I was Blind

I Was Blind



1986:

Marvin Chambliss:  He was from Brooklyn, New York and never did anything for free.  I was in Basic Training; an 18-year-old naive white man, away from home surrounded by many cultures and races.  I was left to my own thoughts and feelings for the first time.  I disliked Marvin very much.  He used to say that because I was not a black man that I was not a real Chambliss.  He was like no one I had ever met before and he bothered me immensely.  Thinking back on it now I can say with honesty that his being black was much of the problem I had with him.  I was the worst kind of racist, I was your friend when I was with you but disliked you behind closed doors.  There were many of us like that and I never saw a problem with it.  Marvin and I were partnered up for a training exercise and to make a long story short, after bivwacking together for more than a week we became and still remain very good friends.  I was wrong about him.  I realized that his being black did not make much of a difference but that being said; I still had not realized that about all black men.



1988:

Ken Anders:  He was from Alabama and probably the best pool player that I have ever met.  He was very forward and had decided that he would make it his personal mission to make my life miserable for the duration of my stay at Ft. Hood, TX.  I did not see that his picking on me was a sign that he liked me and wanted to be my friend.  I especially did not like the nickname that he gave me, which by the way, would stay with me throughout the six years that I was in the Army.  I just figured he was an annoying black man.  Weren’t they all?  I know now that if he had been white I would have seen him in a different light.  I was blinded by his color.  One day while playing ping pong in the Recreation room my wallet was stolen and Ken was so incensed by the theft that he lent me the money to make the payment on my truck.  I was blown away.  I had been told growing up, that black men did not part with money easily.  I was amazed at his generosity.    Ok, I was willing to acknowledge that there were two good black men in the world but my eyes continued to remain closed.  The learning continued but I was not yet ready to open my eyes completely.  They had been closed for 18 years.  As with Marvin I still talk to Ken regularly.  He is one of my very good friends.



1991: 

PFC Dorn:  The Gulf War had just ended and we were in the process of cleaning up the mess we had made of the country of Iraq.  I had been awake for more than thirty-six hours and was asked to drive for some explosive specialists who were needed to inspect some of the many bunkers that had been left by the Iraqi Army.  It would not be a long drive but it would be a hard one.  As young people sometimes do I was packing my gear, cursing, and complaining about how little sleep I had gotten and how unfair it was that I had to pack up and go again without a break.  A man walked into the tent and asked for me.  I looked up and saw PFC Dorn, very tall, very young, and very black, not more than nineteen years old.  With a freshly rested sound in his voice he told me that he would go in my place.  Without hesitation I dropped my gear, told him I owed him one and tossed him the keys to my HUMV.  A friend entered the tent later and asked why I hadn’t left yet.  I replied, “Some boofer came in a said he would do it.”  We both had a laugh and made fun of him for being a dumb ass for volunteering.  Sometime later that day PFC Dorn was killed from an explosion from one of the bunkers.  I did not find out until months later.  When my HUMV was returned no one told me there had been casualties.  During the Gulf War this had been a regular occurrence because of morale concerns.  I knew nothing about it.  I probably would not ever have found out but while on a training exercise in California I spotted a man with a protective mask with PFC Dorn written on the side.  After I told him I knew the guy, he told me what had happened to him.  I held it in until I was alone and then I cried for so long that I ran out of tears.  I found out later that he had been up just as long as I had and had heard my complaining.  He told a fellow soldier that it sounded like I needed a break and volunteered to take my place.  I thought about the name I had called him and the laugh my friend and I had.  The guilt will say with me forever.  It took a while but after a time I began to realize that I had preconceived notions about black and white and PFC Dorn had been far ahead of me in that regard.  He had seen a fellow soldier in need of a break; I had seen a stupid black man volunteering to take my place. 

I called my two friends, opened my heart, and told them the truth about myself.  To my amazement they both already knew what I was.  I couldn’t believe they knew and chose to be my friend anyway. 

Would you like to know who I am?  I have spent many years soul searching trying to answer that question and I would like to say that I am an enlightened, completely different person but am still in some ways the flawed 18 year old I was back then.  I still have my occasional racist flare up.  They are very infrequent but they are there.  However, I am happy to say that I am no longer blind.  Someday I hope to see PFC Dorn again, and if I do, I will thank him for that.