ever had to undergo...Especially when use against massed units of troops..This has been expressed many times by infantry troops in WW II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan..It strikes fear into the most hardened of Taliban and Al Quaeda fighter’s hearts...
Well done Sinanju,,and God be with you..
Revealing comment on the character and nature of "friendship" in left-wing circles.
You’re right about that. I don’t know why it popped into my mind but a quick google-search confirmed it. The British L118 (US M119A1) 105mm Light Gun saw extensive service in the Falklands War of 1982 (I followed it breathlessly as a teenager) 30 guns were involved in the retaking of Port Stanley. Although in after-action reports the well dug-in “Argies” were unable to account for any actual casualties suffered from the ruthless pounding, they did say it took a real bite out of their morale.
As always, it’s the intagibles that decide who stands and fights and who turns and runs away.
I know the reaction. I volunteered to return to the Army in 2006 and received a direct commission. I was applauded by some and condemned by others. I had already served a tour of duty in the 1st Gulf War and many of my friends and even family members just didn't understand.
As I now serve in the Reserves, much of it on Active Duty, and I see these great "young-enough-to-be-my-children" young men and women, I understand.
Katherine
Your friend was pissed because he realized offering you an Obama bumper sticker was fruitless...
Oh nomy FRiend, artillery is the Queen of the battlefiled for a reason.
“Artillerymen believe the world consist of two types of people; other Artillerymen and targets.”
“Artillery adds dignity, to what would otherwise be an ugly brawl”
ANd of course the classic == Ultima ratio regum ==
And ya, cool - New Yorkers blowing things up!
FWIW, arty can as or more accurate as JDAMS, et al AND will provide fire support even in bad weather....
Captain John Renehan, thank-you for your service.
Artillery going overhead is something you won’t forget. We’d go to 29 Palms for exercises. I was at the expeditionary airfield. They’d fire 105’s & 155’s at old tanks, amtracs etc. The shells would go screaming overhead, we’d watch with binoculars from our crash and rescue truck. Boom. To be on the receiving end would be horrific.
God bless this young man — and his brothers in arms.
Sorry, my FRiend, Infantry is the Queen of Battle.
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