Dad. Vietnam.

In remembrance of my father, Veterans' Day 2013

My father, Lt. Col. Browning H. Gorrell, Jr. (USAF ret., deceased) is the focus of my thoughts on this Veterans’ Day, as in many years passed.  Whether or not he was a true “hero” or “highly decorated” is irrelevant from my perspective.  I believe he was, as much as I conflict (or am conflicted with) the idea of war, the military industrial complex, etc.  

I wish I had a copy of his picture, taken during flight training in about 1965, standing proudly posed at the cockpit of his T-38.  He was very trim, not too tall (5’8” in a family of giants well over 6’).  Given the latest in modern weaponry, his stature was not a challenge, no impediment nor handicap.  He had everything it took to be a pilot, and then some.

When I actually did come along, in January, 1966, the sediment which crept under the front door from summer dust storms was replaced with as much snow from a particularly fervent downfall at our home on Reese Air Force Base, Lubbock, Tx.  Not long after that, the newly minted father was enduring survival training, I believe in Washington or Oregon…as close to jungle conditions as available in the continental US.  A call came to the newly minted mother, inquiring as to what my dad’s choice of aircraft was for his pending Vietnam assignment.

As the family lore goes, Mom was confronted with a question where she had no footing for an answer.  This was a question, and a conversation, for Dad.  Dad, however, was totally off the grid, isolated in some moss-covered, hyper-vegetated world for something like 3 weeks, lacking any of the modern means of communication we take so for granted today.

So, as any savvy person, especially a school teacher who needed to learn the ramifications of her very important choice, she began asking questions.  From the very basic, “What are the choices?” (A: F-4 Phantom or C-123 Provider); to, “What are the planes all about?” (A: The Phantom is a front line fighter with heavy armament, ability to carry bombs and strafe.  The C-123 Provider is a cargo plane, hauling all sorts of stuff everywhere).  

Further:  “What about safety?” 

A-1)  The F-4 Phantom flew at Mach 2.23 (close to 1500 mph), at a ceiling of 60,000 feet with an arsenal of “1 x M61 Vulcan 20 mm Gatling cannon and up to 18,650 lbs. of weapons on nine external hardpoints, including air-to-air missiles, air-to-ground missiles, and most types of bombs.” http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/militaryaircraft/p/f4phantomii.htm

A-2) The C-123 Provider was and remains a workhorse for the USAF’s logistics needs, moving people and material everywhere.  The caller, the story goes, let it be known the plane is unarmed yet has an armored cockpit.  It does not engage in combat.  “Non-combat” untangled from military lexicon, and explained in layman longhand, means avoid combat while transporting men, alive and dead, fuel, munitions, vehicles and whatever else needed to go from point A to B, within a combat zone, to the front lines, hot or not, based out of Da Nang. 
 

Faced with this choice, and the known facts, my mother, very pregnant with my little sister, obviously chose the non-combat, armored cockpit aircraft.  My father laughed when he heard her story, agony, and decision.  The “armored cockpit” turned out to be slabs of steel in the crew’s seats, offering real protection only to their respective asses.  He served in Vietnam from January thru December of 1967.  He arrived home to meet his 7 month old daughter for the first time, and in time to celebrate his son’s second birthday.  On January 30, 1968, as Mom was welcoming the 30^th year of her life, Da Nang was engulfed in the Tet Offensive, the singular largest military offensive of the war thus far, with the US playing defense against 80,000 plus very angry and committed North Vietnamese and VC.  

“The first wave of attacks began shortly after midnight on 30 January as all five provincial capitals in II Corps and Da Nang, in I Corps, were attacked.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tet_Offensive

I only recently, like a few weeks ago, made the connection between Tet and Dad’s deployment in Da Nang.  While watching Full Metal Jacket, there is a scene of “the base” being assaulted during the offensive.  I started to think about the chronology and realized he was either in the middle of it, or very recently departed.

Mind you, Da Nang was not a central part of, nor as severely affected as other cities, during the Tet.  Regardless, Da Nang would be at the very bottom of the list of places I would like to be on January 30-31, 1968.  I watched a video (no audio) of the time before, during, and after the 30^th and 31^st.  The gist of it is a progression from placid outpost, to full on hot combat zone and the fog of war, to a puppy ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jkKDL4smP4 ). If it wasn’t a focal point of the offensive, I would hate to see, much less be in, what was.  As I learned after a conversation with my mother (fact checking), Dad arrived home on the cusp of the offensive and was saved from the assault.

