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.  

Ten Years After

As I watched the Mets-Phillies game last night the news broke that Navy SEALS had killed Osama Bin Laden. There are dates we just remember in great detail. For most Americans, 911 was one of those collective dates seared into the nation’s conscience. My life is so much different today from that beautiful September day. Ten years, a lifetime of change.



On September 11th I went to work early as I did any other day. I was conducting a training program in a conference room on the third floor of our corporate offices. It was about 10:00 am; we’d been meeting since 8:00. The conference room door opened and a coworker, a friend, walked in. Ashen faced, she said “planes flew into the World Trade Center. One of the towers collapsed.”


I looked at her for a moment. Her words weren’t registering. Just four months earlier to the day (May 11th), I had been on the observation deck of the towers with my older son, serving as a chaperone to his “TAG” (talented and gifted) class trip to New York City. There was no conceivable way, I thought, that those towers could collapse.


I cancelled the remainder of our training program and headed back to my first floor office. The building was silent. Everyone was glued to their computer screens watching the tragedy unfold.


My voicemail light was flashing. It was my wife. She knew I was scheduled to go to DC later that week and, in her immediate reaction to the attack, couldn’t remember if I’d already left. Her message was simple and very emotional. “Honey, there’s been an attack on New York and Washington. I don’t know where you are. Please call me. I love you. “


I called her and assured her I was fine. I also kept that message. Up until my arrest and removal from my office that message stayed on my voicemail. So many times after that day as my life spiraled out of control, I would return to that message just to hear her say “I love you”.


That night, we had a quiet family dinner. Our older boy was thirteen. He loved hearing about and discussing politics and history. He also had his personal memories of being on top of the trade centers. The attack had a noticeable effect on him. Our younger son was four. He knew things weren’t right, knew something “bad” had happened. But, he was with this mommy and daddy and brother. His world was secure.


Later, my wife and I sat close to each other on our couch. She wept and told me the world our sons were living in would never be the same. “There’ll be war and a draft and “D” is so close to that age. We won’t be able to travel”, she sobbed.


I, on the other hand, was pissed. I hated militant Islam. I was sick of appeasement. I wanted payback. And, I was convinced justice would be done.


Later that night as the emotions of the day poured over us, we made love. In many ways, my wife and I were closer that day than at almost any time in our twenty years together. That day also marked the beginning of the collapse of our relationship. Things began to change between us after 911. Like the towers, our strength, our bond, could not survive the intense heat of what was coming.


Between 1998 and September 2001, I had embezzled less than $150,000; after 911 until my arrest in August 2008, I stole almost $2 million. There was a connection. For a long time I denied it, but there was. I became convinced that we had to destroy evil while I ignored my own misdeeds. She worried about loss of life and lifestyle. She lost respect for me. I became angry with her that she was so quick to dismiss my views.


Then, there was the travel, the gifts, the new everything. I was proving to her that no terrorist, no war could stop us from being happy, having our dreams met. She accepted everything. Our friends accepted my extravagant largesse. But, inside I knew.


I could tell how she felt about me. I never heard “I love you” the way I heard it on the voicemail message. It drove me crazy. What I wanted more than anything was to be told “I love you”. The world was falling apart with anthrax, war, terror attacks. My life was falling apart. Still, I made lamb and crab legs and filets. We ate, drank and were merry while the world, while my life, went to hell.


And, I did stupid things and ordinary things and occasionally courageous things, all in the name of getting my life, my self-respect back. I was so sure what the future held on 911 as I sat in my home comforting the woman I loved more than my own life. I was so sure, yet I was so wrong about almost everything.


I greeted the news this morning with a high degree of ambivalence. In many respects, justice was carried out by the raid in Pakistan. If anyone deserved to die it certainly was Bin Laden. But as I watched the coverage, I couldn’t help but think about my Bible reading this morning.


“Teacher, what is the most important commandment? There are two. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.” I wondered what Jesus would say about the precision strike that toppled public enemy number one.


Like this wonderful country, 911 was a watershed event in my life. Like this country, in the name of right and good (and love), I did a lot of wrong things in the aftermath of that horrendous day. And those decisions had repercussions I couldn’t anticipate.


I lost the woman I loved after 911. It wasn’t her fault. Things could have been different between us, but they are what they are. If she’s happy, then I can be at peace.


And me? This morning I read Exodus 14. The Israelites were at the waters edge. The Egyptian army was bearing down on them. They were afraid and wanted to go back, back to where they came from. Moses called out to God. And God said, “Why do you cry out to me? Tell the people to move forward.”


Move forward. Can’t change what’s happened. Can’t go back. Just trust and move forward. And the sea was parted.