Foreign Assistance Across the Developing World: A Personal Account of 40 Years

By Tom Kivlan

This book is the story of one man's journey in search of a meaningful life through the promotion of international assistance programs to stimulate economic development and respond to the needs of crisis situations around the world. The story starts at point of entry into the international field through the US military and leads on to graduate studies on development subjects in Australia and India. From there, it provides a first hand look at the inner workings of international assistance programs principally sponsored by the US Government in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe and parts of Asia. Each and every American citizen, who paid federal taxes, participated in these programs which form an important part of the legacy of our nation and people over the last 70 years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483573946

Book preview

BIBLIOGRAPHY

This book is something more than an autobiography. It is meant to be an insight into the inner workings of foreign assistance principally sponsored by the United States Government as provided by an insider who has worked all over the world for development and emergency programs on behalf of the people so targeted. Essentially, my life story is the medium through which insight is derived.

The story begins with my entry into the international field through the US military; an experience which stimulated me to make a longer and wider commitment beyond that of my term of military service. Graduate studies on international development subjects followed in Australia and India. Once these were completed, my career in the international development field was launched and it took me through the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and parts of Asia.

It should also be noted that I only recount experiences which have a bearing on international development and emergency assistance. Accordingly, those parts of my life not relevant to the focus at hand are barely touched upon.

My life began in Washington DC on 7 December 1943 at the old and now extinct Garfield Hospital on the corner of 14th and U Streets. My parents were both civil servants. We are Irish- Catholics who have lived in the US since well into the 19th century. My father believes that his ancestors arrived in the US somewhere around 1815 and worked on canal development projects at different locations. They were probably contract labor hired in Ireland and brought to the US to work specifically on these projects. My mother’s family came somewhat later but well before the turn of the 20th century. Indeed, our family has been in the US for so long that we have lost contact with our relatives in Ireland for at least 60 years. We do not even know what part of Ireland we are from. At this point in time, we are simply Irish Americans and proud of it.

My great grandfather was a Boston policeman in the 1890s. My grandfather was a Boston businessman who, together with his partner, ran a successful business in the manufacture and sale of fruit jars, the precursor of the canning business which took over the fruit jar market sometime in the late 1920s. My mother attended Smith College and then went on to Simmons to receive a Master’s Degree in Social Work. My father attended Boston College and Harvard Law School. Back in the early 1930s, Harvard may not have been quite as competitive as today but it was still an elite university and difficult to enter. My father not only got in but did well in his studies there. Both of my parents were the first in their families to receive a higher education.

After graduation from Harvard, my father practiced law for a private firm in Denver Colorado. Thereafter, he worked in New York for about two years where he met and married my mother. They moved to Washington during World War II where I and my three siblings were born. My father was General Counsel for a number of US Government agencies in Washington over a career which spanned more than three decades. My mother maintained a series of different positions as a social worker at the US Department of Welfare for an equally long period of time.

We lived in a Washington apartment until 1949 when we moved out to Silver Spring, Maryland. I essentially grew up in Silver Spring but never lost contact with Washington since I went back into the city to attend Gonzaga High School which is only a few blocks away from the Capitol building. Gonzaga was founded in 1821 and was the only secondary school in Washington during its early years. Three US Presidents visited the school for different reasons during that period –John Quincy Adams in 1825, Zachary Taylor in 1848, and James Buchanan in 1859. One can derive some insight into the size and level of sophistication of Washington by such visits from sitting US Presidents. It must have been a small and relatively quiet place with little in the way of amenities. At the same time, it was probably a pleasant place to live, as our nation endeavored to grow and expand.

Gonzaga was, of course, run by the Jesuit Order which was founded by Ignatius Loyola in the 16th century. The Jesuits were demanding teachers who worked us hard with six hours of daily instruction and three hours of homework each and every night. We studied history, the sciences, math, and English grammar. In addition, we took four years of Latin to include the original versions of Caesar’s Gallic Wars, the Aneid, and the brilliant speeches of Cicero before the Roman senate.

