Losing

I was reading the September issue of “National Geographic” the other night and found a story about failure. The author’s contention was that failure is a necessary part of life and ultimate success. There were photos of George Mallory (lost as he attempted to scale Everest), and Amelia Earhart, and Ernest Shackleton. The author summed it up this way, “Failure – never sought, always dreaded, impossible to ignore –is the specter that hovers over every attempt at exploration. Yet without the sting of failure to spur us to reassess and rethink, progress would be impossible.

            

In 1914, Irish-born explorer Ernest Shackleton led a twenty-seven man team on a trans-Antarctic journey in the ship “Endeavor.” His attempt to cross Antarctica failed when the ship became stuck in ice. Thousands of miles from help with no way to get word out of their predicament, Shackleton faced the real possibility that he and every man with him would die. It was one of history’s great exploration miscalculations.

            

But that wasn’t the end of the story, Shackleton refused to give up. He couldn’t change what landed the “Endeavor” on the ice, but he could bring the men home safely. Persistence, resilience, and adaptability. Shackleton exhibited all three characteristics and he turned his failure into success. In 1916, two years after leaving on his Antarctic exploration, Shackleton and all twenty-seven crew members returned home. Did he accomplish what he set out to discover? No. But what he did accomplish was as important.

            

Failure can define future success. Writer Pat Conroy’s non-fiction best-seller, “My Losing Season” tells his story as a basketball player on a very bad citadel team. Conroy was a student at the all-male South Carolina military college in the sixties as the school struggled to integrate and finds its way in the turbulence that defined the decade and the protests over America’s involvement in Vietnam.

           

Conroy’s attendance at the Citadel conflicted him. The son of a Marine Corps fighter pilot, Conroy always felt outside and apart from his father. He did what was expected and attended the Citadel, but he wasn’t the typical Southern cadet. And, as he details the losses, one after another, and the conflict surrounding him, you begin to understand where “The Prince of Tides,” “The Water is Wide,” and “The Great Santini” were born.

            

Conroy, for most of his adult life, struggled with depression. His books reflect human frailty, and pain, and failure. Now? Now, Conroy is happily married. He’s even penned a cookbook on low-country cuisine. While he’s never said so, I can’t help but think it was the losing, the struggling through the pain, that has made the happiness of his later years so much more enjoyable.

            

Failure, loss, it seems, is part of the human condition. How we persist, how we bounce back when “all is lost” ultimately defines who we are. I’ve thought a good deal about that the past few weeks as two friends left this place after lengthy terms of incarceration.

            

Dre (short for Andre) went home two weeks ago after ten years. For the past two years, he and I never missed an episode of CBS’s reality show “Amazing Race.” We decided some time ago we could win that competition. Dre was the fastest man on the compound. I have never seen a man run with such explosiveness and energy. And, he was fearless. Perhaps that came from negotiating his way as a 5’8” man through high custody prisons while avoiding gangs and other distractions.

            

“I’ll take on any heights,” he’d tell me. “You eat anything they throw at you.” (My “talent” or weakness – I can eat almost anything). Dre had been in the service at the time of his arrest. “It was 2^nd degree murder, and I’ve regretted every day since.” The jury must have believed him; his sentence was at the minimum level for the crime.

            

Still, twelve years (he did a little over ten) is a long time to be away, to think about what was and what might have been. You can’t help but think about it, you know, how different your life had been “if only.”

           

Dre came to this low-level facility in 2010. We hit it off almost immediately. He was a college student and in May earned his degree. Two weeks ago his father arrived out front and picked him up. They drove back to New Jersey and “home”. Dre has college and a job waiting on him. Prison was not a good use of those years, except … except look what Dre did with the time. Like Shackleton, he turned his goals in a different direction. He had to survive, overcome, endure. And he did. And he found his way home.

            

Then there’s Mark. Mark leaves in twenty-four days. Seventeen years and a little over a month after he entered prison, he’s heading out.

            

At age 26, barely able to read, living in one dilapidated trailer after another, Mark was arrested on a serious charge. “Testify against your co-defendant and you’ll get two years,” the commonwealth attorney told him. Mark wasn’t a snitch. “I took my chance in court, got convicted and they asked for life.” Instead, the judge gave him twenty years.

            

Mark was, as he put it, a trailer trash redneck, who read at a first grade level. He started out at Nottoway, notorious for stabbings, and gang violence, and death. “And you know what Larry? I never had a finger put on me. For some reason – I guess it was God – I came through this time unscathed.”