This is not to say he was too far removed from “the suck”.  I have heard several variants, or pieces parts of what seems to be one story, plus collective memory, but have been foiled in online searches for confirmation of the following.

One story my dad told me was about flying with a “cowboy” pilot whose greatest joy was flying above a river, below tree top level.  The rear cargo door, basically an enormous ramp the size of two garage doors total, was lowered.  Attached to the frame of the aircraft was chain, which attached to heavy duty rope, which, in turn, was attached to a swift boat anchor, a substantial, hooked, chunk of steel.  The goal of this excise was trolling for water craft, i.e. junks.  My father was appalled and angered.

Although I was not able to corroborate the fact online, both my mother and I remember my dad being a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross.  I had never heard her story about it until today.  Apparently, in his understated fashion, Dad said they had an award banquet to attend.  He was now in Charleston, SC, soon to embark on the bulk of his career with the C5-A Galaxy.

I’m sure it was full mess-dress.  I’m also sure my mother was outfitted in the best fashion of the time, despite what we might think about it now (love ya, mom).  So the young Captain and his wife did their duty and he received his medal.  No biggie as he played it out.

Over a decade passed before my mother realized the significance of the Cross.  While packing for our departure from Scott AFB, near Belleville, Il., at his retirement, Mom discovered the document which accompanied the award.  It sent her into a tizzie and jives with other stories I had heard from Dad.

Essentially, the document outlined his actions and the events of that day.  He and crew flew a full load of fuel to the front lines, again below tree top level, following the river.  On the trip, they received fire and were hit multiple times.  They flew a second flight, same procedure, same results, yet arriving back at base without having blown up in mid-air.  Incoming tracers (+) 25,000 pounds of fuel (–) any protection from the plane’s skin or framework (=) the likelihood of bad things, very bad things for all aboard.

I remember as a child, amongst all the memorabilia, significant and trivial, mounted on the walls of our home, a relatively small, unadorned plaque.  It was awarded for a “Punctured Provider”.  Obviously, his aircraft was a C-123, aka Provider.  The Punctured bit gave note to the fact he had received fire, with holes in the plane to prove it, but survived.  Dad brushed it off as something that was given him by the guys in his outfit, not a legitimate accommodation.  It isn’t heavy math to think this was in conjunction with the Cross, an award offered on the battlefield, within the squadron, to make light of an otherwise extremely gut wrenching experience.  

Flash forward to 1979.  We lived in O’Fallon, Il.  Dad was stationed at Military Airlift Command Headquarters, Scott AFB, I was 13.  He took me to see Apocalypse Now on the big screen, my first ever R rated movie and the spark for the only real conversation I ever had about the war with my father.

If memory serves, the Iran Hostage situation was in full swing by that point, and I was well aware of a major military base at high alert.  Although I have since studied other instances of such, the state of things on the base was staggering for the young mind.  Even in retrospect, looking at it from on base was more massive than looking at bases post 9/11 from off post.  My mother compared it to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The flight lines were chockablock full of everything, engines running – fighters, the signature C5s, support vehicles, flight crews… To get on base, something which usually required a flash of military ID for the “parent” / driver, one now had to have their associated, active duty, military spouse meet them at the gate before proceeding to the grocery store.

In the theater, having never been to a movie with only my dad, without Mom and Cis in tow, it was immediately a different experience.  What I saw changed me forever, as did reading George Orwell’s 1984 the previous year in 7^th grade.  

There was cussing, subterfuge at the highest levels, much blood, and drugs.  The violence was presented in a way I had never seen before, from the opening scene in the hotel room to the butchering of the water buffalo.  Most riveting, formative, and telling was probably the scene at the bridge where the US builds it every day, the  VC destroy it, and all the while the participants are locked in a, by default, hallucinogenic, totally unimaginable cycle of events.  I was transformed.

Dad was transfixed.  He could not keep his very wide open eyes off the screen.  He seemed clammy, with a hint of perspiration at the brow.  Afterwards, he was a different man, a man I only knew for about half an hour.