It was during my time at Gonzaga that John F. Kennedy was elected President of the United States and entered the White House. This election was a particularly significant event for all people in the US of Irish descent. Up until that time, the status of being Irish was not especially appreciated in the US. Kennedy changed that forever. Almost overnight it became trendy and fashionable to be Irish in a manner which has endured long after Kennedy passed from the scene. Myths about the Catholic Church were laid to rest forever. One of these was the belief that the Pope would take over the country under a Catholic president. Today that seems utterly ridiculous but before Kennedy, there were many influential people who genuinely believed in such nonsense.

The change in perceptions about the Irish was never fully understood by the older generation. My father was unable to see it despite his lifelong connection with contacts made at Harvard. He always considered himself a poor Irishman from Southie or South Boston who was never to be accepted by the establishment in the New England area. That was not the case for those of us of Irish descent who were young at the time. All of a sudden the sky was the limit. We could do and be anything that we wanted to do. Even as a youngster of 17 years in 1961, I could sense it, and I felt excited about the possibility of new horizons and opportunities. Whether one liked or disliked his policies or style of government, Jack Kennedy was the source of all that. He rolled back the invisible barriers for the Irish and they stayed rolled back.

Growing up in the late 1950s and early 1960s was not as different from today as people might think. We had all the elements back then which make a modern society gel and come together – popular music, penetrating news, the availability of good literature, spectator sports for wide following, films, and television. All that existed albeit in forms which were not as agile and high tech as today. There was no Internet but one had all the offerings of the new media in more primitive and less convenient forms – 45 RPM records instead of MP3formats, movies in a theatrical environment or on television, literature in book form but available in good libraries, excellent news presentations but only three or four times a day, and a wide variety of television programming but only on three to four major networks.

From Gonzaga, I continued my studies at Georgetown University in the School of Foreign Service, the original school of international study in the US. It was founded by Father Edmund Walsh on or about 1920. By doing that, Father Walsh was a generation ahead of his time since quite a number of Ivy League Universities started schools of international study some 20 to 25 years later. These later schools tended to overshadow Georgetown due to greater endowments and more distinguished faculties. Nonetheless, Georgetown was the first by dint of the vision, imagination, scholarship, and organizational abilities of one Jesuit priest. Moreover, Georgetown still remains a great university in the nation’s capital which has produced a continuing stream of distinguished diplomats for nearly a hundred years.

Even back in the 1960s, the student body of the School of Foreign Service was quite international. There was a large contingent from Latin America. They tended to stick together and I had little contact with them. Today I regret that I did not make a more aggressive effort to get to know them, and learn about their lands and cultures. There were also students from other parts of the world, mostly from countries which were predominantly Catholic.

During my time at Georgetown, there were three future heads of state attending classes there - William Clinton of the US, Gloria Arroyo of the Philippines, and Alfredo Cristiani of El Salvador. Over the course of the late 20th century, the number of heads of state in attendance comes to 12 and includes such leaders as King Abdullah II of Jordan, Ricardo Arias of Panama, Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica and Gala Plaza of Ecuador.

Georgetown is, of course, a university run by the Jesuit order but unlike Gonzaga, I had little contact with them in the classroom – just two years of theology. Apart from that, all my teachers were lay people. Many of them were highly distinguished. That perception is reinforced by the memoirs of former President Clinton who pays tribute to a number of his Georgetown Professors, some of whom I had in class as well.

My time at Georgetown was one of search and aspiration. I did not know what I wanted to do in life and I probed for a better understanding of what the options might be. Despite the pressure of academic life, the university offered an opportunity to think freely and develop my own interests in a manner which was new and exciting. The curricula included history, English literature, geography, and a large dose of economics in different forms. In my third year, I joined Delta Phi Epsilon, a foreign service fraternity which was launched about the same time as the School of Foreign Service. The fraternity was not only a medium for social exchange but for scholarship and diplomacy as well. It sponsored a regular of series of presentations by faculty members and prominent people primarily in government which was greatly expedited by our location in the Georgetown section of Washington. We had, for instance, a US Senator living next to us on Prospect Street and a host of other luminaries in the residential community within a few blocks of the fraternity house.