            Unscathed. Psalm 118 says “The Lord is on my side; I will not fear.” It means simply, “that God is with me no matter what the circumstances may be. Mark told me that a few months ago and I smiled. It was that verse that helped me fall asleep each night as I struggled with the violence and mayhem of the receiving unit.

            

Mark had nothing when he was locked up. He lacked family support, job skills, even rudimentary education. Then his life took a turn. He was sitting in church one Sunday at Nottoway when an inmate he barely knew approached him. “My girl’s coming for a visit next Saturday and she’s bringing a friend. You seem like an alright guy. Want to visit with her?”

            

A week later he was sitting in the visitation room with Sharon. For the next year they exchanged letters and then phone calls and more visits. His friend stopped seeing the other girl; Mark and Sharon, however, grew closer. Two years later, with Mark still doing ten years, he and Sharon married in the Nottoway Prison chapel.

            

Mark started school and in less than eighteen months earned his GED. A year ago he joined our IT program and completed that. Along the way, he learned CAD (computer assisted design).

            

Mark’s whole life was one of disappointment and failure until he hit the worst he could imagine. “I never would have met Sharon, never would have gotten my education, if I hadn’t turned down that two year plea. God brought me through the valley.”

            

The past two months have been tough on me. Life in here ebbs and flows and during these few months I’ve been thinking a good deal about where I started and where I’m headed. And it’s strange. I struggle a good bit, feeling every bit the failure. Guys in here, however, view me in an entirely different way. I have everything – according to them – going for me.

            

So the other night Mark, who lives in the bunk right next to me, leaned over to say something. “I wouldn’t have graduated the college program if it wasn’t for you,” he told me. “You’ll never know what you being in here has meant to the guys until you forgive yourself and let God move you forward.” That’s what got me thinking about Shackleton, and Conroy, and failure.

            

I think what Mark was saying to me is failure is in the present. We miss out, we screw up relationships, and dreams, and assignments, and we face a crossroads. We move forward or we die. And you know, you can die without being dead. Or you can struggle and go on, and end up in a different place than you expected, but a good place none the less.

           

It took Shackleton almost two years to cross the ice; it took Conroy almost twenty years and a half dozen novels to sort through his depression; sometimes it takes the horror and waste of this place.

Missing the Message

The nation celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. Day the other day.  In a strange twist, it fell on the same day that the nation’s first Black President celebrated his inauguration and the beginning of his second term.  Living in a place with such a large percentage of Black men you would assume the day resonates with them.  Unfortunately, there is a great deal of ambivalence among the young, incarcerated Black men in here.  And in the white ranks, it borders on contempt.  Much of it arises from ignorance, from missing the message.

There is an old political story from the days of Ronald Reagan’s election.  A well-off Park Avenue liberal was bemoaning to her friends that Reagan won a landslide reelection.  “I don’t know how”, she said.  “I don’t know anyone who voted for him.”  And so it goes for most of the young Black men I know in here.

“I don’t know anyone who respects King,” said Will, a normally very bright studious twenty-eight year old.  “He sold out.  He isn’t a leader of our community.”  As he spoke, three or four other equally young bright Black men nodded in agreement.  “White people like King.”  I could only smile.

I then pointed out that according to surveys among Black Americans; Dr. King is the single most revered figure in American history.  No other person even comes close.  Whites, on the other hand, hold mixed feelings, partly out of the battle over enshrining his birthday as a national holiday and partially over the ugly strains of prejudice that somehow continue to lie just below the surface.

“How can that be?”  My young friend asked.  I don’t know anyone who likes him.  I thought of the wealthy liberal in New York who couldn’t grasp that her view wasn’t the norm.  And I wondered how so many could miss the true meaning of Dr. King’s words, how so many miss the message.

Imagine a young Black man who graduates college in his teens.  He comes from an educated family of ministers in the segregated South.   He heads to Boston to begin graduate studies in Theology, and he discovers the words and works of a half-naked Indian lawyer named Gandhi.  King reads Gandhi’s words and sees in Gandhi’s message of peaceful, nonviolent protest the Christian response to oppression. 

All during his time in Boston King honed his message of using a nonviolent response to evil.  At age twenty-six, King earned his PhD.  He and his young bride accepted a call to a church in Montgomery, Alabama.  It is difficult to imagine America, the South, back in the 1950’s.  Most of the young men in here are quick to use the term “Jim Crow”, but they know nothing of it.  Theirs is a world of Rap singers being number one on the charts, of interracial couples, of a Black President winning a second term.  They know nothing of “colored only” bathrooms and water fountains.  They can’t fathom that you could be arrested for sitting at a lunch counter in a public restaurant or refusing to give up your seat to a white person on a public bus.

