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Sep. 1st, 2005 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katallisonWell, OK, I will add this ...
When I was a kid, I had a friend whose father had been a Seabee in WWII -- part of that corps of uber-competent guys who could mobilize anywhere, fix/build anything, make stuff *happen*, fast and efficiently. I wish I could remember some of the stories he told (which I, being a dumb kid, paid little attention to), but I remember bits about coming into some tropical island under enemy fire, buildiing a causeway in a day, conjuring up drinking water and sanitation facilities and communications out of nothing. The Seabees weren't fighting soldiers, as I understand it, and they weren't college-educated engineers; they were working guys, common hands-on Joes, whose forte was *get it done,* with efficent and unpretentious cheer, in appalling and unlikely circumstances.
I realize now how deeply those stories, that imagery, saturated into some part of my subconscious, and left me with this naive belief that part of the bedrock of America was the ability to take care of things in crises, to deal and cope, rescue the helpless, solve logistical problems, be fucking *competent.* That that was part of what we were about, deep down. That flicker of faith is one of the many many things that's died this week, and my grief at losing it is just one of the feelings I'm dealing with, along with this huge, huge rage that I don't even know what to do with.
I lost track of my friend and her dad many years ago, and frankly, I kind of hope he's not around right now to see all this, but even at that, I bet he's spinning in his grave.
When I was a kid, I had a friend whose father had been a Seabee in WWII -- part of that corps of uber-competent guys who could mobilize anywhere, fix/build anything, make stuff *happen*, fast and efficiently. I wish I could remember some of the stories he told (which I, being a dumb kid, paid little attention to), but I remember bits about coming into some tropical island under enemy fire, buildiing a causeway in a day, conjuring up drinking water and sanitation facilities and communications out of nothing. The Seabees weren't fighting soldiers, as I understand it, and they weren't college-educated engineers; they were working guys, common hands-on Joes, whose forte was *get it done,* with efficent and unpretentious cheer, in appalling and unlikely circumstances.
I realize now how deeply those stories, that imagery, saturated into some part of my subconscious, and left me with this naive belief that part of the bedrock of America was the ability to take care of things in crises, to deal and cope, rescue the helpless, solve logistical problems, be fucking *competent.* That that was part of what we were about, deep down. That flicker of faith is one of the many many things that's died this week, and my grief at losing it is just one of the feelings I'm dealing with, along with this huge, huge rage that I don't even know what to do with.
I lost track of my friend and her dad many years ago, and frankly, I kind of hope he's not around right now to see all this, but even at that, I bet he's spinning in his grave.