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Post law-enforcement, I’ve been engaged in a years-long exercise at “uncopping.” This is necessary because living that life — if you were ever any good at it — requires an unsustainable level of vigilance and a willingness to fight or nurse on a dime that is damaging mentally, physically, and spiritually. To do that job well in the face of a citizenry that almost universally, and simultaneously, cares nothing about the job and despises the people who do it, requires something of the Tao of Barnes, the “I am reality” foil from Oliver Stone’s ode to poor discipline, a declining empire, and cosmic angst, in the movie “Platoon”.
That effort is necessary for me because I don’t want to end up where some of my colleagues have, which is dead within five years of leaving the job. It’s necessary because, as Stone’s young infantry private Taylor learns, there are always forces at work in the world competing to possess our soul. In Taylor’s case, he’s drawn to the orbit of Sgt. Elias, played with self-consciously cherubic enthusiasm by Willem Dafoe and meant to represent the reluctant warrior, the escapee from Plato’s Cave, who knows the real score and is meant to be loved for his idealism. In his movie, which is mostly bad, Stone sets up a simple binary choice for the audience: Barnes bad, Elias good, with a dollop of America the Monster.
But it really isn’t that simple.
I was having coffee with Jim the other day down in Sisters town, at a fine greasy spoon called The Gallery, which up until a few weeks ago had an excellent collection of old rifles hung up on the walls, and where a regular collection of regular guys gather most mornings to stare down the pies and get their daily dose of good cheer from the gals working the counter. The Gallery serves a heap of great diner food for not a lot of money, if you are into that sort of thing, and they still have a wooden indian in the entryway which is a throwback to an era before every statue of every thing was denounced as a symbol of racism, imperialism, or whatever.
I like to eat there. I like to sit in a semi-comfortable booth with the big picture windows looking out over Cascade Avenue and write, and think, and eat my eggs over medium with hash browns and a fat patty of sausage while actively eavesdropping on the other patrons.
Jim and I talked at length about this site, and what we are trying to do here, and we recognized that we have landed on a potential trap door, which is a tendency to diagnose the ills of the world without providing a prescription to battle the inevitable combat fatigue that strikes every one of us who are trying to live in it.
That conversation caused me to think about Stone’s movie, about some of the more obvious and binary choices we have, and plenty of other things too, but what I landed on was, I realized, the principle problem I’m wrestling with now that I no longer live behind the shield, no longer kick in doors and buttstroke dopers, no longer comfort distraught mothers and maniacal fathers who just lost their infant to SIDS. The problem is how to live in this world as a romantic, an idealist, while accepting exactly what the world is. And not just accepting it, but embracing it. Somewhere in that very difficult formula is where I want to be. It’s a hybrid of Barnes and Elias, not the binary and therefore meaningless symbols meant to school us all up in the genius vision of Oliver Stone.
That’s a much taller order than it would seem. Especially for us romantics.
Over the weekend my wife and I were out in town again, be-bopping through the aisles of our local everything store. Bi-Mart is a kind of hybrid universe where one can buy anything from canning supplies to firearms, and pick up prescriptions or a new flat-screen television. It’s a kind of miniature Costco without the overwhelming impression of having just walked into a predatory Borg Machine. As we were cruising the aisles I saw a friend, snuck up behind him, and put my finger pistol in his back. We had a good laugh and the conversation somehow quickly turned to the idea that we need more Dukes, and less Pukes, in our world. And we really did mean The Duke, as in John Wayne, and it has become something of a running conversation between us now. “Way to be a Duke,” we now say to each other on Bookface.
And there is a particular version of the Duke I appreciate most, which was John Wayne’s turn in “The Shootist.” You might recall that film, Wayne’s last, where in real life he had already lost a lung to cancer, and where in the film he portrays an old territorial gunfighter who settles at a boarding house in Carson City, Nevada, to live out his final days. Predictably, the young man of the house is enraptured by Wayne, the barber collects the clippings from his last haircut, the Sheriff wants him out of town on the next train, and pretty much everybody wants him dead. That’s true even of Lauren Bacall, who runs the boarding house.