This was the world Martin and Coretta King ventured into in Montgomery, a world of separate but woefully unequal.  King preached nonviolence, and forgiveness, and mercy while his flock was regularly embarrassed, humiliated, or worse by their white counterparts.  It didn’t take long for King to find an issue to rally the Black community.

It came in the package of a petite, quiet Black woman who refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery public bus to a White passenger.  When asked year’s later why she subjected herself to arrest and death threats, Rosa Parks simply replied, “I was tired.”

“I was tired.”  Tired of indignity, and disrespect, and disobedience to the laws of her God, that all men and women are God’s precious children.  In those three words the Civil Rights movement found their direction and Dr. King became the movement’s Moses.

Dr. King led marches and boycotts and protests – always nonviolent protests – to challenge the conscience of a nation.  So often he and his followers were met with arrest and violence, horrible violence.

“You must love your enemy,” he would tell anyone who would listen.  Loving your enemy, seeing the Godliness in the most evil of men, is usually easier then liking your enemy.  It’s tough, he would say, to like someone who is beating you, or opening up a high-powered fire hose on you, or lynching you.  “Love your enemy.  Do not return his evil with evil.”

No American orator or writer captured the affirmative duty of a man of faith to nonviolently challenge evil – even to the point of death – as Dr. King did.  His “Letter from Birmingham Jail” stands as one of the great written statements of Christian faith in action.  His, “I Have A Dream” speech eloquently captures the Biblical dream of America as a land where all God’s children are truly free. 

Freedom.   I watch these young, Black men miss the poetic beauty of freedom.  Freedom isn’t about purchasing power or the ability to say and do whatever you want.  Freedom is a peace that is given by the Almighty that no tyrant, no nation, can suppress.  Dietrich Bonheoffer knew real freedom even as the Nazis hung a noose around his neck.  Martin Luther King knew freedom even as he understood his life would be cut short.

“You have to fight back.”  “We need to live separately.”  Over and over I hear these young men utter the same words Dr. King faced from his own community.  Violence, he knew was never the answer.  We are called to be better, to be merciful even when confronted by evil.

And Dr. King provoked anger.  He condemned America’s involvement in Vietnam.  War is never the answer he courageously argued.  Inmates who are confronted each day by violence and “might makes right” just shake their heads in bemused wonder.  “He was so foolish”, they’ll say, and I can’t help but think he was the wisest man alive during my lifetime, a man whose vision of America and the world was so much closer to God’s view than most of our national leaders.

This is not to say he was without faults.  King, like all men and women, had foibles and sins and failures.  But the mark of a man is how he behaves in the worst of circumstances.  In that, King proved himself heroic.

So it was with this year’s MLK Day.  They showed a documentary on his life, his legacy on our internal movie channel.  I noticed many TV sets turned to his story.  A few of the guys came by afterward.  “Did you know all that?” they asked.  I did.  And I gave out my dog eared copy of King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, so a few could read it and understand the message.  It’s always been about the message.

When Will They Ever Learn?

As I was working out a few weeks ago, Pete Seeger’s song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” ran through my head.  After each stanza, from flowers to girls to young soldiers, to graveyards, Seeger ends with the same refrain, “When will they ever learn?”

To say I was unprepared for arrest and jail would be an understatement.  I was taken to the jail – in shackle and handcuffs of course – wearing my navy blue blazer, oxford collared shirt, khakis and Kenneth Cole dress shoes.  As opposed to most guys who know they’re about to get picked up and have on four pair of t-shirts, boxers and socks, I had one v-neck tee and a pair of green Italian silk boxers.

They took everything from me except my underclothes.  I was given two sets of puke green, elastic waist scrubs and a set of “Jackie Chans”, jail lingo for the 99 cent shower shoes they give out.  I was told by the property C.O. I could order my own sneakers, boxers and t-shirts from commissary.  And, feeling sorry for me – I was a pathetic mess – the officer helped me fill out my first “store” order.  I’d shown up in jail with $400.00 in my wallet that was immediately taken and put on my “account”.  I ordered three sets of white tees, boxers and socks and a $20.00 pair of Velcro sneakers.  “You’ll be able to get your stuff next Monday”, the officer told me shortly before I found myself in my first jail pod with no daylight, no quiet, and no hope.

