I am around a half-century old, and as such, was probably in the last cadre of Americans saddled with the notions of American manhood that would have been recognizable to D.H. Lawrence, who once wrote:
“The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic and a killer. It has never yet melted.”
I have come to realize that the notions of what constituted “masculinity” that I was raised on, and which I absorbed from a million TV Westerns and adventure shows, was a fraud, and a terribly destructive one.
I have done too much in my life in a fruitless attempt to live up to a species of manhood modeled in a million ways in my youth — I hunt deer, drink scotch, volunteered for the U.S. military in my youth (like generations of men in my family), and so on.
During my tour in the Army, I got a hint that what I was searching for was an illusion.
When I was fresh out of basic, I had a superior I’ll call Sergeant Williams, who had done a tour in Vietnam. I was telling him one day about my eagerness to see action and so on (I was an especially clueless human being when I was young).
He looked at me a moment and said, “Let me tell you a story.”
He told me a story about when he was a young man in Vietnam, and out on a patrol in the boonies.
His unit took fire from a tree line, and a couple guys were hit. Amid the noise and chaos of the firefight, his platoon sergeant told him to help call in support from the air.
Williams helped mark their position with smoke and held the radio for the guy talking to the planes, and at some point jets came and dropped napalm on the enemy troops in the tree line.
He then spent the next few minutes — minutes, he said, he would give anything to forget — listening to men about his age — just as scared as he was, loved by their mothers just as much — burning to death.
Because of him.
With eyes that looked both empty and haunted, Sgt. Williams said, “That day gave me some idea of what Hell might be like.”
Clueless, I said, “Yeah, Sarge, burning is a tough way to go …”
He looked at me sharply, and, stabbing his finger into his chest, said: “No, Talbot. I’m talking about the way I felt that day.”
I remember Sgt. Williams, and then I think of John Wayne. Wayne was the quintessential, mythic American male, the man from whom generations of American males took their cue: rough, hard-drinking, stoic, immune to sentimentality. Invulnerable.
But the thing is, John Wayne himself couldn’t live up to his own image — he smoked four packs of cigarettes a day and pounded down enough scotch to put a bison into a coma. He couldn’t do it, either. John Wayne himself couldn’t be John Wayne.
I think there are a million cirrhotic livers, there are millions of ruined lives from men trying to live up to The Myth. And there are veterans sitting in a circle in the VA center holding paper cups of coffee, struggling to come to terms with the consequences of doing what their country told them to do — learning too late that war is not romantic and manhood-affirming, but rather ugly and inhuman. It is death in its essence.
No one knows this better than the soldiers who never got to sit in those circles, because they are present now only in the folded flags on the mantles and in the abiding grief in the hearts of their mothers and lovers and friends.
We American men must be done with that. No more. That mythic American man doesn’t really exist. He never did.
We American men must come to see that invulnerability — living in a ceaseless search for power — makes love impossible, and that love is what makes life worthwhile. It is only when you lower the barricades, admit your weaknesses and allow yourself to be vulnerable that you dispose yourself to love and be loved.
There is a legend that comes down to us from the civil rights movement. During the march from Selma to Montgomery, an old woman, because of her age, straggled behind the main body of marchers. As she passed through a residential neighborhood, she was confronted by a couple of racist men who told her they were going to teach her a lesson about knowing her place, and made it clear that this lesson was going to come from their fists.
She looked up at them with eyes filled with compassion and gently said, “If you are going to beat me, well, I’m an old woman, and there is not much I can do to prevent it. If you don’t mind, though, before you start I would like a few moments to say a prayer for you both.”
She knelt down on the lawn in front of her stunned would-be attackers, closed her eyes and asked aloud that God might bless and heal the hearts and minds of these men, men who were so obviously in such terrible pain.
When she opened her eyes, they were walking away.
Amen, sister. Amen.
Matt Talbot is a writer and poet, as well as an old Benicia hand. He works for a tech start-up in San Francisco.
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Matt: I always enjoy your stuff. Hopalong Cassidy’s simplicity from the 1950’s doesn’t exist either. What do you do at your tech start-up in SF? – pb
Thanks, Peter.
I work in what is called “user operations” which covers the gamut of customer-facing stuff. It’s really a great place to work, and I’m grateful for it.
Matt: Cool on “customer-facing”…Woodie Guthrie as a photo icon is not too shabby either—Arlo may have a copy of my “Laid Off American Man,” somewhere sent to him from Pete Seeger who bought two copies from me way back in 1994 when first recorded–pb
intetesting Matt, especially with so many soldiers returning from combat with ptsd. so important for young men to know feeling emotion does not make you weak. asking for help is courageous.
I am not necessarily opposed to things Matt is saying, but the problem is trying to figure out what the heck he actually IS saying. Just stringing a bunch of emotionally ladened phrases together does not constitute “writing”.
When I read what he writes, it does not make any sense at all. In fact, this piece is an annoyingly incoherent piece of nonsense. At least someone like Mark Moford in SF Gate is funny and clever in his writing, and in his odd way, makes some sense. And most of the other writers here at the Herald, even if somewhat obnoxious in their opinions, are mostly coherent and make cogent arguments.
But this stuff by Matt Talbot just plain makes no sense at all. What am I supposed to get out of this long string of words posing as an “opinion piece”? Invulnerability is bad? Invulnerability is a “ceaseless search for power”? John Wayne smoked cigarettes? War is hell? Sgt. Williams was responsible for the Vietnam War?All we need is love?