There is a scene in the film where Bacall, ever the scold, leaps all over Mr. Books, until finally he looks up from his meal, the vision of a man questioning how he has lived his life on earth, and where his soul might end up, battling the perceptions and the demons and the cancer that wants to possess him, and he tells her quietly, perfectly: “I’m just a dying man afraid of the dark.”
In a sense that is all of us, if we are being honest. Not many of us live the Bushido code, and when we do, it’s a soul-sucking enterprise that has the ironic effect of killing those who believe they are already dead. Bushido is more complicated than that, but I have a sense that it is yet another human attempt to deny some ever-present realities of the world, which is the opposite of the place I want to be. I’ve seen the reality, I’ve been Barnes. But I don’t want that anymore because we are not dead. We are very much alive, and we always have choices.
So that is the struggle. As an antidote and a motivator my wife and I have been trying to build something here on our little place. Call it artificial. Call it a playground. For us, it is a real thing, a kind of spiritual life-raft and firewall all built into one little ten acre place we call the Figure 8, and we have populated our little ark with animals who provide us with, variously, both food and spiritual succor. We are trying, in our own little way, to build a new community against a life that ends like Books’, or Barnes’, or Elias’.
And that’s a good start.
deuce says
Damned good post. Thanks, Craig.
Thanks Deuce. Always a work in progress, but we aim to keep getting better.
Cort Horner says
I’d take one of those T‑Shirts.
Sounds like time for that bonfire we discussed, Rullman. In the spirit of your “DeBarnesification” and with lots and lots of whiskey and Copenhagen.
Way to be a Duke.
Today would be an excellent day for a fire. A might frosty out there in them woods.
John Cornelius says
More Dukes, Less Pukes. I need to have a tee shirt designed around that theme.
Thanks for a great post. They are always evocative, and this one even more than most. Now, I am going to have to think on it, darn you!
Thx John. You should take a pilgrimage to the PNW. We need another bonfire and Beowulf session.
J.F. Bell says
A funny thing happens if you cut and paste characters from Platoon. Leaving out Taylor — essentially a know-nothing blank slate that doesn’t drive the story and barely bears on it all until the end — and the bit players elsewhere in the outfit you get Stone’s interpretation on good vs evil.
So far so good.
Except…let’s do an experiment. Let’s airlift our yin/yang duo into other Viet Nam productions and see what happens. Apocalypse Now, We Were Soldiers, Tour of Duty, Uncommon Valor…whatever. Take your pick.
What do you get?
Barnes is an evil bastard. Across the board. He cannot be disciplined, redirected, or disarmed. Frankly, he’s probably beyond the philosopher’s scale of good or bad. That’s a parlor game for people who live in places with air conditioning and clean running water. But he’s consistent.
Elias doesn’t fare near as well. He’s too buddy-buddy with his troopers to effectively command their respect. He’s a doper and a contrarian. By most any metric outside Oliver Stone’s head he’s a liability and a loose cannon.
Barnes is crazy. Elias is dangerous. Put either one in a unit with halfway decent leadership and we’d have a very different and infinitely more interesting show.
Monsters make for lousy protagonists. Victims make for worse. The hard-edged idealist is better, but…where’s the polemic in that?
As for living in your own world…can you build it? Can you make it stick? Got friends along for the ride? Then piss on the rest of the world. There ain’t enough money in the world to justify wasting time on people with no vision.
Well put. At a well respected military schoolhouse we reviewed Platoon for its many, many problems. But it was useful here, as it is in life. But not on a congratulatory note. Your last paragraph is the essence. Much of it can be built, and most of it can stick. That’s a choice. Character and confidence fill in the blanks and are the same kind of glue that water is as the perfect solvent. That’s the vision, and although money equates to time, it has no role in fixing those things that are most broken.
J.F. Bell says
Saving Private Ryan is another fun discussion.
Good God is Tom Hanks a terrible CO.…
Yeah, but chicks dig his English teacher background. 🙂
RLT says
Wife’s a western Oregonian and my first trip to bi-mart was an eye-opening experience. A modern-day trading post. I suspect it’s the inspiration for the Food n Stuff store on “Parks and Recreation .”