That first week was horrendous and I fought desperately against self-destruction even as my whole “real” life was crashing around me. I barely survived that first weekend, had my moment of begging God to not abandon me, and somehow made it to Monday morning.  And, shortly after 9:00 that morning, the intercom called me to commissary.  That entire first week I lived in the same t-shirt and underwear.  Each night in my cell, I’d wash those clothes out with my state issued bar of soap and hang them to dry.  And I’d sleep “commando” in that uncomfortable jail-issued scrub set.

The sneakers.  I put them on at the commissary window and headed back to the pod.  It was the first moment of normalcy I’d enjoyed since my arrest.  Back in my cell block I walked around feeling – well – better than I had in a week.  Then I saw him. 

He was a young, muscular black kid, no more than eighteen.   He was sitting on a table, saw me and climbed down and began heading toward me.  I noticed his smile, devious is a good way to describe it, and also noticed the ten or so other guys in the dayroom suddenly moved toward the walls.

“Nice shoes”, he said.  Before I could respond he added, “Give em to me or else”.  My mind raced a thousand miles an hour.  I was forty-nine and wanted to die – or so I thought.  But, his words did something to me.  I put myself in a fighting stance, on the balls of my feet, hands fisted.  Then and there I decided I might get my ass kicked, but I’d always keep my dignity.

Divine intervention?  At that precise moment the young, female psychologist walked by our pod windows in a silk blouse and jeans that accentuated her petite frame.  My would-be assailant saw her and turned his attention to her.  In one of those tragic-comic moments you only see in prison, he began uttering lewd, grunted words to her while exposing himself.  In a matter of seconds the dayroom door sprang open and three beefy officers lifted “Casanova” off the floor and out of the pod.  I never saw him again.

There have been other situations where I’ve been threatened, sometimes by guys for whom violence has been a way of life.  It’s funny, but I don’t worry about it.  As I told a friend one time, it’s better to get beat up and keep your dignity intact than live with yourself out of fear.  But, those experiences have convinced me of the needless waste that is violence.

The other night a fight broke out in here.  Like most fights this one arose out of a stupid thing, a wager gone awry, and one skinny loudmouth telling a much larger guy “you ain’t gonna dispect me, bro.”  Within seconds the big man had lunged at skinny, landed at least six heavy “Whumps” to the head and chest, then began to choke him out.

And as with most fights in here, we all stopped and tried not to look, but also didn’t intervene.  In a minute or two it was over.  Skinny slinked off to his bunk gasping for air, only the blackness of his skin hiding his bruised and bloodied face.

I’ll never get use to the violence in here.  It jolts me and offends my sense of dignity and compassion.  And the more I see of it, the more I realize it’s just a stupid, stupid waste.

Were it only in here, I’d write it off as some depraved state of the incarcerated; you know “what do you expect from criminals?”  But then you watch the news; Syria, Egypt, Afghanistan, Chicago, Richmond, on and on the news details fighting and killing.  Gandhi once said “with an eye for an eye the world will soon be blind.”  Gandhi was a very smart man.

Violence is never the answer.  Violence begets violence.  I have watched too many men beat each other senseless in here.  Then again, I saw too many young men die and kill in the rice paddies of Vietnam and the sands of Iraq.  “When will they ever learn?”

I shared with a friend in a recent letter how much prison has changed my outlook on life, on people, on things in general.  Years ago, after that initial confrontation over my sneakers, I began getting up at 4:00 and reading the Bible.  I guess I wanted to understand why, why God, why things were the way they were.  I found more questions than answers.  But, I began to come away with a deep sense of awe over the infinite mystery that is God.

And I began to understand that we are all flawed.  Perhaps that’s why I keep thinking it all boils down to kindness, mercy, and forgiveness.

When will they ever learn?  After the fight, the big guy came up to me to talk.  Everyone else was joking on him, he said.  “Not you.”  And he told me he felt like crap about doing that, pummeling the loudmouth, skinny guy.  “I hate that.  Hate getting so angry.  Hate how I feel afterwards.” 

When will they every learn?  Maybe never, or maybe….

Life Lesson

My friend DC learned last evening that his father passed away.  Death is never easy to grasp; in here it is even more difficult.  For fifty years DC’s father has regularly visited.  With his age and health deteriorating his visits to spend time with his incarcerated son became less frequent.  Recently, DC’s mom traveled alone or with DC’s wife for their regular monthly visits. 

When DC took me aside last night and told me the news, I found myself struck by the grace and dignity he possessed.  Later that night as I prayed, I stopped and wrote a few things that in the light of this beautiful, warm, January day surprised me.

