Going to War
In 1972 I turned eighteen, which in those days was the age of majority on all fronts. At eighteen you could drive (even at night), you could drink (hopefully not before driving), you could vote (the 26th Amendment passed in 1970), and you could fight for your country without your parents’ permission (the single biggest argument favoring the 26th amendment). We needed young men (young women could also join but could not technically fight on the front lines until 2013 and could not choose a combat unit on their own until 2016) for the 12-month front lines in Vietnam. We’ve all heard the line that the life expectancy of a second lieutenant in Vietnam was 16 minutes (Rules of Engagement with Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson). That is a hard truth to verify and the closest anyone will admit to is 45 minutes for a warrant officer dropped into a “Hot LZ”, which was because they were first off and last on the helo. The point was that 1970 was a hot zone for the draft, with lottery numbers given to all of us of age and then waiting accordingly to be called up based on the unlucky or lucky nature of our birthdays. In 1970, 215 of 365 (59%) of eighteen-year-olds were called for physicals and many were drafted. In 1971, 125 of 365 (34%) were called for physicals, but none were drafted. In 1972, no one was called for physicals (I had #353 anyway). And then the draft ended and I haven’t thought about it until today.
Today, the Mayor of New York City, Bill DeBlasio called for a national draft for medical personnel. That means little since DeBlasio, a badly failed Presidential candidate earlier this year, is the Rodney Dangerfield of national politics right now. In other words, he gets no respect. But clearly, the front lines of this war against the Coronavirus is in the urban hospitals where the soldiers are the doctors, nurses, respiratory technologists, technicians and hospital cleaning and support crews playing the M*A*S*H actors without the laughs. The supply lines are the grocery clerks, the truck drivers, the food company employees and yes, the Amazon crews and their best friends at UPS and FedEx. And here’s the strange thing, it’s puzzling to know what we as wannabe citizen-soldiers can do when we are told that the most important thing for each of us to do is hunker down and stay at home so as to stifle the spread of the virus.
I imagine that many of us are willing to put ourselves somewhat in harms way if we knew we were helping. Unfortunately, as we all know by now, our government is simply not well enough organized to mobilize in such a meaningful and effective way. They can’t even bring themselves to use the warriors we have in the real armed forces and national guard to help stabilize the situation. I am told that some critical government agencies have the intelligence to have alternated their staffing so that the whole squad does not risk simultaneous infection. But we still have nine states (all red, in political terms), which is 18% that have not established state-wide stay-at-home orders of any kind. And then there are the states that have perfunctory mandates, but are not taking it very seriously. Even when we have the White House science team recommend everyone wearing a mask, the President felt it necessary to contradict the suggestion by stating openly that he would not wear a mask. Incredible show of leadership, right?
Scientists, epidemiologists, public health officials, statisticians and pretty much everyone with any expertise in infectious diseases has come up with innumerable ways to show that everyone benefits from a simultaneous stay-at-home mandate that is strictly enforced. The war ends sooner and has less negative impact. But that doesn’t seem to be enough to convince people to voluntarily adhere to the edict and in the absence of a national directive, people seem unwilling to take this seriously enough to “bend the curve” as everyone likes to say these days.
Kim and I went out today for the first time in a week. We each had an N95 mask (left over from an India trip so not ER-grade anymore, but better than home-made masks we think) and latex disposable gloves. We went to see our family and stayed 10+ feet away for just a few minutes and went into no crowds. We went to the market for a few needed items (only Kim went in). We did a drive-up pharmacy stop and a bank ATM stop (the busiest place we saw, but still stayed 6 feet away from one another…I took that sortie). The roads were less crowded, but the drivers were more aggressive (there’s a group dynamics dissertation in that, I’m sure). We then went home and privately probably both wondered when we would go out again next.
We do lots of phone socializing, as I’m sure everyone does. But otherwise, we are each left to our own devices to fill our days. I have my work, passions and chores. Kim has her chores, passions and work. We know what each spend our time doing, but we still ask each other about our plans for the day and how our day was (As though we weren’t 50 feet apart all day). We watch a few hours of TV together and perhaps take on a joint chore, just to do something together. Otherwise, as for everyone these days, our days are a lot alike one day after the next.
We were in Turkey when the war with Syria started after the U.S. chose to pull out its forces in October. We were reminded that war is so traumatic that until it comes to your front door, it seems too surreal to imagine. We were 250 miles from the bombing and things were totally normal for us and for the local residents. I imagine normalcy probably falls exponentially as the closeness to the bombs reduces. I mention that because we have felt very isolated up here on our northern San Diego hilltop with views of the ocean and the mountains and sunny fluffy-cloud skies. The Coronavirus was on the TV and we knew we had to cancel trips and follow careful routines, but we were not in physical harms way way up here. Then that all changed.
Yesterday, emergency vehicles came down our road, sirens blaring. There are four houses on this street, none closer than 100 yards from the other. Three of us are pretty friendly, but our neighbor to the north has been very unconnected to the community. That house was inhabited by an older woman and her middle-aged son. It seems the woman died of natural causes two weeks ago and yesterday, the son was found dead in his home. There had been a memorial gathering with family members and close friends and the Coronavirus found its way in. The dead man has now been autopsied and tested positive for Coronavirus (one of the 7,402 deaths in the U.S. as of tonight and one of 285 in California…..but one of the 10 reported today in the state). We now know the man’s brother in Arizona has Coronavirus as does another woman who attended the memorial. An uncle living next door still is concerned but asymptomatic.
Coronavirus has invaded our private little hill and the war is now, literally, on our doorstep…and perhaps lingering 100 yards away. Nothing I have read implies that 100 yards is dangerous, but it certainly makes you think more about the war. We did not think we were going to go to war and we hate the thought that it might come to us as we sit here filling our days with whatever. But we are warriors and we are ready to volunteer if the government ever figures how to use volunteers that would rather not just sit here and be spear-catchers.