I love that, and you might be right.
tom says
I suppose it could take a long time, perhaps years, to “decop”. my older son is a phoenix cop, 14 years, southside of phoenix. (the historically and still the tough part of town). I see him frequently and keep an eye on his functioning. (he was also in the usmc and did the invasion of geo w bush’s dirty little war in Iraq). military duty and police duty warrant a vigilance to behavior forever I would say. incidentally craig, not to get off subject, but your alma mater is nearby, on the salt river east of the phoenix valley. northern Arizona university, with tonto national forest have applied herbicide to stands of invasive salt cedar and now they are planting willow, cottonwood and mesquite trees to try to regain the historical riparian makeup…….sounds like a good detour for “decopping”? what do you think?
I think its a great detour. The forestry program at NAU was, at one time, one of the best anywhere. I suspect it still is. I really enjoyed my time at that school, even if I did spend too much time riding bucking horses out at Estrella Park. Don’t know if they still do that over there, last time I went through Phoenix had exploded. Hardly recognized the place. And I got zapped by one of those speed cameras, which was funny. I received an hilarious picture of myself speeding down the freeway on the way to a sniper school looking precisely like a mad grinning terrorist of Afghan origin. Some fine local deputies at the school advised me not to pay it, which I didn’t, and it went away. It was a legal question: no proof of service. I believe they have finally done away with it after somebody manning one of those cameras stations got shot up in a drive by. Crazy world.
tom says
craig, not only is northern az univ planting the trees mentioned. they propagate them on campus! one of the nau staff I talked to mentioned they have a project forthcoming where they are gonna xperiement with botanical species that may be more tolerant of global warming! sounds to me like there forestry program is upper echelon.….
Outstanding. That means they aren’t wasting the few bucks of “alumni payback” I send ’em. 🙂
TJ says
Jesus Craig — you might warn “us” the next time before crawling into “our” heads in front of everybody.
Uncopping? — solid. Seriously it’s what we should all do on some levels well before retirement and I couldn’t agree more. Some of us.…
Approximately one year ago pre Christmas we put our beloved Mia the American Bulldog down. We called the vet to our home; all four of her boys and Momma were there and we all convened on the back patio.
She was riddled with cancer and another week would have been unforgivable. Much like your beloved breed my friend, ABD’s shine bright, at full speed until they just burn out.
First shot was the Ketamine and seconds before it settled her down, her arch nemesis the trash truck rolled by and she pulled herself up and rolled into a bark that would turn the hardest criminal the other way.
Laying in my lap; eyes fixed on mine (drooling all over my lap I might add); her boys and my wife laying hands on her and leaning in, she took the last shot. I felt the last breath, watched her pupils change as she died in my arms. “Did she die Dad?”
Might have had a few beers under the willow tree that evening.
A time marker of countless memories, grand adventures and overflowing love from our four legged terror named Mia. My 10 month old, 91 pound ABD Keeva is snoring next to me right now. Terrorizes her boys every day.
Fantastic read buddy and all solid points from somebody who was there and was never afraid to call bullshit. Remember getting in my face at the fair? I had it coming :).
25 years in and a solid 20 years past my physical prime — but some of us will probably take the Bulldog exit not because we don’t have anything else — but because we do.
Well, you double down on it when you start writing about putting dogs down. Miss you bud. Stay safe, you are almost at the end of the tunnel, and the light does shine out here when we let it…the fair, I remember. LMAO. I just wanted to eat a taco with the bikers and such 🙂
…oh, and I forgot to add, my kid has her panel interview with the suits today. We’ve been doing mock boards the last two days over the phone to get her ready, and I think she is — even if I’m not, quite. 🙂
TJ says
They would be lucky to have her! It’s still a worthy endeavor and probably in her DNA. Good luck!