But first, a little about DC’s dad.  I had the privilege of meeting him once, up at visitation; but in truth I knew him well through DC’s stories.  He was an infantryman in the United States Army and served in some of the bloodiest battles in Korea.  He served his country and fought and watched friends bleed and die all the while being repeatedly referred to as “boy” and “colored” and being denied basic civil rights living in the segregated south of the ‘40s, ‘50s and early ‘60s.  We, as a people, tend to gloss over our failures, our evils, our sins.  I’ve learned in this experience that too often we like to see things neatly, “us versus them” and the “us” is always right, always justified.  That, I believe, is why it’s so easy for “us” to justify our anger at a whole host of peoples overseas, why “we” so easily support this nation incarcerating two million.  “We” are honorable; “we” are decent.  “They” are terrorists, “they” are criminals.

The truth is, there is no “us” or “them”, there is only “we”.  We all fail, we all have the capacity to hurt and be hurtful.  We all can act a little more humanely.

So DC’s father and mother moved to the District married in ’46; drafted he was sent to Korea.  They raised a house full of children; buried two.  DC’s dad bought a liquor store on the edge of Georgetown.  Kept it his whole life.  Never robbed, never burned during the riots.  DC’s Pop was respected in the community and DC – he was feared.

Years passed.  There was the day in 1968 when his dad came to school and picked him up.  Driving home his dad lowered his voice and gently said “Paul’s coming home.  He was killed over there.  We have to be brave for mom.  She needs us.”  Paul was DC’s older brother.  DC idolized him.  He was drafted by the Phillies one week, the best pitcher they’d ever seen in D.C. they told the family.  Two weeks later the army drafted him and Paul ended up fighting and dying in Vietnam for a war that made no sense, fighting for “freedom” for a foreign people while his own family was denied equal rights in the nation’s capitol. 

Years later, DC asked his dad about the war, if he was angry about Paul dying for such a senseless cause.  “I don’t think nothin of it”, he said.  “I respect your brother cause he went, he fought, he did what he thought was right even knowing the risk.”  DC told me that story a few months after we met during a particularly tough time for me.  “You’re a stand up guy…even in here.  My Pops says that counts for something.”

DC’s dad.  He turned DC’s life around.  As I’ve noted in this blog, DC was one of the most feared, brutal inmates in the Virginia Prison system for years.  A week ago, I began writing a story – an essay really – built around DC.  I’ve been stuck for an ending.  See, my view of DC, the man I know today has largely developed as my faith has grown.  For obvious reasons, I call the story “Damascus”.  I’ve always been intrigued by Paul’s faith journey.  The Apostle Paul was ruthless in his pursuit of members of “the way”.  The blood of dozens was literally on his hands.  And then one day, on the road to Damascus, on the way to attack more Christians, he was struck down.  Why, I wondered, can church people, “good people”, accept that God could change Paul, but not someone like DC?  (You’ll have to wait for the story to come out to get my answer).

This afternoon I found my ending.  DC came by the cut while I was writing.  He just needed to talk about his dad.  So I listened as my friend spoke.  “My daughter was with Pops when he died.  He gripped her hand and called her close and said ‘tell you daddy to remember the goose’.  Then his hand went loose and he was gone.”

DC then told me what that meant.  Back in the early ‘80s, when DC was at Mecklenburg Corrections Center and in the middle of eighteen months of segregated living, i.e. “in the hole”, he was called to a surprise visit.  Visits in segregation are non-contact.  You talk through phones and Plexiglas.  “It was Pops.  He’d come down by himself to see me.”  For hours they talked.  Finally, his father with the phone close to his mouth asked DC why.  “Why do you keep doing this to yourself in prison when you got so much waitin on you out there?”  DC hemmed and hawed.  He had no answer.  “Figure it out son, before it’s too late.  You figure it out and we’ll get you out of here.  And you and me’ll share a bottle of Grey Goose and we’ll talk.”

Ten years later, DC had figured it out.  His dad was at another visit only this time the man sitting in front of Pops wasn’t the same angry, brutal man behind the Plexiglas.  Instead, his dad saw the DC I know, a man of peace, kindness and decency.

“It was about fear, Larry”, DC told me and I felt as though I was looking in the mirror.  Fear had driven me to my own self-destructive meeting with prison and divorce.  “I asked Pops why he came to see me that day in the ‘80s.  He told me a guy called him.  Said he’d just gotten out of prison and knew me.  And he told my Pops if I didn’t get reached soon either the state would kill me or another inmate would kill me, but I’d never make it out.  He just got in his car and drove down to see me.”

