Recently I was getting ready to play a doubles tennis match with some friends late in the afternoon and the weather was threatening.
We were warned that there was a Red Alert, that meant there storms in the area and that the radar detecting lightning was enough to keep us on the sidelines until the all clear sounded.
One of the players scoffed at the warning and so we followed him and started playing anyway.
It was a mistake and inside I knew it. But I went along and we began playing.
The people in charge from the pro shop came out again and and were a bit more assertive in ordering us to stop the game.
So we did.
I realized in my own foolishness to play despite the order not to, what the most valuable thing I took away was from my time in Basic Training in the Army and my six-year Army reserve obligation.
There are reasons for orders that we may not like or understand that must be followed. It’s as simple as that.
I thought specifically of my six month Basic Training experience right after my graduation from Syracuse University.
As I was approaching the end of my college career, I knew I would be eligible to be drafted for two years if I didn’t find a reserve unit.
I preferred the reserves, which involved six months active duty, six years reserve obligation, meetings once a week, and two weeks active duty at a base to be determined.
With a career in broadcasting, with either an on-air, or management focus looming, I thought it would be wiser to choose the shorter active responsibility so I could get my career off the ground.
We’re talking 1964, eons ago, and the on charging Vietnam War was simmering, even a couple of short years before it was upon us full bloom.
This is where I want to express the reality of my thoughts of military service.
I always thought it was an obligation for every able American male to serve his country just as others had done so throughout our history.
No credit for me here. I figured it was the same thought for millions of others in my same life situation.
I know there were those who wanted no part of it.
People I knew attempted to avoid service by finding ways of becoming 4F, that’s for a medical discharge that relieves you of your obligation.
There are many who were legitimately given that determination and did not have to serve. That was the way it should be. No problem there.
But there were others who created false medical reports and ultimately escaped service. That was wrong. A definite problem there.
Again, no medals for me, but I was brought up to respect the American flag, and what it stands for, including declaration of wars that resulted in casualties and death for soldiers.
They are the real heroes in my book.
Where would we be without them?
So, during my senior year, I attempted to find a unit near my residence in Queens, and begin my time in the Army reserve.
But I was shutout. Obviously others had the same idea, and the doors were closed everywhere I looked.
Then in one of my classes at S.U. I met a knowledgeable sports fanatic who became a friend I still know.
His name is Bill Philips (correct spelling), a Chicagoan, who has worked for decades on the Board of Trade in that city.
As it turned out, Bill, and his fraternity, had found an artillery unit in downtown Syracuse that had an opening, allowing me to enlist.
I was extremely fortunate to have discovered a unit that would allow be to avoid a two-year active duty stint.
I was more fortunate to have met Bill Philips.
While we have not had contact recently, I still rate Bill a lifetime friend, which has involved countless dinners, golf, and simple sports talk.
He knows his stuff, and even had a stint as a batboy for the Chicago Cubs during his teenage years.
Imagine spending your summers going to Wrigley Field, wearing the uniform of the Dodgers, Braves, and Cardinals, playing pepper with the likes of PeeWee Reese, Henry Aaron and Stan Musial.
If you’re too young to to know what playing pepper means, or remembering the players I have mentioned, simply look them up.
When he was a batboy for the Cubs, he would be kneeling in the on-deck circle with the next hitter, watching pitchers like Sandy Koufax firing away just a few feet from the batters box.
Bill Philips and I entered the first day of orientation week together.
We were stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey for our six month basic training.
Fort Dix, is in South Jersey, Burlington County to be more exact, and the town we remember was Wrightstown.
It is no longer a basic training post, but under the jurisdiction of the Air Force Air Mobility Command.
McGuire Air Force base has always been adjacent to Fort Dix.
We were now in the hands of the US Army, and were about to embark on the same basic training program that was exactly the same as the programs at Fort Jackson, SC, Fort Polk, LA, Fort Gordon, GA, and Fort Leonard Wood, MO, to name a few.
It was all about discipline and humility.
There was no individualism accepted. Every soldier was the same, and every soldier did what was ordered.
That would mean waking in the dark at 4:30am, getting dressed to run a mile, and march to the mess hall.
It would mean returning to the barracks and cleaning the latrine, and every inch of the huge area.
It would mean rushing out of the barracks at the sound of a whistle and lining up in formation with your weapon.
A weapon that had been dismantled and cleaned piece by piece the previous night.
And that was only the start.
There were classes in military training, days on the target range, preceded by classes in target detection, days where tear gas was unexpectedly dropped and gas masks were quickly put in place, and failure to do so was at your risk.
There were 12-mile marches in the woods amid 90-degree heat, wearing full battle gear: a steel pot helmet, full fatigue uniform, heavy socks and boots, weapon over the shoulder, and a full canteen.
Twice during the six month tour, was a crawl on the infiltration course, where you moved on your stomach, elbows and knees, with live fire overhead, and explosives carefully going off not far from where you were crawling.
By now, I am imagining veterans who might be laughing hysterically at what I have written, knowing that they actually fought an enemy in wars, under incredibly dire circumstances, knowing that injury and death might be seconds away.
Basic Training was a day at the beach compared to what they had to face.
But if you ask those vets, who risked their lives, what it meant to begin their military careers in that fashion, they would stop laughing, and nod their head in agreement.
It was the foundation for what was to come.
And for me, a kid in Queens who loved sports and wanted to be involved someday as a reporter of sports, it was a rock solid to a belief that has stayed with me no matter what I’ve done.
Following orders, and rules can never be changed or challenged.
I realize today that it is popular to do just that.
But there is a reason that an order comes down from whoever is in charge.
If everyone made the determination that they could operate at their own particular whims or preferences, imagine the chaos that would result.
Look, the military is one thing.
But in life there are orders, that upon discussion and meeting with those in charge that may be altered or eliminated.
But it can’t be unilateral in my view.
In the great film, A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson, playing a Colonel who is in command of the Guantanamo base, tells Tom Cruise, who is cross-examining him that, “we follow orders or people die”.
In reality, Nicholson is saying that he ordered a Code Red, which caused the death of a soldier, although he was referring to a different order.
That may be one of the lasting lines from that terrific movie.
In spite of the severity of that command, it does ring true.
We follow the orders of the road when we drive, we follow the rules set down by the people who employ us.
And in so many other areas of life as well.
That is why, when I, along with the others, disregarded the warning given us on the tennis court, I realized how wrong I had been.
And then, my time at Fort Dix.
How valuable the lessons learned, even though I was never going to have a military life, of obeying orders for a reason, whether I agreed or not.
It’s served as my foundation.
I am proud of that.
As a post-script, I ultimately completed my reserve obligation as a member of the 443rd Military Intelligence Detachment in Pittsburgh.
We met once every two weeks in the Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh, and our two weeks active duty each summer was at the Pentagon.