I graduated from Georgetown in 1965 at a time when war was looming in Vietnam. The military draft was very much in force in those days. My draft board in Maryland summoned me to service about six months before I was due to graduate. I had to beg them to allow me to finish my studies and was granted a postponement of six months but it was abundantly clear that I would have to serve in the armed forces immediately after graduation. That is the subject of the next section of this essay.

In closing this introduction, I want to focus on an experience which all Americans share and that is the celebration of Thanksgiving. It is a uniquely American feast which has its origins in our colonial history. Throughout my younger days, it was a special time. The same routine was nearly always followed. We slept in until mid-morning and had a light breakfast. I and other boys in the neighborhood would meet in a nearby yard and play touch football for two to three hours. It was intense but always fun irrespective of who won. I would then return home, clean up, and put on the TV to watch the Thanksgiving Day football game sponsored by the National Football League (NFL). All this was before the days of the Super Bowl which many people today consider the beginning of professional football as it is currently played. Such perceptions are simply incorrect. The NFL was founded in 1922 and by the late 1950s, it was a highly developed league which was immensely popular and much followed in all parts of the US. The rise of television made it all the more so and a Thanksgiving Day game was nationally telecast. We would sit in front of our TV and watch the great players of the day perform – people like Alex Karras, Otto Graham, Lou the toe Groza, Jug Gerard and perhaps the most iconic of all, John Unitas. Despite his exceptional ability as a player, Unitas was a man of few words and very unassuming about his accomplishments on the gridiron. When he died in 2002, one of his teammates was quoted in the media as saying: Being in the huddle with Unitas was like being in the huddle with God. We fans tended to feel the same way and perhaps even more so.

Towards mid-afternoon, our long-time guests would arrive and the TV would go off. We would all sit in the living room and have drinks. My father served a terrific Old Fashion consisting of bourbon, fruits, and other ingredients. When I grew to be about 17, he would allow me to have one. We would have lively conversation until about 4:30 PM when the Thanksgiving feast would begin and last several hours after which time we youngsters would leave the table and have our own confab. The adults would linger at the table with after dinner drinks and some measure of smoking. The festivities would last until 9:30 or 10:00 PM. It was a grand time every year enjoyed by one and all.

Let us fast forward to the year 2005. The place was Jalalabad, Afghanistan on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. My sister sent me an email which listed some of the dishes which were served in our house every Thanksgiving along with the turkey and other basic furnishings. They included the following:

Turkey, stuffing (with bread crumbs, onion, butter, celery, Bells poultry seasoning), mashed potatoes, side dishes of whole cranberries, winter squash (frozen at grocery store), onions supreme prepared with deviled ham and crushed peanuts on top, Williamsburg oysters baked in cream sauce, sauerkraut, plum pudding flamed in bourbon accompanied by hard sauce and cream, mince pie cooked with brandy and homemade crust, and pumpkin pie.

When I opened my computer and saw the list, I was overcome with emotion. I had not seen or thought of some of these dishes in 40 years or more. It reminded me of home in a special way with all the blessings and goodness to be wrought from living in the land of plenty or the United States of America. Here I was in Jalalabad, a city wracked by war from decades past, a city where nearly everybody struggled to eke out a meager living, and a city where all public infrastructure was in a shambles not only due to the ongoing conflict but the inability of municipal government to provide adequate maintenance. Almost everybody was poor and everybody was hurting. Against this backdrop, the memories of Thanksgiving and days of long ago were heartrending. We were people of modest resources but, living the USA, we had it so good in too many ways to number. Even wealthy persons in a place like Jalalabad would have no concept of the finery of a Thanksgiving dinner. Such goodness was not available there at any price.

I felt emotionally overwhelmed not because I missed that wonderful past or because I suffered from homesickness. Quite the contrary, I was already an expatriate for nearly forty years living in a permanent mode outside the US which I continued to love but felt no desire to return to. I felt moved because my sister’s list of holiday dishes reminded so graphically of how much I had taken for granted when I was young and foolish. I had received so much for so long a time and never knew it. I had spent so much time feeling resentful about material things that I did not have, but felt I should have. Moreover, I was resentful against my parents and other loved ones for not providing these or, at the very least, not providing them in the quantity and quality which I expected. It was all nonsense of course. I was way out of line but it took years to see that and come to grips with it.

