I arrived at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in 1974, in my 19th year, into the heart of the 82nd Airborne Division at the John F. Kennedy Center. The old timers called Fort Bragg Little Hell. The 82nd Airborne was the first to engage the enemy on land to protect America s freedom. Even in peacetime, there was always a natural tension of readiness and alertness among the troops and around the base itself.
Every other day or so a C-40 transport plane would arrive with a load of America s kids, gaunt, aged, gray-haired beyond their years. Some shielded themselves with a barrier of hostility. They wouldn t let you get close, didn t want to know anyone, didn t want anyone else to die in their arms. Some were hostile, some clearly mentally destroyed, forlorn and withdrawn, being led around like zombies. The first ones off the plane were in wheel chairs or on crutches, missing limbs, faced burned beyond recognition. All would be greeted by mobs of defiant protestors.
Baby killers! the mobs would chant, taunting and spitting at the returning soldiers. The protestors wore flags sewn to the seats of their jeans to demonstrate their disrespect for the American government and our country s policies. The irony was their freedom to protest against the very kids who were risking their lives to defend democracy and the right to protest.
In the midst of the mob were grieving parents, claiming their sons in body bags. Many of the young returning survivors were hooked on heroin or cocaine, not at all coping with the devastating Vietnam experience they had endured. The rejection of their sacrifice by the American people only compounded the residual trauma of the killing fields. I saw the irony. Most of the returning vets were from lower and middle-class backgrounds. Most of the protestors were the privileged and the educated who didn t have to go to war.
The talk on the base was all about John Travolta s Saturday Night Fever. Another John by the name of Elton was making a splash with Kiki Dee in the duet Don t Go Breaking My Heart. Sadly, for me, this was clearly be a place of broken hearts and broken dreams. From my point of view, the returning vets were damaged for life. I didn t see how they would ever get on their feet. More than the loss of a leg, an arm or a fellow soldier, how would they ever heal their broken spirits?
In Little Hell, I was the first white soldier to be phased into an all-black unit. This phasing-in process was part of the military s on-going plan to fully integrate the army. Official desegregation was passed into law in 1948, but that was the end of it. The reality was the races had difficulty working together, so ethnic groups congregated. All white and all black units still existed, and desegregation was still only on paper. When I was in basic training in Missouri, three white soldiers viciously assaulted a black soldier who they refused to allow in their unit. The drill sergeant supported it, and looked the other way. At this point in time, everybody looked the other way. But at the moment of my enlistment, through the encouragement of President Jimmy Carter, the Army official policy intended to make desegregation a reality. I was one of the first soldiers to be involved in the process.
Understandably, many among the African-American troops did not welcome my arrival. In particular, one of my roommates, Marty, had the habit of making whitey his punching bag. He continuously incited others to vent their racial anger as black power and do the same. I remember that into this tense situation, my other roommate, a good friend and fair-minded individual by the name of James Bailey, spoke words of wisdom.
This is the army, and everyone has only one color green. Give him a chance, Marty. James was wiry and tough, with a don t-mess-with-me quality honed in the streets. Marty was a good fighter, but he was softer from privilege in his life, a little more GQ, and he listened to James.
The music that defined my life at this moment came from Pvt. Billingsley, a heroin addict, who always seemed to be playing the Average White Band album, and particularly the single, Play that Funky Music, White Boy. It was either this or Herman Melville and the Bluenotes singing, Oh, mercy, mercy me, things ain t what they used to be.
Billingsley used a three-word response in every situation to sum up the negativity of the environment. This is bullll-shit, man, this is bullll-shit! If I entered the barracks, if it was raining, if it was time for dinner, it was always the same response. Soon everyone would be repeating this mantra, and most would nod their heads and agree, Uh-huh, with vacant, drugged eyes. This was one of the more obvious signs of the depressed and oppressive atmosphere in Little Hell. The sergeants in my unit had just come from long tours of duty in Vietnam. They knew the military from experience. Shortly after my arrival, Second Lieutenant Mayer was put in charge of our unit. He was a thin, white Mormon from Brigham Young University who had only book experience from the ROTC, and had never tasted combat. Since he had to prove his authority over the combat soldiers, he made certain we took orders from him, by making our lives miserable. Tensions were high between the white lieutenant!
and the black sergeants. I was caught in the middle.
