Mindful: Attentive, Aware, Conscious, Thoughtful, Alert.
Miscellany: A collection of various items, parts, or ingredients, especially one composed of diverse literary works.
Welcome to the latest edition of A Mindful Miscellany, my humble attempt to separate some Signal from the deafening, cacophonous tumult that is the modern world.
Source: Midjourney
Today is Memorial Day in the United States. A time to reflect and honor those who have died while serving in the Armed Forces. If you’ve never seen “Saving Private Ryan,” give it a whirl. I believe this ending scene encapsulates how most veterans think about those who made the ultimate sacrifice:
I went back over my career and took a look. These are just the Teammates that I knew— that I worked with and served with. 29 names in 27 years. Some of them I simply passed in the hall at the Team or Squadron. Some I went through training and deployed with. Some were like brothers that I think about often. I’m grateful for being able to serve alongside them, and for the sacrifice they and their families made for us. I do my best to live in a way that is worthy of them. There are so many more than this short list. This is the full tally of those associated with Naval Special Warfare, which is a small portion of the US military overall.
John Chapman (March 4th, 2002)
Peter Oswald (August 27th, 2002)
Mario Maestas (July 3rd, 2003)
Brian Ouellette (May 29th, 2004)
Mike McGreevy (June 28th, 2005)
Jeff Taylor (June 28th, 2005)
Ron Woodle (February 16th, 2010)
Adam Brown (March 17th, 2010)
Collin Thomas (August 18th, 2010)
Dave Mclendon (September 21st, 2010)
Kevin Houston (August 6th, 2011)
John Faas (August 6th, 2011)
Jason Workman (August 6th, 2011)
Thomas Fouke (January 27th, 2012)
Job Price (December 22nd, 2012)
Link Bashew (August 3rd, 2014)
Blake Marston (January 10th, 2015)
Ryan Owens (January 27th, 2017)
Kyle Miliken (May 5th, 2017)
Bill Mulder (June 9th, 2017)
Mark Weiss (November 11th, 2017)
Shannon Kent (January 16th, 2019)
Mike “Goody” Goodboe (November 24th, 2020)
Zack Miller (June 4th, 2021)
Brian “Booj” Bourgeois (December 7th, 2021)
Robert Ramirez (December 19th, 2022)
Mike Ernst (February 19th, 2023)
Jack Keller (February 22nd, 2023)
Doug Day (March 27th, 2023)
For one of these names I did the notification to the next of kin. That was a hard thing.
Six of these twenty nine names are suicides — 21% of my admittedly biased sample size. That number reflects larger trends within society during this era, but also relates to the stresses of two decades of combat operations. A Teammate/Writer friend of mine, Ivan Ingraham, recently wrote a short story about veterans and suicide— 22: A Journey to the Edge of Darkness. Please check it out.
The author Nassim Taleb talks about the idea of “skin in the game”— having a vested interest in the outcome of a given situation. Taleb is rightly critical of those with no skin in the game who make policy decisions in the corporate and political world with little impact on their own lives. But besides skin in the game” and no skin in the game,” there is a third state. A state Taleb calls soul in the game. Someone with soul in the game has everything on the line—their performance, their conduct, their decisions. Life and death consequences for their actions. As members of the military, every time we step into a vehicle, a plane, helicopter, or a boat to go into harm’s way, we have soul in the game.
These men and women died in service to the nation. To our Republic — whether in training, combat, or grappling with the mental challenges resulting from that service. The idea of a nation, of a Republic, is an imagined community. They died for this idea of America and they had soul in the game. When we stop believing in and supporting this idea — when we let mercurial desires get in the way of more holistic concerns of the nation and the virtues we try to uphold to the world, it betrays the sacrifice they made for us.
Politics is toxic right now — it’s a radioactive cesspool of bad incentives, short-term thinking, and tribal allegiances. Groups like Braver Angels, Veterans for Political Innovation, and Veterans Campaign are trying to stand in the breach of our contentious politics and point towards a better future. Our children are watching.
These men and women died for us. They’re not here anymore, to tuck their kids into bed, to take their moms out to lunch, to surprise their spouses at work. The least, the very least we can do, is try to figure this mess out, find a way to resolve our differences. To keep this bold experiment going. It’s not going to make everyone 100% happy, but it doesn’t fill them with fear, rage, and a desire to create endless cycles of blood feuds with the opposition party.
If we want to honor their sacrifice, let’s hold this thing together. For them, for us, and for the generations that come after us.
You already know what I'm about to share Adam, but I want to connect with others in responding to #12. By way of background, I'm a founding member of a regional version of Braver Angels which is in my mind "the movement to heal the soul of the nation". THE most powerful "raison d'etre" for Braver Angels (and potentially becoming invovled) is within what you write. In essence, you ask the question to all Americans out of your own personal experience of knowing these 29 men.
'What is our responsibility?"
Given our history as a country, the vision and values upon which it has been founded, and especially given those in the military who have given their lives for us all through time and up to the current moment, what is our responsibility to them in the face of very real and unprecedented toxic threats to democracy we are now facing ? Can we imagine them looking down at us now and seeing how far we have strayed from the principles and visions upon which our country has been founded AND FOR WHICH THEY GAVE THEIR LIVES ?
What might they say to us ? How might they be calling us ? How might their families be feeling, looking at what's going on, about the sacrifice the veterans and they themselves have made ? Real people, in real time, within real families. As Adam writes, at some level this has to become personal for each of us. Do you know of any veteran who has made the ultimate sacrifice? How do you imagine, given their love of the country that inspired them to enlist, how he or she might be callling you to respond to where we are now as a county, as people, as families, as neighbors ? The groups that Adam identifies are an opportunity to respond. How might you feel called to service ?
What a beautifully written article! Very moving.