That is precisely why I am writing this essay. I am telling the story of how I changed and what changed me but with a particular purpose in mind. I eventually went into the international development field to give some of the goodness that I received back to others. In other words, I felt motivated to do this through a series of experiences which took me all over the world – the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe, and parts of Asia as already noted above. Thus the story that I endeavor to tell is not an autobiography but an attempt to recount what we, as a people and a nation, have done with our international assistance based on my personal experiences managing the distribution of such assistance in different parts of the world. It is not meant to be a comprehensive study nor a definitive assessment. I will leave that to people more astute and learned than myself. Instead I am recounting what I have seen and how I have interpreted what I have seen; this is further embellished by stories given to me from sources which I consider reliable.

Within such a context, the story is not only about me and my efforts. Anyone who has paid taxes to the US Government was and still is a part of the story in a tangible way since the development and emergency programs were mostly financed through public funds. There is, of course, a significant level of private funding to such programs but, in relative terms, it is small compared to that from public sources such as the US Government, other country donors, and multilateral organizations.

I will also talk about tangential issues which have bearing on the general theme. These would include language, health, and culture all of which work to better define the challenges at hand in doing this kind of work and the complexity of finding long-term solutions. A special attempt will be made to comment on the spiritual dimension of the work with particular comment on the influence and reality of Islam. However, comment on religion will be restricted to a separate section due to the inevitable controversy of the issues at play, and impossibility of reaching any kind of a consensus acceptable to a larger audience.

The presentation will be made within the context of each country experience though there are exceptions. Australia is linked with India since my Master’s thesis in the former dealt with a subject in the latter which required visiting the latter. Some country sections are much longer than others since I spent more time in some places and have more to say as a consequence. However, it needs to be emphasized that each country experience is like a different lifetime with substantially different counterparts, environment, and challenges to be faced. To a significant extent, one starts all over each and every time there is a change of country. Moreover, seven or eight months in a conflict zone such as Afghanistan can feel truly like a lifetime since the intensity of experience can change one’s world view as a result of the encounter with different reference points of a fundamental kind.

Lastly, I should mention that I have no photographs to accompany the presentation. At the outset of my career in the international field while still in the military, I took an abundance of photos but as time wore on, I stopped doing so. The novelty of new places and picture taking wears off quickly when one travels for professional reasons. That does not mean that I took no photos. I did so but only in the course of my work to track progress on particular projects after which time the photos went into project files. When exiting a country, it did not occur to me to cull out some of these photos for permanent reference since this book project came about as an afterthought. I did not anticipate writing about my experiences in advance and, at this juncture in time, I can only regret the oversight.

The Marine Corps deserves particular attention in this essay simply because it had such a powerful impact on my life. Up until my time of entry, I was allowed to lead a relatively soft and sheltered existence without the hardships and difficulties which many must face at an early age. All that changed on 11 October 1965 when my father drove me down to Quantico Virginia to start Marine Officer Candidate School (OCS). Rather than wait to be drafted, I had aspired to become an officer and had chosen the Marine Corps for reasons too personal to go into here.

On the way down to Quantico, I barely spoke a word to my father. I was in a state of high anxiety over the challenge that I was about to face. Mainly, I wondered whether I was up to the demands which lay ahead. There was only one way to find out and that was to forge ahead. Upon arrival at the Quantico Marine Base, my father dropped me off, shook my hand, and bid me farewell.

There was no welcome on the base. My fellow candidates and I were not yet Marines and there was no certainty that we ever would be. Processing began immediately. We stood in a long line filling out forms and picking up uniforms and equipment. After an early dinner, we were broken down into platoons and marched to our living quarters which consisted of a squad bay of some 45 to 50 bunk beds. Each one of us had to fit our personal belongings into a footlocker and a narrow cabinet not more than a foot wide and some four to five feet high. I was completely unaccustomed to living in such tight conditions.