There are times in this experience when I’m not sure I can make it another day.  And then there are times, like these past twenty-four hours, when I thank God for this.  I don’t know why all this has happened, but I know I’m a better man for meeting guys like DC.  And I know life; death; pain and joy make so much more sense to me having been put in this place.

DC’s hurting right now but he’s also very much at peace.  He’ll have his time with his dad.  And I promised him, after we’re both out, we’ll go see his dad and have a glass of the goose.  May God bless DC’s Pops.  May God bless DC.  May God bless us all.

Memorial Day

It’s Memorial Day weekend, a time when the nation turns its thoughts to veterans, especially those who’ve paid the ultimate price on the battlefield.  Post 9/11 much has been made about the respect this country now shows those who served.  “The country has healed from Vietnam”, is a common refrain heard in the popular press.

Yet that perception doesn’t match reality.  It is a disturbing truth, but veterans of this nation‘s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have higher levels of suicide, homelessness, PTSDs, drug and alcohol abuse, than the general population.  And, they end up in prison and judges don’t care that they risked their lives oversees.

Of the 96 men in my side of the building, 34 served in the military.  Twelve of those served in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Two older inmates are combat veterans of Vietnam.   For those fourteen who served in combat “defending this nation’s freedom” as so many commentators like to point out – meant little to them as they faced significant prison sentences.  Judges, juries didn’t care that they fought in Fallujah or Helmut Province.  But for some hardworking volunteers from the American Legion who come out and meet with these vets and assist them with access to benefits they earned, they are largely forgotten.  Like their homeless brothers suffering from PTSD and drug and alcohol problems, there are no thank yous for these vets.  America should be ashamed.

One of my students is a bright New Yorker named Pauly.  He served two tours with the Marines in Iraq and was in the bloody battle of Fallujah.  His photos of unit friends, two of whom were killed, line his locker.

Pauly returned to Virginia (his wife’s home) after his second tour.  He began taking pain pills (“help me sleep”). When he couldn’t get enough, he forged four prescriptions and four checks to cover the cost.  Convicted, a Chesterfield Circuit Judge told him “you survived two tours in Iraq; you can do three years in prison.”  Nice comment your honor.

There’s Rick.  His wife left him while he was in Afghanistan for a second tour.  He returned to Southwest Virginia with no job, no wife and a house he couldn’t afford.  He took an unloaded shotgun to a local bank and got $6000 (“I didn’t care if they shot me”).  The judge told him “a lot of men went to war and didn’t rob a bank” as he sentenced Rick to ten years.  I’m not sure what the judge knows about being in a combat zone; he admitted from the bench “he never had the privilege of serving.”

There are dozens of stories like that in here and hundreds of pages of trial transcripts confirming the words.  Then there’s Saleem.  He served as a medic in Vietnam.  He risked his life daily to save the lives of dozens of wounded men.  Why was he a medic?  Because he was a pacifist.  Rather than seek conscientious objector status, he agreed to serve.

Later, during a drug deal gone bad – a drug habit that began in Indochina in that war zone – Saleem killed a man.  He received a life sentence with parole eligibility after twenty years.  Every year, since his twentieth year in, he comes up for parole.  Every year, for twelve straight years, he has been denied parole.  It is possible Saleem will never leave prison.  That is wrong.

DC’s father served in Korea as a black infantryman.  He fought in some of the bloodiest campaigns there and endured terrible racial hostility.  “I went because that’s what I was supposed to do.”  DC’s older brother, a baseball star drafted by the Phillies, died in Vietnam.

All these men who fought bled and in some cases died, did so because they believed in the ideals this nation espouses.  They deserve the same. They deserve second chances.

General William Tecumseh Sherman said “war is hell”.  So is prison.  These vets deserve our gratitude, our forgiveness for their wrongs, and their freedom.  

Thinking about Freedom

Every week my blog manager forwards reader comments to me. I read – and many times reread over and over – what the blog readers are thinking or reacting to what I write. I enjoy the feedback even when it occasionally and painfully hits close to home.



This week an “Anonymous” reader commented on my recent writings about freedom. And, those comments got me thinking about not just freedom, but our interconnectedness.


