The Nature of A Leader
I shall never forget the day… I put on my brand new uniform, gun belt; badge and all the paraphilia cops wear, and headed off to the police station for the first time. I was new, and had visions of helping people, doing good deeds and saving lives. I had been sworn in and was officially a police officer.
I entered the back door of the police station, went into the squad room and was greeted by the shift commander, who introduced me to the other officers on the shift. I took a seat in the briefing room but did not get to stay long. The dispatched stuck his head through the sliding glass doors that separated his console from the office and said, “Injury T.C. – 10th & “C” Sts.”
Everyone rushed to their feet and out the door. The shift Sgt. told me to get in his car and away we went code 3 – red light & siren. The accident was only a few blocks away so we were on the scene in seconds. Two wrecked cars were setting like giant mangled insects, at odd angles north of the intersection. A third car set somewhere also at an odd angle with the door open. Teenaged boys stood trembling by their friends in one of the wrecked cars, while a lone man in an Air Force uniform lay on the side of the street, his head against the curb where he was thrown by the impact. He was dead.
As the story unfolded it became clear that two cars of teen aged boys were out for a nights fun and decided to drag race north on 10th St. They ignored the stop sign at “C” St., and broadsided the car driven by a young captain from the Air Force, returning home from work. There were no winners in this race, everyone lost everything. The drivers would be arrested for vehicular manslaughter while I accompanied the Sgt. to the home of the Air Force officer to inform his wife and children that their husband and father was not coming home – ever again.
Thus began my journey into a side of life I was not prepared for. I was the son of a pastor in a traditional family where mom was home tending to the various chores that were typical in those days, prior to all of the modern appliances and conveniences. You may remember – prior to packaged prepared foods, frozen dinners, instant rice and potatoes, etc. I was raised with a set of values and a strict regimen of ethical expectations. We associated with people of similar life style and values. Police work was a shock. I was thrown into a cauldron of evil and a responsibility to address it by whatever means I could find, including the law. The year was 1962.
Fast forward to just a few years ago: The Twin Towers in New York City were hardly on the ground and there was a groundswell of patriotism sweeping the nation. Flags were flying, slogans were mounted on cars, billboards and the internet was abuzz with a deep sentiment of anger. Young men were signing up for the military in record numbers, and they included my two grandsons. I know that everyone has to chart their own course and find their own way through life, but I did not want my grandsons to go. I loved them and wanted to protect them. But in the course of things, I remembered my Dad and Mom as I put on my uniform and strapped on the gun, standing with pride in their faces, but with tears on their cheeks. Linda was brave and simply asked me to be careful.
One grandson was soon in San Diego in Marine boot camp and then into specialized training, then off to war. The other was soon to follow in another branch. I cannot even imagine what he experienced. For several years he was not allowed to tell us where he was or what he was doing. As much as that sounded mysterious, important and gave rise to pride in the family, it also told me that he was in the thick of the hordes of hell, facing real evil. He would never be the same. When he final came home, my speculation was true. He had changed. He had not just become a man, he was a man touched by the hand of a grim reality that we all want to protect our children from. He had faced the hellishness of evil in human beings and it had damaged him.
It reminded me of the story of Jacob in the Bible, as he wrestled with the angel asking God to bless him. The blessing was not what anyone would have expected, least of all Jacob. The blessing was a physical injury from which he never recovered. He walked with a limp for the rest of his life. I loved to speak from this text in church and camps as I had opportunity. The message was: Never follow a man who does not walk with a limp. Leaders are not those with the best ideas or the slickest solutions to problems. Leaders age those who have tested their metal up close and personal in the field of battle and have faced down evil as a warrior. Leaders have been there, done that and know the reality of how things are.
I often laugh when talk shows and news panels interview Hollywood celebrities or sports figures, asking them for their view of life, politics and reality. What on earth might we expect them to say? They live in a make believe world, where reality cannot touch them and where their own sense of self is altered by fans, media interviews, easy money and the gaunt pink cloud of fame. They do not know what real people face, where the average family lives or where evil is present on our streets.
Give me a leader who has been tested by the conflict, who has been through the door of tragedy and has had to find a path through the mind field of evil. I will follow such a leader. Everyone else is just window dressing.
I look back over the admired leaders of the past, from George Washington to Abraham Lincoln and I wonder what has happened to us. We have an entire national administration that come to us with no ground of experience in the grim realities of life. They come from philosophical elitist contexts that suppose that their ideology is the answer to the human condition and play their celebrity roles with other people’s money, while dabbling in sexual perversity and a Hollywood atmosphere of make believe. But where, in God’s name is their limp? Where is the experience that brings them a sense of vulnerability and allows them to identify with the people of the nation who wrestle every day with evil?
Give me a man with blood stained cheeks and the sweat of a battle won. Give me a man who has paid the price for and laid his life on the line. Give me a leader who has been on the streets, or in the bunker of hell. Give me a leader who knows what it’s like to not know if he will return home that next day.
The battle will ruin you and it will make you limp, but it will give you the sense of reality that reshapes your politics and gives you a healthy distrust for those who tell everyone what is right for them, but who have not proven their worth in the crucible of pain.
Go forth you politicians who stand on the stages of fame and spout your ideology of your own value. Go forth into hell and if you come back, though you limp because of your journey, then and only then will you have my honor and my vote.
I think my grandsons are far better qualified to lead a nation! Yes, far better!