I am here scratching my head, like “Huh? What is this guy talking about?” I mean, it is posted here, so it probably means something. But, dang, it sure doesn’t read that way.
Now, excuse me while I kneel down on the lawn, close my eyes, and say aloud to the Writing Gods to please give Matt some talent — or maybe just sense enough not to embarrass himself publicly by writing this nonsense. I will also pray to the Editor Gods that the editor will be given enough sense not to publish this garbage.
I’m praying to the Comment Gods that they send the trolls back to their caves.
Nice piece Matt, enjoyed it very much.
Man up lady. Go back to your cave and make me a sammich.
Geesh, now even the comments are confusing me. Is RA a woman? Does Mickey D want a sandwich? Is war still hell? Does Benicia have caves somewhere?
Real American — a person is not a troll if he or she finds the article a mismash of overly sentimental garbage and then comments on that.
Or, with our vaulted freedom of speech, are we only supposed to post how much we agree with the author and praise him? Please let me know so that I can be sure to only post comments that you and Matt like.
Dear Beach Bum: Which opens the door very obviously on a comment about your writing ability and if that’s what you call it. But I’ll keep my intent rudeness to myself this time. Have a good day. People have died to assure your freedom of speech. pb
Which has what to do with what? Are you saying that since “people died for my freedom of speech”, as you put it, I should be very, very careful about what I say? Ha, ha. That’s a good one.
BB – based on other comments here, I think it’s safe to say that “incomprehensible to Beach Bum” is not the same thing as “Incomprehensible, period.”
“incomprehensible to Beach Bum” is not the same thing as “Incomprehensible, period.”
OUCH!!!
Matt man’s up and smacks down a good reader.
thanks, Matt, for the peek into the minds of some men from a different generation.
Wondering however if that same destructive tenancy isn’t still inculcated into today’s youth? Might not be a war in foreign lands but rather a war raging on city streets or through a computer screen.
In Mexico, John Wayne is alive and well … and aren’t the trolls still trying to prove their worthiness and demonstrate this same destructive version of manhood?
Matt everything you said sounds good. But my problem is not with Americans it is with the rest of the world. Who tells them how to behave? Castro, Chavez, Stalin, Hitler, The Emperor and far to many more to name. Because of the American John Waynes we are free. We all I assume think war is hell. But just what do our John Waynes in America do? When called out they settle it and many of our John Waynes paid the ultimate price. Pete Seeger, Peter Paul and Mary never won a war with their songs. As good as they were that is all they were. Songs. When bullied at school it usual stops when the person being bullied says I have had enough and strikes back. I care about people all over this world. Just who is going to defend their freedom? I do not believe it will be Syria. That is where John Wayne steps in. Just a personal thought.
“John Wayne himself couldn’t be John Wayne.” As he was pretty much an unconvincing actor, it’s no wonder he couldn’t be John Wayne.
Matt – thank you for sharing your thoughts! I agree with much of your sentiment. I know it’s not important that your Sgt. Williams character is real or not, but if he did exist, his feelings in regard to killing the enemy may have been different if he was not made to feel bad by the unpopular nature of the Vietnam war or if the press had not pandered quite so much to the anti war sentiment of the time.How might a Russian soldier have felt, during the siege of Stalingrad, of seeing German troops burn to death in agonizing pain.
Now, if you should want to attach some credibility to your Williams character, the forward air controller that he would have been communicating with, not the bomber pilots, would have called in a bomb run first to open up the trees or jungle canopy. Then the napalm. And if Williams had been close enough to the ‘enemy’ to hear their screams, he wouldn’t of, because he would have been so close to the strike the bomb blast would have sucked all the air out of his lungs and left him deaf for days.
Thanks’ again – and what is it with people who comment but have to hide behind monikers. Come on boys and girls – grow some gonads.
“How might a Russian soldier have felt, during the siege of Stalingrad, of seeing German troops burn to death in agonizing pain.”
One would hope that if they had the slightest sense of morality, and they were not cyborgs, they at least had some nightmares down the road.
Indeed – one would hope. The next time I have dinner with my old Russian friend Paul I will ask on your behalf as to the nature and subject of his nightmares. And why it is that he has named the steel parts that hold his body together after German field officers.?
No need. I have heard plenty of stories about WWII from both my German mother and father, who were both only in their mid teens when the war ended. Their descriptions of being huddled into crowded bomb shelters and seeing detached limbs of civilians sticking out of the rubble of bombed out cities was enough for me. Your friend is lucky to have survived.
My guess would be, that if my friend has nightmares at all, they would be repeat scenarios involving bureaucrats and immigration to the US. Or the first time his daughter took the car out by herself.Or one of the other Russian wars he fought in. Or upgrading his machine shop to cnc.And yes, being that he fought in three wars, he is certainly lucky to be not only alive, but still relatively healthy for his age.
Thanks for the comment, Richard.
I suspect that even if Vietnam had been more of a World War II type war (in terms of its popular support) Sgt. Williams reaction would have been similar.
Sad coda: He was Quality Management Programmed (essentially, kicked out of the Army) about two and a half years before he would have been able to retire with half his base pay.
Sorry about Sgt. Williams. The army, as you know, tries very hard in its’ training to ‘dehumanize’ the enemy, I guess with the notion that the killing is easier? If the training does not stick – well- good if you want to come out ‘alive’ – bad I suppose if the Army is a career path.