Question Authority

Joe Biden will unify some on the Democratic left, but not all. Some young progressives understand Biden to represent a status quo they simply don't respect. 

They hear the call to go along, and they just won't do it. 

We have seen this before.

Proud Union Army service

On Memorial Day I brought flowers to my great grandfather's gravesite. He had arranged to have the proud achievement of his life placed on his headstone. Not that he founded a farm. Not that he had ten children. He put his Civil War service as a volunteer in a Company of Connecticut Volunteers. 

He had been a Union soldier.

My own generation of young men had a different war. America had taken over from the French the task of propping up a remnant of "French Indo-China," a country we called South Vietnam. We were winning the bodycount competition but losing the war. President Nixon knew the war was hopeless. Walter Cronkite knew it and reported it. The political establishment knew it, but could not acknowledged it because neither political party wanted to look "soft" on communism. So we were fighting to keep face, a fight worth American lives, our lives. 

Chip O'Hare 1972

A great many American youth disagreed. College campuses were hotbeds of protest, both in political activism and in attitude. 

Today's Guest Post is by a college classmate, Chip O'Hare, who describes his own military service. The incidents and underlying attitudes will be familiar to my older readers. It will remind them of the challenge Joe Biden faces in trying to unify the political left. He is running into a generational cast of mind. Young people question authority. They aren't invested in the past. Not now. Not fifty years ago.

Guest Post by Chip O'Hare

I was a moderate while a student at Harvard.  I joined NROTC (non-scholarship) as a freshman since my father was a Naval veteran and I thought it was a good hedge against losing control of the process and being drafted. While at Harvard I was eventually convinced that the Vietnam War was immoral and poorly executed, but I still felt an obligation to country and I had no other options, having received #72 in the first draft lottery.  

I had advised my NROTC officers of my objection to the war, and had a dust up with an Admiral at the annual NROTC Navy Day dinner (long story) which resulted in my being advised to seek a large combatant where I could get lost, serve out my time (3 years) and move on with my life.  I received orders for the aircraft carrier Oriskany (CVA-34) out of Alameda, CA where I would be a communication officer and serve underway as a junior officer of the watch.  I was commissioned as an Ensign on the day before graduation in June of 1971.  Tony Farrell was a close pal and my only NROTC friend. [Regular readers will recall that Tony Farrell went on to become a nationally recognized expert on strategic branding, and had been given a miserable assignment: Trump Steaks.]

Over the summer, I was sent to Communication, Firefighting and Officer of the Deck Schools in San Diego from which I went to the Philippines on Air America in early September.  I’d learned from some Naval Academy guys in those schools that carrier duty was considered the worst duty for an officer’s career as only those with the lowest aptitude were assigned to a carrier.  It made sense for me as the Navy had me pretty well pegged.

I flew on a mail plane to the ship and experienced an “arrested landing” which was like dropping from the sky in a sack of potatoes.  I walked off the plane with a duffle bag over one shoulder and a golf bag over the other.  My reputation as a maverick began, as evidently carrying a golf bag was considered weird. The ship was huge and it took me a week to learn the layout.  In the beginning I had to look out the deck openings to figure out which way was forward or aft.  When I reported to the personnel office I was told that my billet as a communication officer was filled and that I would be assigned as the education and training officer, responsible for scheduling in-service training of enlisted men and officers, as well as teaching high school GED courses and coordinating a college education program while in Westpac.

I quickly learned that a moderate at Harvard was pretty far to the left in the service, especially given my attitude and position about the war.  While I wasn’t alone in these feelings, I was the only officer on board who felt strongly enough to do something about it. In looking back I was young and naive to think that my opinion mattered and that I could rock the boat, but rock the boat I did.

After about three months of listening to nightly bombing reports from our captain over the intercom (1MC), I began to research my options for seeking a transfer.  There were two, with the first being family hardship and the second being designated as a conscientious objector to war. I qualified for neither, since I had no hardship and I was not a CO in the universal definition, but in true “catch 22” fashion, I could apply for the transfer if I applied for CO status, even though I wouldn’t qualify.  This was explained to me when I mistakenly visited the legal Officer on board ship for his advice and he explained that I could apply for a transfer and CO status even though my objection was political and selective to the Vietnam War.  He said that the CO would be denied but I still might get a transfer.  I use the term mistakenly since the legal officer asked the ship’s secretary (the Captains administrative assistant) about how the command might respond to a junior officer who did this.  He was ordered to give them my name under threats to his career (there is no lawyer client privilege in military law) and after he apologized for blowing my cover, I told him to give me up. This sealed the deal and I proceeded to make application for a transfer and a CO, which I submitted on December 18, 1971 while returning from the western pacific to San Francisco.  It landed with the dullest of thuds and I was immediately a pariah among most of my fellow officers. News travelled fast.

Upon arrival in CA on December 22, I was called to the Captain's office for a meeting with Captain Haack and the ship’s Secretary.  The Captain was unhappy, reminded me of my oath to serve and dressed me up and down for several minutes.  When he was finished, he told me to go home (I’d been granted 7 days of leave) speak to my parents and advisors, and to return with my final decision to seek the transfer.  He told me that if I persisted I would receive a general discharge “for the good of the service”, which while not dishonorable, was not honorable either.  I correctly surmised that it would affect my grad school and career aspirations and was definitely not in my best interest.

While on leave I met with my parents and an uncle who happened to be a Catholic priest and draft counselor.  My parents were frantic.  My uncle advised that I should withdraw my applications as I had gone on record as being against the war and had taken a clear position. So why let the Navy punish my actions?  

I returned to my ship and withdrew my application for transfer and for CO status.  I met with the Captain, told him I would do my duty to the best of my ability and that I had no intention of leading any sort of anti-war movement (many ships had serious similar issues). The Captain seemed relieved, thanked me and I never spoke to him again.  I returned to my job as the education and training officer, taught high school GED and prepared a Program for College Education (PACE) program.  While still a pariah, I was a very small cog in the Navy’s wheel and I got on with my career.  We prepped the ship for a return to Westpac and I was resigned to spending my full three years as a junior officer on the Oriskany.  We were to set sail for Vietnam waters on June 10, 1972.

On June 9th I was summoned to the personnel office over the 1MC, rare for a junior officer. As I walked through the hatch the personnel officer ( a mustang officer named Flanagan whom I’d grown to like) threw a Manila envelope at me and it bounced on the floor.  “There you go, asshole,” he said. “What do you mean,” I replied.  “It’s an early out, the first one our ship has had in over a year, and it’s yours”.  I was stunned.  I was discharged from the ship in Hawaii five days later.

As it turned out, when the Vietnam War was winding down, each ship was asked to provide a list of their officers “in order of their expendability”.  I had gone from #87 on December 17 to #1 on December 18, the day I submitted my transfer/CO application.  I received an honorable discharge at the end of July 1972, having served as an officer for 14 months.

As I look back on this episode, I’m proud of the fact that at the age of 22, far from home and certainly not on familiar ground, it took courage to do this, something that has been asked of me rarely in subsequent chapters of my life.  I served my country and was fortunate to have done it on my own terms.  It wasn’t a pleasant experience, but my memories of it are vivid, and it was a major factor in my development.  When Harvard Business School asked me for an essay on an example of my character, this is what I wrote about.

On board ship,