He talked about the war, not in depth, but for the only time nonetheless.  He told me about when my sister was born, early morning May 10, 1967, Lakeland, Fl time.  The Red Cross had a very efficient system to alert active duty folks to such events.  Apparently, Dad beat them by several hours, shooting upright in his bunk, in the middle of the night Da Nang time, and announcing proudly, “It’s a girl!” before flopping back to sleep.

Another story was not so cozy.  Dad had always, for good reason, fashioned himself a proficient amateur photographer.  He damn sure acquired the right cameras, mostly in country.  He told me of a crystal clear night, with good light for time lapse shots.  This night, Da Nang was receiving direct hits from incoming mortar fire.  The planes coming and going are likely carrying fuel or ammunition.

A plane had begun its take off.  Along the way, mortars struck the plane and or the runway.  After the crew escaped, thankfully, the whole thing exploded in a multitude of ways, eventually exceeding the runway and penetrating a mine field.  In other words, pyrotechnics for miles.  To bring this particular story to a tight conclusion, I will offer first hand witness of Dad grabbing the kitchen stool, his camera, and taking up watch on top of the station wagon when a tornado warning was issued during our tenure in Oklahoma.  He wanted the shot.  This night on the flight line in Da Nang, he got it.

Back to the thought- I didn’t understand Vietnam when it was happening.  As I became more analytical, as my experience and learning grew, I became increasingly disaffected with the service.   However, I do not want to digress from my account of Dad’s history.

To review:  Dad began to fly, spent time in the war, and returned to do some serious work with cargo planes.  When we moved to Charleston, about 1968, until we moved to Altus, Oklahoma in appx. 1972, Dad progressed thru the C-131 and ultimately to the C5A-Galaxy, the biggest, baddest bird in the sky.

He was trained in Altus, even though still based in Charleston, a member of the 2^nd cadre of pilots trained on the new format, a very select crew.  Ultimately, he would go on to help write the manual on C5 operations while at Military Airlift Command, Scott AFB.  He was flying all over the world, gone for weeks at a time, in both planes.  If memory serves, he flew the first C5 to England, from Charleston, met the Queen and showed her the aircraft.  

While still in Charleston, which would be until around 1972, Dad took me, then less than 7 years old, to the flight line one day for a walk thru of his plane.  Prior to this first hand encounter with the largest flying object known to man at the time, I had seen pictures of the C5 with a Volkswagen Beetle parked next to it for scale.  The Bug was about the size of one engine.

The statistics still ring in my head:  wingspan – close to a football field (223’), maximum payload-142 tons, tires – 52, wiring – enough to encircle the globe several times.  The cockpit, the actual experience of sitting in the Captain’s chair was simply overload, an unbelievable myriad of dials, buttons, and monitors.  Standing in the empty cargo area, where Greyhound buses could be stacked two tall and several deep, was akin to looking at the Grand Canyon for the first time.

On another work trip, Dad allowed me to accompany him to the radar station in Altus, OK.  The scene:  my father was, to be objective, a hot commodity coming up through the ranks in the C5 program.  One Saturday morning, after my bowling league, he said we had to swing by “work” for a minute.  “Work”, to me, was the squadron building on the flight line, where we had Christmas parties and I imagined him spending his time while earthbound.  I was between 3^rd and 5^th grade.

Instead, on a summer day, we traipsed several floors below ground, in an inconspicuous 4 story building, to a very large, very steel door with only a 4”x6” peephole, which was in itself a one way mirror.  A voice came through the grill beneath the apparent mirror, asking for ID to be displayed in the mirror, then password.

To this request for a password, my father replied something like “Christ, Jimmie, just let me in so I can sign form XYZ and be done with it.”  The door swung open.  The room was arrayed with radar monitors and computer equipment (c. 1974) from desk height to ceiling.  I had never seen anything like it and knew the only reason I was allowed in was because I was too young to understand it.  Most present were clad in Bermuda shorts and polo shirts.  I could imagine Hunter S. on duty at such a time.

Here, I will flashback to his early career.  Dad was not originally a pilot, rather a weather person associated with the first space launches.  He would study the conditions and help decide whether or not a launch would be prudent.  He kept his nose for weather his whole life, imparted it to me, which I have imparted to my son.  He would often lament not hanging on to the paper copies of pre-flight clearances for weather, where he and all the original astronauts signed off.  Instead, they were filed in triplicate or pitched.