Fortunately, this was a time in my life when I was gathering much personal strength through the spiritual path of Zen Buddhism, a path of meditation that awakens the seeker to the timeless present moment. Zen Buddhism teaches the practitioner to value life, because it is transitory; we never know when death may come to call us. So we work diligently in the here and now, where we are, to achieve the enlightened state. The enlightened state is experienced when the practitioner brings all of his or her aliveness and concentration fully to the present moment. This is a way of finding the strength of God within right here, right now.
The requirements of sitting zen, known as zazen, are rather demanding. Zazen is the practice that Buddha used to attain spiritual enlightenment. In zazen, the meditator sits Japanese-style on the heels. However, in this rather difficult practice, the weight of the body is held approximately one-half inch off the heels by the strength of the legs. The chin is perfectly parallel to the floor, and every effort is made to hold a perfectly erect position. You sit absolutely still and keep the attention focused on the present moment, the breath, and nothing else. It is a powerful technique used by many martial artists, as it sharpens the mind and body very quickly. Our days were rather full so I would have to be up by four AM in order to get an hour of zazen under my belt. I wore a T-shirt and combat fatigue pants. It was quite cold, but in zazen you learn to ignore the needs of the body. What is a little cold compared to the goal of liberation and spiritual enlightenment?
Buddha was only a man, and he told himself after he sat under the Bodhi tree that he would not leave that spot for any reason until he achieved enlightenment. If Buddha could do it, there is hope for the rest of us. Buddha said, I am a human being who is evolving spiritually. What I can accomplish, you can accomplish.
One morning, Marty got up to use the restroom. Imagine his surprise to see me sitting so erect and motionless! He freaked out, and kept staring at me. And staring, And staring. I didn t move a muscle. Marty was petrified. He was spooked, as if he was witnessing something demonic. He awakened Bailey to have a look. Bailey explained, He s meditating, man. It s cool, it s what you do in karate.
Thank you, James Bailey. From that moment on, I was known as the meditating martial artist. I was continually giving classes to my fellow soldiers, showing them how to punch, block, and kick. It is amazing that in the West you can get away with being into God and spiritual subjects if you are a good fighter. The contortions one goes through for the Lord!
Bailey started to meditate with me every morning. Then another soldier from Hawaii, a black belt in Tae Kwon Do named Rick, joined us as well. Soon we had five meditating military monks in our zendo. (A zendo is the hall where the group practice of Zen takes place.) Before long, there were too many of us to use the barracks room. We relocated to a recreation hall and practiced around the pool tables. We needed a roshi, a Zen priest, and I was elected to serve in that capacity. I used the pool stick for the kyo-kyaku stick to keep the fires of meditation burning. The kyo-kyaku stick is also known as the stick of compassion. The monk uses it if your posture weakens or you start to fall asleep. He strikes you on either the right or left shoulder. After you are struck, you bow to the roshi in gratitude for keeping you on the path to enlightenment. The loud crack of the kyo-kyaku stick has been known to bring many a monk into spiritual enlightenment. Because the crack happens in!
the moment, it forces you to awaken into the moment. Buddha means the awakened one. To remind others of the transitory moment of life is an act of great compassion. It encourages the experience of the preciousness of life. Further, Zen teaches that we all have the power to turn hell into heaven. Little Hell needed a dose of Zen Buddhism.
Bailey invited our first female practitioner to join the group. This was Margaret, a single African-American mother of two young children. In attitude and physical shape, she reminded me of Whoopee Goldberg, except for her short military haircut. Nobody messed with Margaret. Her will power was too strong. Since the military was strict about weight, she had remarkably trimmed her body for 90 days on nothing but tuna and water. Margaret was a loner, who had clearly had a hard life. She d known plenty of