Ironically, and my ex would fall over to see me admit what I’m about to write, I’ve discovered through this experience, that we are all in this together. I use to ridicule then Senator Hillary Clinton for her book It Takes a Village to Raise a Child. I always thought my success, whether in school or relationships or work, was solely and directly due to my efforts. I bemoaned paying the way for others less ambitious than I. Oh, I did community work. It’s what we “successful people” did. Ultimately, I realized going through this that my logic was completely skewed. God has a way, His way of showing us how off kilter we are. Sometimes the way He shows us is unpleasant. But, if we pay attention, we learn exactly what He expects from His children.


Anonymous, I take issue with your posting for a number of reasons. Here goes. Freedom is derived from God. In one of the most powerful scenes in David McCullough’s incredible book 1776 he retells the story of a Presbyterian minister in New York City. Reverend Knox, on the eve of the British attack on Washington’s troops, uttered these powerful words from the pulpit: “God ordains that man live free”. So simple, yet so profound.


Freedom is God’s creation. It isn’t granted us by a benevolent government. It is from God and of God. That isn’t anarchy. God requires that we live under His rules and there are only two that really matter: “Love the Lord with all your heart” and “Love your neighbor as yourself”. When you steal – like I did – you violate God’s law. And society has an absolute right to correct that ungodly behavior and help restore me to a position of “law abiding”. But, society does not have the right to break God’s law to punish me. That, Anonymous, is ungodly.


It is ironic that at the entrance to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, Poland the following sign appeared: “Work Makes You Free.” I would caution Anonymous to be careful when you conclude you’re on one side and the outcasts are on the “other” side, like the Jews in 1930’s Germany, or the Christians in China, or the black school children in Prince Edward County, Virginia in the late 50’s when the public schools were closed rather than integrate them.


As Jesus pointed out to the Pharisees when he disapproved of divorce and protected the adulterous woman, God’s law is significantly different from man’s law.


Some people in prison clearly are sociopaths. They are a danger to others. Their horrendous deeds call for separation. That does not give society the right to treat them ungodly. “Be patient; be kind; be forgiving.”


And that leads me back to my new thoughts on our interconnection and my disagreement with Anonymous. Prior to Anonymous telling me about the effort put forth to earn his/her degree and how prison education cheapened the value of that education, Anonymous stated “the other day I was teaching high school…” so Anonymous teaches school – public, I assume, which is supported by taxpayers, many of whom don’t have children in school but have to pay nonetheless. And Anonymous works a school year (what, possibly 200 days per year?) and is eligible for tenure – guaranteed employment – and has little responsibility when his/her students do poorly. See, Anonymous, I used to think like you and public school teachers could always rile me up. And Anonymous, you may work in a good school. A lot of the guys I’ve been in contact with went to lousy schools, with lousy teachers, in lousy communities.


Your education: no one pays the full fare. Even when you pay the tuition, that tuition has been subsidized by alumni giving, Federal aid and state taxpayers (if you go to a state school). This myth that we “make it on our own” is just that, a myth.


While you were in college some of the dregs in here were filling potholes in your town and picking up your trash. A good number of these “criminals” were overseas fighting while you were “exploring” your major. One thing I didn’t know until I came in here was the large number of vets locked up, guys who fought in Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, both Iraq Wars and Afghanistan.


Your reference to a “free education” in prison is off base. First, the number one factor in keeping a felon from recommitting is – a college degree. You want to pay $25,000 to keep a guy locked up or $3,000 to enroll him in college?


Instead, let’s follow your lead, Anonymous, and gut prison programs. Why stop there. Handicapped kids? Screw ’em, why should I pay. It’s the parent’s job to take care of them. Public schools? Don’t need ‘em. Most of the teachers I knew weren’t qualified anyways. Let everyone home school.


I could go on and on but I won’t. I think you get my point. We all get something from someone else’s hard work, money or grace. We all need to give a helping hand from time to time to a brother or sister in need, even when that brother or sister did something horrendous.


“No man is an island unto himself”. That’s what justice is about. That’s what mercy is about. That’s what freedom is about. That’s what God is talking about.

Lt. Dan

I watched “Forrest Gump” on TV the other night for about the 100th time. I love that movie. My favorite scenes involve Forrest and Lt. Dan, his commanding officer in Vietnam. As you know, Lt. Dan comes from a family with a long military history which, we find out, involves some relative dying in every war the U.S. has ever fought in.



The unit is out on patrol and they’re ambushed. The North Vietnamese are everywhere, bullets and bombs hitting men on every side of Forrest. Lt. Dan calls a retreat and Forrest runs. He’s out of danger, but alone. He can’t just run away. He goes back, over and over, rescuing wounded men. He finally goes back for Lt. Dan who cusses him. He wants to die on the battlefield, it’s his fate. But, Forrest saves him anyway.