At one point in Oklahoma, there was a very severe outbreak of tornadoes, second only to the relatively recent outbreak that clobbered Tuscaloosa, Al, Joplin, Mo., etc.  At one point, there were 5 funnel clouds on the ground in our county, and two on the base where we all knew our dads worked.   I had often seen my dad in attack mode- grab the stool, camera, maybe a beverage, go wait for the ultimate twister pic.  This time he was at the flight line.

The elementary school did the unthinkable, closing the school and sending students scurrying in the face of the storms, no duck and cover as was standard operating procedure.   My sister, myself, our friends, headed directly for our house as it was closest to school.  We probably had 10-12 very scared kids hunkered down in the hall during the multiple warnings coming over the radio, with one very nervous woman trying to placate fears.  Mom repeatedly reminded us that our fathers, all of whom were in the same squadron, would sensibly, safely, be in bomb / storm shelters.

That afternoon, the skies turned black and violent, the creek rose at least 10’, and then the sun came out.  Dad pulled in the drive to much celebration.  “You’re alive!” being the common sentiment at home was met with “You wouldn’t believe what I saw!” from the flight line.  He and his comrades were standing on the flight line taking pictures the whole time.  The next day, we visited the flight line, where C5s were spun willy nilly.  Soon, we were presented with 8x10 glossies of the twister from approximately 100 yards away.

My other significant memory from Altus days, probably the first cognizant days of my father’s path and the war, was the return of Vietnam POWs in 1973-75.  I don’t recall the dates, nor do I feel like researching them at this point.  The memory is nevertheless etched in my mind, as crystal clear as any modern means of saving images.

We sat, the four of us, in what had been the garage of our base housing on Lakeshore Drive, Altus AFB.  The “den” was a common style of conversion in which my dad, friends, and myself to a very limited degree, participated.  The scheme was turning at least 2/3rds of the attached garage into living space.  Essentially, it became the TV room.  My participation was mostly plugging in various tools as the “cordless” had yet to arrive.

In this cheaply paneled, yet comfortably outfitted annex, we sat to watch the televised return of POWs.  I can’t remember the year; sources say 1973, gut memory says 1975.  Regardless, we, as a family, watched hundreds of POWs exit planes on the final legs of their transport, on American soil.  My parents were glued to the screen as I have never seen them, before or after.

Among the emaciated, bearded, celebratory survivors were friends. These were friends from pilot training, from all eras pre-war, friends who had been lost for all intents and purposes returning home very much alive.  Later, some of these survivors visited us at home, and the same reactions were universal.  I remember hysterical joy from both parents, tears of relief and latent mourning from Mom and Dad.  This was the first of only two times I ever saw my father cry.  The second, and last, was when his mother died.

Dad’s career continued on the predictable trajectory.  Thru Air War College in 1977/8, and on to MAC Headquarters, at which point, I believe, he did not see any prospect in the requirements for advancement in the services.  At least, he weighed the pluses of continuing vs. the pluses of retirement, at an opportune and necessary point.

Basically, this meant less stick time, more bureaucracy, for exceedingly rapid moves farther abroad in order to climb slowly to General.  He didn't buy it and had a valid out. 

Because of this, the best decision I think my parents ever made, I have known a family “home town”, a place I can claim for generations back, before I started High School.  That in and of itself is a deviation from the military norm which, from my experience, lands families in geography far removed from any historical connection.  Thank God for a family home, and a family I memorialize as good, strong, and moral.

Love ya Dad.  I often wish you were here for counsel.

A rant against easements and herbicide.

I am absolutely sick and tired, not to mention saddened and downright disgusted by the way our utility company and others deal with their easements.  Not only is blanket spraying of vegetation within the easements ugly, it is ineffective, dangerous, and creates massive collateral damage.  For a place with some of the greatest biodiversity on the planet, everyone should be up in arms.

The use of Round-Up and other herbicides / glycophosphates has become a default for brush control.  These substances have their place and I am no stranger to their limited, strategic use.  But the way they are being applied is totally unacceptable.  There are many other avenues to achieve the same end which, with 17 years of professional horticultural experience under my belt, I feel would be effective, more cost efficient and beneficial to the environment.

