The Broken Soldier

H.S. Thompson, God rest his soul, had a great gift in the 70s.  A gift, that if we are to honor his own oft offered Voltaire quote ” to the dead we only owe truth,” squandered in many respects to pump out popular ‘gonzo’ image-enhancing wheeze for drug money in the 80s and 90s.  “… hellishly intense introspective nightmares” is one of my favorite phrases from his “productive” years.  Though not the product of similar process, the phrase captures, as perfectly as an imperfect tool like language can, my experience since coming off pain medications.  In particular, a subject I can’t seem to escape these days, what to do now given my physical limitations.  The Army Officer ship, the basket into which my wife and I placed most of our eggs, breached the blue without us.

I am fortunate, though, to have knowledgeable family and friends caring for me.  Unlike our dead friend, for reasons not slavish and or self-serving.  One such friend is Brian MacPherson.  I’ve mentioned Brian here a few times, and he has posted here a few times.

Brian and I met on one of the worst days of Brian’s life: The last day of the University of Michigan Diversity Conference of 2001.  Basically an administration initiated, tax and tuition-funded week of self-congratulation between professors and their eager-for-head-patting sycophantic students for their vision and wisdom on matters of collegiate diversity.  (Not to be confused with a thoroughgoing promotion of diversity of ideas, because as we all know, intelligent, knowledgeable, well-intended people can only have one opinion on thorny topics like this one.)  Nauseating really.

Brian was coerced to perform and read a critical analysis of Michigan’s affirmative action hiring guidelines.  Note well, Brian didn’t really want to do this.  It was a hit job meant to give the faculty, all of whom had less publications and less impressive academic credentials, a reason to terminate Brian’s adjunct contract at the satellite campus.  But Brian did as he was told, and did it to the best of his abilities.  Too well in fact given the straw man his “colleagues” were hoping for.  Brian argued, quite effectively, that Michigan’s policy was immoral from any standard moral precept.  The best the opposition, as well as the “unbiased” mediator, could do was roll their eyes at him behind his back.  Did I mention how nauseating it was?  Not that virtually everyone participating had a different point of view.  No, people are free to think and believe what they choose to.  The collision of ideas is, or at least is supposed to be, an essential part of liberal post-secondary education in Western Cultures.  That practically everyone was lock-stepped in counter argument-suppressing group think, and not by strength or clear rightness of position, was what bothered me.  Brian was rode out on a rail.  A “feminist” critic of logic - who, unlike Brian, whose contributions to analytic philosophy cannot be overstated, contributes to our collective knowledge justification claiming disjunctive syllogisms are tacitly sexist - leading the charge.

From the bloody steaming pile of feeling sorry for him, and sorry for what the Academy has become, sprung two phoenixes.  The Friday Hedonism Club, a reason for a group of us, truly diverse but not by force of policy, to get together and eat and drink and smoke and search ’til we passed out or threw-up, and a life-long friendship between Brian and I.

Brian’s counsel has been valuable, but at times I feel his devotion as a friend clouds his vision.  Below are excerpts of our recent discussions.  My feeling, to give these discussions context, is that my next steps, after surgery and recovery, should be a JD and PhD combo platter.  I can’t see myself sitting or standing in a courtroom, but at least with this sort of education I could advocate for soldiers’ rights - something I probably won’t make money doing - and possibly teach - something from which I could make a small salary.  One hour at a desk talking about shit I already know about to people who don’t, punctuated with naps in the broom closet I’d be officed in, is about all my body can tolerate.

“J, my 2 cents worth is that you would make an excellent doctor - in particular an excellent diagnostician.   You knew more about what was wrong with your back than the doctors.  Plus you have an encyclopedic knowledge of biology (and a million other things.)   You’re a natural.

Even if your right leg never improves, you could still practice medicine.  Maybe you could be a radiologist or a researcher where you wouldn’t be walking from patient to patient.  A disability is not necessarily a hindrance.  A lady I dated in Montreal when I was in grad school was a psychiatrist..  She was legally blind from retinitis pigmentosa, yet she went through Queens medical school and got a post at the Jewish General in Montreal as a resident psychiatrist.

J, I’ve been at the academic game for decades, and I can recognize people of great ability.

I know, in the same way I know the back of my hand (and I know it quite well), that you would make an excellent doctor.  Maybe you can take a course or 2 after the surgery if you’re up to it.  And go from there.  Take it one step at a time.  Hey, if a blind person can graduate Queens medical school, anyone with the brainpower and will can.  You always sell yourself short which is very typical of people with high ability.  The folks with lots of bravado often have little going for them except the bravado.”

While these kind and encouraging words, especially coming from one I hold in such high regard, a man who is on a first name basis with Storrs McCall and other heavy-hitters, have an immediate warm-fuzzy effect, I fear my friend is blinded by buddy faith.  There are realities of medical school, with particular attention to the clinical phases of, that are beyond my body’s ability.

You may be asking yourself “what’s the point?”  Fair enough.  If you’ve made it this far wrapping things up is the least I owe you.  The point is that my past, present, and possibly my future have been destroyed by the failings of Army medicine.  If not in some actual way, in my perception at least, which can be just as bad.  I’ve been destroyed in many ways, and I’m not the only victim.  How many people, people just like you reading this, have to be destroyed before we, as a government and as a society, are moved to action?