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Paul A. Clayton
Physical danger might not be the hardest part of being a solider. A soldier can ...
elPresidente
The US had no business there and EE Times is no place for a platform to worship ...
Our jobs are hard, but they won't kill us
Steve Blank
9/5/2012 1:53 PM EDT
I’ve never been shot at. Braver men than I faced that every day. But for 18 months, I saw weapons of war take off every day with bombs hanging under the wings. It never really hit home until the day some of the planes didn’t come back.
In the early 1970’s the U.S. was fully engaged in the Vietnam War. Most of the fighter planes used to support the war were based in Thailand or on aircraft carriers. I was 19, in the middle of a hot war learning how to repair electronics as fast as I could. It was everything life could throw at you at one time with minimum direction and almost no rules.
It would be decades before I would realize I had an unfair advantage. I had grown up in a home where I learned how to live in chaos and bring some order to my small corner of it. For me, a war zone was the first time all those survival skills came in handy.
But the temptations in Thailand for a teenager were overwhelming: cheap sex, cheap drugs. I saw friends partying with substances in quantities that left some pretty badly damaged. At a relatively young age I learned the price of indulgence and the value of moderation.
While stationed at an airbase called Korat, a new type of attack aircraft showed up – the A-7D Corsair. It was a single seat plane with modern electronics. And it was painted with a shark's mouth. The A-7D joined the F-4’s and F-105 Wild Weasels and EB-66’s reconnaissance aircraft on a very crowded fighter base.
The author near the flight line in Thailand during the Vietnam War (Courtesy of Steve Blank)
It was no party, it was more like a funeral. The A-7 had been shot down over Cambodia. The pilot wasn’t coming back.
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Ray.Anderson
9/7/2012 5:41 PM EDT
I was onboard the USS Enterprise cruising the South China Sea back in 1973-1974. I was an Aviation Electronics Tech (AT2) at the time supporting the comm/nav gear used on the A7E and F14 aircraft. We had at least a couple of the same unfortunate experiences that the author describes.
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WKetel
9/7/2012 8:41 PM EDT
In one recent job interview the manager interviewing me asked about how I handled stress. I responded that I tried to avoid over reacting in high-stress situations. Then he asked what I considered a high-stress situation, and I replied "coming under heavy automatic weapons fire, sir". That ended the questins about stress. Indeed, most things are relative.
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t.alex
9/9/2012 7:15 AM EDT
Inspiring piece of article. Our job is really nothing to make a fuss about.
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KB3001
9/9/2012 12:02 PM EDT
Excellent piece Steve, thanks for sharing.
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Streetrodder
9/10/2012 10:13 AM EDT
Steve;
Thanks so much for the reminder. I had a fairly abusive childhood and managed to rise above it. I still need the reminder that however bad it gets at work, I've been through worse and made it.
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elPresidente
9/10/2012 6:13 PM EDT
The US had no business there and EE Times is no place for a platform to worship war or gullible "heroes". That A7-D was thankfully replaced - "thankfully" because it was another $10M, or whatever, in Vought's pocket.
The "enemy" should have shot down everything and maybe the war would have ended sooner with fewer losses of our sons.
How did crap like this get past your editor? Even your title sucks - more of us have died at our desks from job stress than died in your silly IndoChinese war.
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Paul A. Clayton
9/10/2012 6:25 PM EDT
Physical danger might not be the hardest part of being a solider. A soldier can face great moral stress. Decisions must be made about the use of force often with little time for consideration and often with unclear distinctions between active combatants, enemy collaborators, innocent civilians, and even friendly forces.
Perhaps the hardest moral action would be to disobey an immoral order that appeals to the human sense of revenge.
From Lois McMaster Bujuld's Barrayar: "Any community's arm of force—military, police, security—needs people in it who can do the necessary evil, and yet not be made evil by it. To do only the necessary, and no more. To constantly question the assumptions, to stop the slide into atrocity."
Soldiers also come home to a very different environment that requires different behavior and often lacks understanding of the difficulties.
Death is mainly a problem for loved ones, and losing limbs might not be worse than guilt of great moral failure (or false-guilt like survivor's guilt) or a terrible sense of isolation on returning home.
Becoming an amoral monster might well be a fate worse than death (though even a monster could repent if alive).
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