First, let’s look at what is actually going on here.  Crews (of mostly brown skinned workers) are tasked with spraying the vegetative growth underneath power lines and road easements.  I can’t argue that they don’t need the work, or that they don’t work to achieve the goal set before them at great exertion.  I can, very succinctly, argue there are better, healthier ways to accomplish the same, without exposure to massive exposure to chemicals known to harm mammals (read:  us humans).  

On a recent drive from Sewanee to Monteagle, I witnessed such a worker, with a backpack sprayer, hosing down a 30’ tall tree.  He had no respirator, face mask, safety glasses or other protective gear as required from all herbicide Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) I have ever seen.  When at the Atlanta Botanic Garden, as recommended on the label, and MSDS, of the herbicide we used, I wore a dust mask, Tyvek suit, and goggles.  Yes, spraying for a couple hours in an Atlanta August was a physical trial, but that was what was required.  These guys are out there with no protection from wind-blown chemicals, the plants they wade through which are covered in herbicide, or, likely, any idea of what they are dealing with as far as the chemicals or the plants.

I once owned and lived on a farm in Jumpoff, TN.  The road frontage was along Highway 156, several hundred yard’s worth.  I was trying to operate a sustainable, organic farm.  Immediately upon acquiring the small farm, 22 acres, my wife at the time and I planted a vegetative border of Virginia Pine and Cedar along the road.  The plants were mere seedlings, about 2’ tall, which we dug up from elsewhere on the property.  The screen was about 100 yards long, 30’ deep, designed to insulate our intended home site from the highway.

In this case, TDOT (Tennessee Department of Transportation) was the culprit.  Not only did the backpack equipped warriors spray everything within the highway’s easement, a truck with a high pressure spray cannon came by to insure the job was complete.  The devastation reached far beyond my fence line, impacting many of the trees we had transplanted, as well as the wildflowers I cultivated along the fencerow.  

This total disregard for proper use, as per the label, and private property, first alerted me to the problem.  TDOT provided no satisfaction after many calls and sending photos of the damage.  This carnage plays itself out every year on our fair Mountain through the auspices of Duck River Electric Cooperative.   The guys doing the actual spraying are contractors, obviously with no regard to the label warnings or proper use.

A few years back, TDOT decided it would be a good idea to blanket spray the road sides along Highway 41 from Sewanee to Cowan, TN.  This rocky stretch, leading down from the plateau, was totally devastated.  An outcry from the community, on behalf of a unique ecosystem and incredible display of plants, ended that campaign.  However, after denuding the mountainside, heavy rains washed out the road.  Repairs and a culvert full of rip-rap (an unmanageable ditch filled with large gravel the size of dinner plates) slowed the erosion but the utility has followed up this summer with additional spraying.

Currently, I live on the corner of Prince Lane and Lake O’Donnell Road in Sewanee, Tennessee.  Across the street from my house is a blue line stream, one denoted on topographic maps as a permanent flowing body of water.  It is small, but there.  My first clue to this recent power line spraying was the death of plants at the junction of Depot Branch and Lake O’Donnell Rd.  A Sycamore, about 8’ tall, began to desiccate before the other plants, all right at the culvert which guides the stream under the road.

As with warnings to protect the applicator, any herbicide I have ever worked with has listed on its label and MSDS a proper distance from water for safe application.  The number that sticks in my head is 100’.  The Sycamore was growing on the banks of the creek.  Let us remember the most susceptible members of such a community are our reptilian brethren - salamanders, for which the plateau is renowned, and frogs, too bad for them.  

Where does this water go?  It flows downhill to Lost Creek and ultimately to Lost Cove, a natural treasure and currently protected, at least on the sides of the cove, by conservation easements.  This applies broadly to any area where rip rap is used.  The only way to prevent vegetation from taking over a rip rap area is through herbicide, which inevitably runs off with precipitation.

So, what are the reasons and results for spraying and what are the alternatives?  The only reason is cost effectiveness.  However, results prove this logic terribly flawed.  Attempting to kill a juvenile Tulip Poplar with a spraying, which only reaches the front half, is futile.  Even young pines, less than 4’ tall, are showing only marginal effectiveness.  The tops may be browned out, but much of the tree is left to rejuvenate next year.  I have seen several clumps of trees where a portion of the leaves have been zapped, but the live bits insure a comeback next season.  This is an absolutely futile approach.