Next time we see the two men, they are in a military hospital. Lt. Dan has lost his legs. He is angry and blames Forrest. “I should have died out there with my men”. Forrest, always the sweet, gentle moron, just lets it roll off him.


For the next hour of the movie Forrest and Lt. Dan cross paths again and again. Lt. Dan’s life is in complete turmoil. He is drinking heavily, let’s himself go and is awash in bitterness. However, with nothing else to do, he shows up in the Gulf and helps Forrest run a shrimp boat. That too, proves a failure until he calls out to God. A tremendous hurricane strikes while the boat is out at sea.


Lt. Dan, at the height of the storm, yells at God, “You’ll never sink this ship!”! The next day the sky clears, the shrimp are plentiful and a calm, at peace Lt. Dan looks Forrest in the eye and says “I never thanked you for saving my life”. As Forrest points out, Lt. Dan made his peace with God.


I’ve had my own “Lt. Dan moments” these past two years. You build your life, head in a particular direction, and anticipate how it will work out. Then, whether by your own doing or having circumstances suddenly thrust on you, your life is in complete disarray. You wonder, “what the hell am I gonna do? How did I end up here?” You panic, fret, worry, fear, and yes, get bitter over the circumstances you find yourself in. And, you replay over and over the whys, and hows, and what ifs of your life.


I think I like Lt. Dan because he’s so, well, human. He is just like each and every one of us as we struggle day to day to get on with life. I’ve had my moments when I’ve called out God. Like Jacob, I wrestled God and ended up bruised. I’ve been like Job asking how can a loving God let all this happen?


And, just like Lt. Dan, Jacob, and Job, I’ve found peace. It’s a peace that comes from discovering that no matter how badly things go, no matter that I can’t make sense out of all this, I’m not now, nor ever been, alone. God’s always been there, even when I was stealing, even when my heart was breaking over the loss of my wife. I don’t know how, but I’m a better person than I was before my arrest.


Fact is, I had a wonderful life. I loved, with all my heart, my wife. I have such beautiful memories of her and our time together. I wouldn’t trade away any of that. I’ve been told by well-meaning people to “get over her, move on”. I’ll never get over her. I will always love her, always pray for her happiness and well-being. In spite of all that has happened between us, I consider my time with her as a blessing, an amazing gift from God.


It took my arrest and conviction for me to be reminded of the merciful, loving, hopeful person I used to be. As I told Big S last night, had it not been for this experience, my arrest, two men would still be languishing in prison. “Pilly” a nice Mexican man would still be here not back in his native Mexico, if I hadn’t been here and taken the time to review his paperwork and discover DOC had miscalculated his release date.


Had I not been here, “Mr. W”, dying of pancreatic cancer, would still be here instead of home with his wife and daughters during his last months on earth. I’ve discovered the true meaning of Joseph’s words to his brother when they were reunited – and reconciled – in Egypt. As he welcomed and forgave them, he said “you intended this for evil, but God brought about good.”


Which led me to another eye-opening observation. I’ve discovered that as well-meaning and caring a person I tried to be “BA” (before my arrest), I quite frankly was also – excuse the vernacular – an asshole. It wasn’t too difficult to recognize. I was, after all, a big fish in a little pond. I was brash, opinionated and very sure I was correct. I knew in my core, I was right. And, because of my outgoing personality people just naturally accepted what I said.


Don’t get me wrong. I was good at what I did and I devoted a great deal of time and effort to helping others. But I did it on my own terms. I thought people just needed to suck it up and work harder. Their background, their baggage, was irrelevant. Then I cam into this salad bowl of human genes and conditions and saw a whole world I had ignored.


James, in his New Testament epistle warns believers to not be so hung up on a person’s appearance. He also notes that no one can completely follow the law. Therefore, we must be merciful, not judgmental. As we show mercy so shall we be shown mercy.


I never thought a great deal about that until I ended up in this dump. It’s a funny feeling to be thanking God for the blessing of losing everything.


At the end of the movie, Forrest is getting married to the woman he loved all his life – Jenny. It’s a bittersweet moment because you know Jenny is dying. Off in the distance you see a man approach, walking toward Forrest. Forrest runs to him and says “Lt. Dan, you got new legs!”(“Titanium; just like on the space shuttle”).


Sometimes it’s not just your legs that get replaced. Sometimes our trials give us a new outlook, a new heart.