We Want to be Better than We Are

On May 17, 2010, the New York Times published a major story revealing how Connecticut’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, has systematically misrepresented his military service.  He’s said on many occasions that he served “in” Vietnam, related stories to veterans and their families, talking about what things were like when “we came home” from Vietnam, and otherwise recalling the Vietnam era in language that strongly implied his presence in Southeast Asia.

The problem?  He never served in Vietnam.  Instead, after obtaining a series of deferments, he joined the Marine Reserves, served in a stateside unit in the Washington area, and did things like fix campgrounds and organize “Toys for Tots” drives (worthy things, all, but not quite the same as facing combat).

Lest we think Richard Blumenthal is uniquely heinous, there is a long and sad legacy of exaggerated military valor.  Former Toronto Blue Jays manager Tim Johnson was publicly disgraced after he was caught telling fake war stories to inspire his players.  A prominent historian, Joseph Ellis, was suspended from his endowed chair by Mount Holyoke College after the Boston Globe discovered that he’d lied about fighting in Vietnam.  Even more striking, in 1996, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Jeremy Michael Boorda, committed suicide rather than live with the guilt of wearing combat medals he hadn’t earned.  

In fact, the lies and phony stories surrounding the Vietnam became so prevalent that they prompted B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley to write Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation was Robbed of its Heroes and History, a book that chronicles page after dispiriting page how individuals have made entire careers out of faked or exaggerated war stories.

Everyone can agree that lies and exaggerations are reprehensible — that such false tales divert attention from the men and women who actually sacrificed.  But why do they do it?  Are they uniquely terrible individuals?  I don’t think so.  Some individuals — like those mentioned above — have done good things with their lives, even great things, yet they still lied.  Why weren’t they content with their life story?

I think their lies were an extreme manifestation of a feeling that most of us feel at some level.  Put simply, we want to be better than we are.  We want to be more noble.  We want to be more brave.  We want to be more selfless.  Is it too much to presume that — looking back — Richard Blumenthal, Joseph Ellis, and Tim Johnson wished they had served overseas, that they wished they had the courage to face the enemy?

There was a time in my life when I faced a stark choice: to serve or to keep wishing that I was better — more brave — than I really was.  I think back to a memorable law school conversation with a good friend.  It was 1993, the Cold War was over, Saddam Hussein was defeated (or so we thought), and the horror of 9/11 was very, very far away.  We talked about the military, why we had both decided not to join and how that decision haunted us just a little bit.  After chewing on the issue for several hours, we made a rather casual commitment: We won’t join now, but if the nation is ever attacked . . . then, we’d join.  We shook hands on it.

And then I forgot the conversation ever happened.  I lived my life with a pang of regret, a regret that only deepened as I watched the Twin Towers burn, as I watched our young soldiers parachute into Afghanistan, and as I watched many thousands of my fellow citizens march into mortal danger in the deserts of Iraq.  Finally, I could take it no longer.  I wanted to actually be the man I wanted to be.  So I joined the reserves and volunteered to go to Iraq.  A few weeks before I left, I ran into a soldier who knew my friend — the one who’d agreed those many years ago to go to war if we were ever attacked.  I’d lost touch with him and had no idea where he was living or what he was doing.  Turns out, he’d kept his end of the bargain.  As I was leaving for Iraq, he was returning from his own tour of duty, and he’d been fighting even before I’d mustered up the backbone to walk into a recruiter’s office.  

My year in Iraq was hard.  Very hard.  I lost dear friends, and I discovered that I’m a person of profound limitations, finite energy, and finite reservoirs of courage.  I learned there are other men far better, far braver, than I will ever be.  But I went.  I served.  And that fact has become one of the most salient aspects of my life.  

Not everyone is called to fight, but we are all called to meet the singular challenges of our own lives — and to serve our fellow man in a sacrificial way.  Perhaps you’re having to live courageously in the face of a daunting illness.  Perhaps you’re facing key questions about your marriage and family — when the answer requires you to swallow your pride and take the hard road.  Perhaps you’re living in a community that is crying out for help and wondering if you’ll be part of the solution.  Only you truly know the challenge of your life and your time.  There are some, like Richard Blumenthal and Joseph Ellis, who blinked when faced with the challenge of their time, and may very well live the rest of their lives with aching regret.  There are others — many thousands of others — who did not blink, who do not live with regret, and who know — at the very core of their being — that they did the best they could do.

Do you want to be better than you are?  

You can be.

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