My theory on herbicide use, to which I am no stranger, is the size of the plant must first be reduced, i.e. cut to the ground, then, the smaller flush of growth sprayed.  Let’s say there is a growth of brush, mostly an inch or two in trunk diameter.  Once cut down, easily accomplished with a brush mower, regrowth will be small, vigorous, and much more susceptible to herbicide.  This means less herbicide used, all below waist height, and much safer for the applicator.  Many times I have cleared an area with a weedeater mounted brush blade, and returned the next growing season with spraying, quickly killing the intended target.

Only a few years ago, Duck River went along their easement with brush mowers and tractor mounted mulchers to deal with stumps.  Ornamental plants, and those which didn’t pose a threat to the power lines, such as Dogwoods, were spared.  In my mind, such an approach would solve a myriad of problems and enhance the sustainability of easement maintenance.

We in Middle Tennessee are blessed with a fantastic cornucopia of wildflowers in all seasons.  With proper maintenance, and avoidance of herbicide use, this blessing could be accentuated.  First, mechanical controls, instead of chemical, could be applied to eliminate or control woody plants.  This would be financially and labor wise intense on the front end.  Once the woodies, which actually threaten the power lines and road easements are controlled, the areas could easily be controlled with tractors and brush mowers as the road verges are.  With proper scheduling, both such easements could be maintained with fewer mowings while enhancing the natural display of beautiful wildflowers while achieving the same goal of protecting infrastructure.

Bottom line, how should we go about this, O high and mighty critic?  Simply, years 1-3 would control woody plant growth with brush blades or brush mowers.  This mowing would occur in winter, when the workers could most use the employment and the herbaceous plants not be impacted if not enhanced.  Upon the first flush of new growth, the battalions of back pack sprayers are deployed to spray ONLY the regrowth of woody species.  After such a time, an area would be relatively denuded of trees, the true threat.  Granted, some larger specimens might require more equipment.  I have seen massive saws mounted on tractors to clear branches high on trees from power lines.  Such equipment could be employed.

After this stage, workers educated in basic plant identification (who would be higher paid, and lower in number) could spray the regrowth of woody species which would impinge on the power lines or other easements.  For instance, kill oaks, maples, pines, etc. but leave sumac, dogwood, redbud.  This would mean much less labor and use of chemicals with a simultaneous benefit to the non-threatening herbaceous plants, thus benefiting wildlife, general ecosystem health and natural beauty / public enjoyment and worker safety. With time and technology, mowers could accommodate stumps and such (eliminating damage to equipment) to groom the area.  Furthermore, if this grooming were to take place in winter (again when the work would be appreciated), the growth could be knocked down while encouraging herbaceous plants.

Let’s face it – the spraying of easements is ugly, not an ecological / sustainable choice, and dangerous to those who do the work.  Where I live, and most places within 100 mile radius, would benefit aesthetically and environmentally from the natural growth of native plants.  Annual mowings would enhance the proliferation of these plants, save money and carbon emissions in the mowing, and eliminate the hazards to workers.

Please discuss.

The Mountain, thoughts

THOUGHTS AFTER LISTENING TO STEVE EARLE’S “THE MOUNTAIN”

11.25.12

I wasn’t born on this mountain, but I almost died here once, and plan on completing the job.  I was reborn here, if that is any comfort, and I do intend on dying here, dying here while watching our morals descend past our need for fuel.  Men have long plumbed the mountains for energy.  Now, however, it has reached the extreme of cost / benefit :  remove the mountain, if needed, to get the energy.  Damn and blast the community for the dollars the mountain holds. 

I have flown the skies of the South Cumberland, surveying the pillage of hardwoods, or the ill placed white pine.  I have lived among the mountains and the mountain folk of West Virginia, East Tennessee, and the Cumberland, watched, studied, and admired their natural heritage, their basic civil and human rights, their spiritual connection to a place, developed over generations, washed away with the ringing of a cash register.

Most don’t know it, or recognize it at least, that not too long ago, many were killed for their connection to their community and their place to spite the company man’s blood lust.  That’s right, over the last one hundred years, many have died in the crosshairs of the Pinkertons, Wells Fargo agents, over energy. 

Basically, it boiled down to coal vs the company store at that point.  When the scales tipped toward something resembling modern day Palestine, with workers overtly enslaved to the script of the boss man, revolt was quick to follow.  Interestingly, the first to pull their piece was the Pinkerton, in the generic. 