Around 7:00 PM, we were called to a meeting in a nearby room by a Marine Captain who was to lead our platoon of officer candidates. His name was Maresco. He came across as a tough Marine officer who was not to be trifled with. He outlined in no uncertain terms what was expected of us during the 10 weeks of officer candidate training. It was up to us to make the grade. He would point the way but it was we who had to respond in an appropriate manner. No slackers would be tolerated. No exceptions to the rules would be granted. His manner of speaking made it abundantly clear that he meant what he said. The presentation made me feel even tenser than I already was. I was to learn later that Captain Maresco was an extremely fair man of the highest integrity, but here he was playing a role which he had to play and he was doing it to the hilt.

That night we prepared ourselves to bunk down for the last time with our hair on our heads and civilian clothes on our backs. About two hours after the lights went out, the roar of a train was heard and our squad bay lit up again almost like daylight for some 5 to 10 seconds as the locomotive rumbled by. I had failed to notice that our squad bay was situated right next to a set of train tracks. Each and every night, two or three trains passed by with the same deafening roar and the illumination effect of its headlights. This made it difficult to sleep since the building shook slightly as the trains passed. It was part of our new environment and one which had to be dealt with.

The next morning, we were off and running. After losing our hair and civilian clothes, we were marched in formation around the main training area where we were given introductions into the nature of what was expected of us in terms of physical standards. We passed by the obstacle course which required one to jump, climb, crawl and roll over ramparts in order to get from start to finish. All of this had to be done in what seemed like an incredibly short period of time – something like 120 to 150 seconds. I quickly made the judgment that I was unable to do it. I felt demoralized and ready to resign on the spot. But somehow I decided to hold on, at least for the moment.

After the orientation, we settled into a routine of physical training and classroom instruction. We not only received technical instruction but a series of lectures on Marine Corps history which had a powerful psychological effect. We saw films of World War II Marines storming the beaches in the Pacific. As I watched these films, I could not imagine how one could conjure up the courage to go into such a line of fire. My emotions were mixed. On the one hand, I felt intimidated and on the other, somewhat inspired by the spectacle. No doubt that was exactly the type of sentiment which our instructors were trying to instill. The films of Korea were just as powerful. There were no beachheads to be taken – just a series of difficult slow maneuvers in weather almost too cold to imagine. There were scenes of Red Chinese Communist prisoners whose feet and hands were in an advanced state of frostbite. The suffering portrayed on those films was immense but, at the same time, the impression of perseverance and determination seemed to come forth and left one with a positive image.

The physical training started to intensify after a few more days and led on to testing modules with respect to such movements as leg thrusts, pushups, and arm pull-ups with hands facing outwards making it more difficult. As a long-time weight lifter, I easily met standards and started to feel a little better about my prospects. That was illusionary since the greater challenges were yet to come. We were merely being broken in and warmed up for something more.

Early in the second week, the fateful day arrived. We were lined up in formation in front of the dining room for lunch or chow hall as it was more commonly referred to. Our sergeant instructor bellowed out, Candidates, no chow today. You are perfectly free to eat if you wish but this is a word for the wise. We are going on a stroll right after lunch. Immediately I felt a hand from behind on my shoulder. It was one of my fellow candidates but someone who had already served seven or eight years as an enlisted man in the Marines. He said, Tom, don’t touch anything to eat – not even a morsel. Have something light to drink and that is all. We are going on a forced march. I did exactly what he said and had only a fruit juice.