lane batot says
Mia was mighty privileged to have your family as a pack, and kudos to you for including the whole family at the end–so many dogs die alone and confused at the vet(I know all too well, once being the kennel boy at a veterinary that had to hold the dogs for euthanasia when their owners couldn’t bear to.…). It is THE HARDEST part of loving a dog, but it is most definitely your responsibility. I have had to “be there” for SO MANY over the decades(keeping packs of 10 or more at a time), and I’m right in the middle of a depressing die-off right now–4 of my remaining 7 dogs all quite elderly. It never gets easier. But I had a BEAUTIFUL, comforting dream about all that some time ago–I’m sure I mentioned it before on various blogs, but I will relate it again here. In the dream, I was wandering the Winter mountains where I used to live–it was cold and wet and raw, rain dripping from the trees, fog drifting about, but it was incredibly BEAUTIFUL! The raindrops looking like diamonds, and everything crystal clear in this dream. One of THOSE dreams.…I was out calling for and looking for dogs I had not seen for some time–quite worried about them as I traversed the dark, cold forest. They were dogs that, in reality, had all died some time ago. Despite the cold and the wet, I was quite warm and comfortable–I had wrapped all around me a grey cloak that seemed to be made of some kind of condensed mist. It was light and airy and very comforting. After awhile, one canine I was calling(my first wolf dog) suddenly appeared from the misty cloak, his eyes flashing, tongue rolling, as he always looked when excited or happy, and telepathically he seemed to be communicating “I’M HERE! I’m right here!” I called another, and HER head also appeared from this cloak, communicating to me likewise. I called every dog I had ever had, and they ALL appeared. And then I realized, this warming, comforting, misty cloak I had wrapped around me, protecting me and influencing me still, was made up of the spirits of all my dogs. I then suddenly woke up with tears in my eyes, but such a wonderful comfort that dream has been. Mia is NOT gone, just part of your “Spirit Cloak” now.…..
TJ says
Dig it and thanks for that.…
Rick Schwertfeger says
This is a lovely essay, Craig. I’ll be rereading it and thinking, thinking, thinking. Many of us are, like you and Jim, working to create that sweet spot in life. Not just location, place, surroundings, of course. Those are significant components of “a life well lived.” But we’re working on our souls, too.
I have a quote on my desk. It was written by Malcolm Brooks out of Missoula, Montana, about Renaissance Man Stephen Bodio: “A life well lived means striving for the ultimate synthesis — that of the head with the heart — and following your passions, right where they take you. Why live any other way?”
Thanks Rick. When I was younger I had a quote on my desk that was attributed to old Al Einstein. “Try not to become a man of success, but rather a man of value.” It obviously had some impact because I hear it in my head all the time. Especially when I’m just about ready to do something stupid or self-serving.
Ugly Hombre says
God bless all Cops and GI’s most esp the combat vets of both professions.
As for the herbivore creatures who don’t respect them, and munch the grass under their protection.
I won’t go there-
What ever it takes to stay happy, well and strong- GI.
Don’t forget it.
lane batot says
And Craig, you and Jim ARE giving us a“prescription” for dealing with life’s modern difficulties–sharing your efforts and philosophies, and giving others a place to express theirs on your blogs! Your living closer to Nature is NOT artificial, but quite the opposite. Nature, and close association with animals, has a way of teaching one what is REALLY important and REAL in the world, and grounding one like nothing else. I feel most sorry for urbanites with no outlets or understanding of this. In the words of the Lakota chief Standing Bear(again!), “Man’s heart, away from Nature, grows hard”. And it isn’t that Nature can’t be mighty hard and cruel at times, too–but there is PURPOSE there, and beauty despite that. In our cities, there is not so much that is very beautiful.…..As for society’s disrespect and even hate of COPS–well, that is also, I believe, a matter of association and “squeaky wheels”! As Cops, you guys havta deal daily with the dregs of society–that can REALLY get you down quickly regarding humanity! I got a tiny taste of that when I was a Repo-man in an urban setting many years ago(WORST year of my life!) when I had to deal with such dregs–my customers AND bosses! And the “squeaky wheels” are the ones you HEAR all the time–they usually are very much in the minority in actuality. I personally always try to treat cops like I do ANYTHING–on an individual basis. I TRY to be respectful and cooperative–UP TO A POINT–I have had experience with dishonest and abusive law-enforcement officers over the years, but I don’t let the bad ones taint the possibility of good ones. Or the ones TRYING to be good! I think there are more out there respectful and appreciative of cops than is regularly HEARD.…