The company men leveled water cooled .50 cal. machine guns, produce from or for WW I, against his own countrymen.  These are stories I dread telling my 9 year old, though I know one day, soon, I must.  Hundreds were killed.  Throw in the Mormons, the tally would crest multiple thousands.  This doesn’t even consider the malice we vented on the indigenous people of our great land.

We think our world so stable, so sophisticated that such could never happen again.  Let us, for example, take the mountain top removal situation.  One simple question:  if an outsider came into your community, displaced millions of cubic yards of your surrounding landscape, would you react?  What if these displacements ruined homesteads that had been in place since the frontier stood locally?  What if these displacements resulted in entire coves or watersheds being engulfed in toxic effluent?  And the outsider had nothing to say for himself other than it was profitable?  Methinks you might blow a gasket.

Mining has never been a pretty opportunity.  In the most stable of situations, entire towns lived by the script, indebted to the company store, and spent their lives underground only to expend their lives with the consequences of black lung and cave ins.

Today, things are more sophisticated.  Mining firms actually try to “do right” in cleanup.  I have seen some top notch efforts first hand.  The rub is every calorie of energy today is worth far more than it was a decade ago, hence the lengths a corporate body (not a human body, i.e. citizens united) will go to in the effort of extracting that calorie, consequences be damned.

The current “tar sands” debate is part and parcel of this new frontier.  Without the free flowing wells and derricks of yore, here is a substance which can render calories, despite how many calories go into the process.  The environmental effects are collateral damage, a cost of doing business. 

“Fracking” presents the same pitfalls.  Where have there been fracking operations where there haven’t been flaming faucets?  I know, that’s extreme, but it seems to me inevitable that fracturing layers of geological formations may allow effluent to flow from one to another, say from a drill site to your water table. 

This all boils down to an overarching question which no one seems to be asking:  AT WHAT COST?  Tomatoes in December, a perfectly groomed lawn, constant expansion of the GDP…does it ever end?  Humans can only go so far before they resolve to deal with the situation without the overburden of law and order.

I’m not calling for armed revolt, far from it, at least right now.  What I do want to see, in my lifetime, is a thorough assessment of what shit costs.  What does it cost for me to have constant access to “fresh” water thru my tap, without government subsidies, recognizing the natural elements which can positively affect that system?  What does a gallon of gas, a product containing some formulation of corn, or an hour of lights for my home cost?

Back to the premise – commodity capitalization leading to outright violence.  The coal miner of old, the in the mine at 8 or 10 years old until he couldn’t breathe, enslaved to the company store for food, shelter, everything, no longer exists in my estimation (I may be dead wrong).  

Again, things are more sophisticated – the workers are better trained, better paid, better cared for, and hence more oblivious to the circumstances at hand.  Granted, that is a rough generalization, but it is basic truth.  If you are operating a multi-million dollar earth moving machine, vs pick and shovel in a mine shaft, you are better off than your predecessors.  Now, it is just harder to see.

Dad isn’t out of work at 40 something due to black lung, the kids are going to college, hell, there’s 401ks and health care including dental.  But at what cost?  Acquiescing to a fog over one’s innate sense of right and wrong seems to be the first casualty.  To those who pick up the peaceful resistance lies a path of red tape, bureaucracy, community resistance and corporate bs.

What is this bs. of which I speak?  How about a positive cash flow, or a quarterly profit, on an investment statement.  Most would see, “OH!!  XYZ Corp. made a huge profit last quarter / year!!  Gotta keep that one.”  So who is XYZ Corp.?   Who is anyone in this acronym landscape?  XYZ is owned by three companies, X,Y, and Z who are in turn owned  by ABC LLC.  Who are in turn owned by…

Bottom line, the investor who glances thru their portfolio noting who makes the greatest profit, and nothing else, furthers the worst behaviors we as a nation face:  natural resource depletion, offshore banking, exporting jobs, you name it..

The traditional working man (or woman, or child) of the past stepped back, said enough, and did something about it.  I have known these people in East Tennessee in the 90s and Nashville in 2011.  We as a nation need to take up the cause.  Do SOMETHING before we are faced with Pinkertons and machine guns.

Please, wake up people.