An hour later we returned to our squad bay to suit up which included a forty-pound pack and our recently issued rifles. We then lined up in formation and joined other platoons to form a company if I remember correctly. We moved out, crossed the built-up training areas, and entered the Quantico woods which consisted of a large tract of land left entirely in the wild to be used for a broad range of training purposes. The woods quickly turned thicker and harder to traverse but we walked at a fast pace until we reached the foot of a hill. The company was commanded to stop in formation. For the first time, I noticed that a Major by the name of Cantini, a tall thin man, was leading the company. He left such an impression on me that I still remember his name after more than forty years. The Major turned to face us and yelled OCS shuffle. We started up the hill at maximum running speed and maintained it until we reached the summit. By that time, I was gasping hard. At the top of the hill, we slowed down to a walk and descended at a deliberate pace for reasons that were obvious to all. On the downward slope, my legs felt shaky and weak. One had to be extremely careful to avoid rocks and tree branches lying in our path. A misstep on one of those could easily twist or break an ankle or even a leg in a fast and uncontrolled descent. At the bottom of the hill, we increased the pace to a fast walk and quickly we reached the base of another hill of equal size as the first. Once again, the Major bellowed OCS shuffle and we were off again up the hill at maximum speed. I watched the Major going up the hill. He was like a mountain goat gliding over rocks and tree branches at maximum running speed with the greatest of ease. How could anyone do that? It was a wonder to behold. These were the thoughts that passed through my mind at the time as I stumbled and fought to follow this remarkable man.

I did not know at the time that we were on the legendary hill trail which consisted of some six or seven steep hills in a row with a short distance between each. It was a natural obstacle course which had been used to make or break Marine officer candidates for generations past. By the time we reached the seventh and last hill, my lungs were screaming going up the hill and my legs collapsing going down but we were not finished by any means. We reached level ground after the last hill and continued with a fast walk until the inevitable the scream of OCS shuffle sent us running hard again. Periodically, a break of about five minutes was authorized but not more than three of these over the course of the entire march.

Eventually we reached a point where we turned around and started back using the same variations of fast walk to hard run. I felt a sense of dread as I stumbled to keep up just barely hanging on. It looked as if we were returning on the same path upon which the same hills would soon confront us once again. Sure enough, the first hill eventually came in sight and, as we approached, the same shout OCS shuffle. We went up and down again with the same intensity. By the time we reached the seventh and final hill, I was near breaking point but somehow I managed to hold on and finish. We marched into the training area and went straight for our squad bay where I collapsed on my bunk for a few minutes before the next program on our daily agenda forced me to move again. We had traversed anywhere from 10 to 15 miles in something less than two hours over steep terrain.

When I arrived at OCS less than two weeks before, I thought that I was in reasonably good physical condition. That was simply not the case. Though I had trained with weights and done some running, my state of physical readiness was not nearly good enough to excel in the Marine Corps. Moreover, not everybody was hurting. Some of the best college athletes in the country were interspersed throughout my OCS class and I was competing against them. That was a sober realization and particularly so in view of the fact some of these athletes were track and field men who breezed through the worst that the Marine Corps had to offer with ease. They never even broke a sweat, lost rhythm, or ceased to breathe normally. My only consolation was the reality that many of the other candidates were just like me. The majority of us were scrambling hard at this point in the program with much more to go.

In truth, I had never engaged in exercise so intense that any food in the stomach came right up. There were candidates who threw up on the hill trail. It was a new experience to be pushed to such a limit. We were being molded to assume a new role that was strange to everybody in the program. As one experienced former enlisted man told me a few days later, They are not looking for Marines, they are looking for officers. That sent a chill down my spine. Could I qualify? Could I meet these seemingly impossible standards? These were the thoughts reverberating in my brain. In order to lead men in an outfit like the Marine Corps, one had to be at least as physically fit as they and then something more. That was the philosophy.

Over the weeks that followed, the demands were gradually increased. The forced marches came regularly, about once a week. In garrison, we were given evaluations on small pieces of paper once or twice a week written by Captain Maresco. I would receive such an evaluation chit or small paper which enumerated in some detail my deficiencies. At the end, it would often read Candidate Kivlan, you are a disgrace to your platoon. It would be better for you and the platoon if you resigned immediately. In essence, pressure was being applied not only physically but psychologically. I did know at the time that a good number of other candidates were receiving the same kind of thing. There was, however, a positive aspect to all such tactics. After a period of time, one started to become numb to the program. In other words, I began to absorb the barrage of criticism without paying as much attention to it as before.

A breaking point came in the seventh week. I had been troubled for some time by the growing level of inflammation on my tendons on the back of my feet. I had never worn boots in my life and my tendons were not used to the friction caused by the stiff, new leather boots which were part of our uniform. It must be borne in mind that these were not the lighter weight, pliant, and flexible boots worn by the military today. The boots were the old stiff traditional kind which were especially difficult to manage when new. By the seventh week, the inflammation was causing me a great deal of difficulty. I could no longer walk without pain and running caused extreme pain. In truth, I was reaching the point where the swelling caused by the inflammation made it more and more difficult to put my boots on.

I was therefore forced to ask for help at sick bay for the inflammation. The corpsman took one look at my tendons and ordered me to the base hospital. My heart sank. This looked like the end of my candidacy in OCS. I was not particularly happy at OCS but I was not ready to be phased out. Nonetheless, nobody mentioned termination at the time. I packed a few belongings and moved into a hospital ward where a nurse dressed my tendons with a soothing kind of solution and covered them up with bandages.

The following morning, I had a visitor. It was Captain Maresco and he looked grim. After examining my tendons, he said me, Kivlan, you still have to meet standards and pass all the tests. Nothing in that regard has changed. We will give you some time to recover from this and then we will expect you back in the platoon. I responded immediately with Yes Sir, I understand. There was nothing else to be said. Of course he was right. It was jarring to have it reconfirmed in such a manner but he was entirely correct. I expected no more from him. Indeed, I was relieved that I was not being terminated at that time. In truth, I was thankful to be still in the program.

I was put into a room with two older Marine veterans from World War II. They treated me like a boy and this was exactly what I deserved. Nonetheless we got along. We drank coffee together and watched old movies on TV a couple of which were about Nazi Germany. My two roommates had plenty of editorial comment on those. It was a quiet and pleasant time made all the more so at night by the absence of the roar of trains passing by the squad bay. The tranquility was only upset by the inevitable anxiety about what was to happen next.

On the fifth day, the nurse made the judgment that I was fit to return to duty. I was given wrappings to put around my tendons each and every time that I put the boots on. I reported back to the platoon in the afternoon and was immediately absorbed into the ongoing routine.

Over the course of the next few days, I sensed physical changes which left me astonished. I had more energy for reasons that, at first, were not clear. We went on a forced march which did not seem nearly as formidable as the ones before. I went up and down the hill trail with much greater ease and self-confidence. Towards the end of the eighth week, physical testing began to compile scores which would constitute our final grades. A passing score in a matter of only two weeks was necessary to graduate from OCS.

My scores were well above passing and something began to occur to me. My time in the hospital had allowed me to rest up and regain energy lost after seven weeks in the program. OCS was not designed to build one up but break one down in a fashion whereby our mentors could better judge one’s abilities to deal with stress, physical demands, and leadership requirements. I had come back from the hospital with all those abilities restored and indeed reinforced by the conditioning developed in the earlier phase of the program. In short, the tendon ailment had turned out to be a blessing in disguise allowing me down time to recuperate and rejuvenate.

All of this became even more evident when the day came to perform on the obstacle course. I had never been good at that and was somewhat intimidated by it. To my astonishment, I went through the entire course without a hitch and finished some 10 to 15 seconds under the clock. As noted above, I had myself convinced at the outset of OCS that I could not make such a requirement but here I was doing it. That left me not only pleased but somewhat bewildered. It made me ponder about so many other challenges in life which look on the surface to be impossible, but simply are not.

In early December, we all stood tall and received our graduation diplomas. The attrition rate in our class was somewhere between 30% to 35%. It had been a rough ride. I had to struggle mightily to make it. Of course I was pleased and proud but, at the same time, I had plenty of reason to feel humble. I had stumbled through it all and refused to quit but the difference between me and the candidates that did not graduate was small. The margin of success was sometimes razor thin. My only consolation was the reality that many of my fellow graduates had exactly the same experience. No doubt that was the way it was meant to be. There were certainly more successful candidates who made the grade in a more impressive fashion but they were a minority much smaller than the rest of us.

OCS was by no means the end of our training. We continued on at Quantico for six months more. During that time, I was given a military occupational specialty or MOS as they called it. It turned out to be amphibious tractors or as they are more commonly known, amtracks. These are the steel troop carriers which move infantry from ship to shore. They also transport troops and supplies over land once they arrive on shore. It was an interesting MOS and one which I did not really opt for. The Marine Corps allowed us to give three preferences for an MOS. Based on these, we were awarded an MOS taking into account the needs of the Corps.

After finishing up at Quantico, I was then dispatched to Camp Delmar near Oceanside, California for Tracked Vehicle School. Three months later I arrived in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina to assume the duties of an Amtrak platoon commander. We were told in Quantico that we would be leading troops in a short time. My reaction to that was, Who me? I have never led anybody. Here I was in the Fleet Marine Force (or FMF) and, over the course of not too much time, I was to have hundreds of men under my command. Many of these were young and inexperienced. Others were old enough to be my father but that made no difference particularly within the structure of the iron discipline of the Marine Corps. I was the boss and I had to act like one. It was a rude awakening and one which required some fast adjustment.

The routine at Camp Lejeune kept us busy nearly all the time with endless inspections and tactical maneuvers out in the open woodlands surrounding our garrison enclave. One of my principal tasks was to deal with the men that I had under me. There were all kinds of problems which had to be dealt with. Many of these were of a personal nature but they could impact on performance in the unit in a major way. The men in my platoon were often getting themselves into trouble. They would go on liberty and disappear as absent without leave. They would go into nearby Jacksonville, get drunk, and then get into fights which not only hurt themselves but others.

That made it my business and I had to deal with them. I took them aside for special attention and tried to motivate them to adopt a kind of behavior which was in their better interests. The challenge was to get them to see this.

Most of these men were good Marines and good people despite their offenses as defined in the code of military justice. Many of them came from tough inner city backgrounds where poverty and crime were rampant. Others came from rural areas which were equally poor and underprivileged – perhaps even more so since their awareness level of the outside world beyond their local communities was limited. They could be naïve to the extreme. One man, for instance, came to me with an unresolved family problem and asked for my help. He was from a small town somewhere in rural Alabama. His parents had not talked to each other in more than 10 years even though they lived in houses right across from each other on the same street. The young Marine needed the consent of both parents to solve an issue relevant to his military status which is too long to go into here. In order to help him, I telephoned his parents in Alabama which meant talking to one and then the other. In addition, an emissary had to go to one parent and then the other before the cooperation of both parents could be obtained. It was a long, arduous process but we eventually secured the consent of both parents.

Quite a number of the men in my platoon ended up in the brig on a fairly regular basis. I was very much involved in trying to rehabilitate them once they were released. This effort often entailed a good deal of private discussion to help them re-assimilate back into the platoon and make a new beginning.

There was another equally vexing problem. I had men in my platoon who were returning with a wide range of emotional and psychological problems. Many of these men had served well in the war zone but found it extremely difficult to readjust. There was one tough, rangy young man who came from a rough part of Chicago. He had been fighting all his life. He was crack shot with a rifle based on years of experience with firearms of an illicit kind. If my memory serves me correctly, he held off a platoon-sized enemy force of either Vietcong or North Vietnamese regulars with an M60 machine gun and the help of a few wounded comrades. After an initial firefight, he was the only one of his squad left standing and he kept this numerically superior enemy force pinned down for an entire night until reinforcements arrived the following morning. For this stunning performance, he was awarded the Silver Star and, as such, he was one of the mostly highly decorated men on the base of Camp Lejeune at that time. Nonetheless, back in garrison he could not stay out of trouble. He refused to respect and obey noncommissioned officers assigned to supervise his work. He performed badly in inspections of all types. He would go into town and get into fights which landed him in the base brig time and time again. It was my job to deal with him and attempt to lead him out of the difficult circumstances which he had maneuvered himself into. It took an enormous amount of effort on my part to develop rapport with him and start him on the long path of recovery. I never saw the longer term impact of my efforts since he was eventually transferred out of my platoon and I lost track of him thereafter.

The principal difference between me and the men assigned to me in the Marine Corps was one of opportunity. Most of them were left to their own designs at an early age. They received little or no financial support or motivation to obtain education beyond that of a basic level. In contrast, I was given so much in the family environment which I was born into and did nothing to deserve. My parents sponsored everything