Challenging Time

On Father's Day, June 20, 2010, I delivered this sermon at my church, The Universalist/Unitarian Church of the Monterey Peninsula.

Sunday Worship & Celebration

What does ‘Fatherhood’ really mean?

June 20th, 2010

Sermon

Bob Sadler

Bruce Feiler wrote the bestselling book, “Walking the Bible” in which he walked through the actual places where the most famous stories of the Bible took place to explore the deeper truths that those stories don’t always mention.

He became known as the walking author. So, it was rather ironic when Feiler was diagnosed with an extraordinarily rare osteo sarcoma – cancer of the femur. The walking author discovered he might never walk again. Or even live to watch his three-year-old twin daughters grow up. Those were the hardest steps to imagine not taking: pacing with worry during their teenage years; walking them down the aisle; hold the hands of his grand babies during their first steps. After feeling sorry for himself, he decided that even if he couldn’t take those steps, his daughters shouldn’t have to walk alone. He decided to assemble a group of men who could help.

Feiler decided to assemble a group of specific men who he knew could help his daughters understand three things:

- How to live

- How to think

- How to dream

He decided on one friend because he said he would teach his daughters how to plan a trip. “Be a traveler, not a tourist,” he said. “You should approach a trip as a young child might approach a mud puddle. You can bend over and look at your reflection in the water, or you can jump in, thrash around, and see what the water smells and feels like. At the end of their lives, I want to see your daughters covered in mud.”

He asked his literary agent - a broker of dreams in a world where very few dreams came true. This friend said he would teach his daughters to dream, especially when they hit a setback. “Don’t spend your life looking at the wall. Look for the way to get over it, around it, under it, or through it. Whatever you do, don’t let a wall stop you.”

A third told them not to hunt for answers in their lives. “Live the questions. Have patience with the unresolved issues in your heart. Do not seek the answers, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions.”

And he asked his surgeon who told him that the thing he wanted to pass on was the reminder, ‘everyone dies. Whether they want to or not. But not everyone lives. That’s a choice.”

In the end, Bruce Feiler found 6 men who became what, he called, the council of dads. Those figures who would reach out and give his children the moments that revealed the meaning within life.

Isn’t that something all of us should have? Whether our fathers are with us or not? Can’t we all use someone to teach us about living on the level of our dreams?   

I definitely had Council of Dads. I never thought to enlist Dads to a Council. They never had a meeting. They didn’t always know each other, but they acted in ways to fill my deep longing for love, affection, support, and positive attention from males who are a generation older.

There are too many to mention this morning, so let me tell you some detail about just one of those men.

He was an Army Chaplin, a catholic priest, by the name of Father Barker. I met him in April of 1965 in Vietnam. To fully understand the power of his impact on my life, you should understand the circumstances that surround the encounter.

Although my primary job in the Army was to guard the perimeter of our base in the Mekong Delta with my dog, I was also asked to substitute as a helicopter gunner when there was a need. So, once or twice a week, I would replace a gunner who was killed or wounded.

On this particular morning in April, we flew out at dawn with 6 other helicopters in a V formation heading south. We found the village that was a suspected Vietcong ammunition depot. We came in over the village at about 500 feet in formation. We hovered over the village. A Vietnamese interpreter in our lead ship warned the villagers, through a loud speaker, that the village would be bombed and they had 5 hours to get out taking no weapons with them. Below me, people began to scurry around to collect their most important belongings.

We circled the village watching for attempts to remove ammunition.

The first muzzle flash I saw from the ground was below and to my right, in a tree line. Then, the entire tree line was lighting up with flashes and the sound of gunfire was everywhere. I was leaning outside the helicopter firing bursts on the machine gun. Something banged into my back. I turned and saw the crew chief as he fell on the floor next to me holding his bloody face. I dropped down on the floor and cradled his head trying to stop the bleeding. He was still conscious when we landed. Four medics had him out of the helicopter and on a stretcher while the blades were still rotating and blowing dust in every direction. The dust turned to mud on my sweating body and uniform.

The captain decided to refuel while they searched for another crew chief. It might take time. All the crew chiefs were flying already. I was flaming hot with the humidity and adrenaline rush. I headed for the air-conditioned bar and a cold drink. I walked into the bar and the staff told me they were closed. I bullied the bartender for a cold drink and he made me a rum and coke, but he went to the phone and called someone…I assumed the Military Police to get me out of there. I didn’t care. I started the Jukebox and tried to lose myself in the latest Supreme’s hit.

Within a few minutes, there was blast of sunlight that hurt my eyes as the screen door opened and an officer walked into the club.

He was overweight and about 50 with shock white hair. With the bright sun behind him, I couldn’t make out who he was. He headed straight for me. I’d never seen him before. His name was Father Barker, an Army Chaplin with a silver cross on his lapel. “How ya’ll doin today?” he asked in a southern drawl.

“Fine”, I answered.

“Fine? You always look like this?” he asked

“Sorry, Sir. No, we got shot up this morning and I’m going back up in awhile”.

I thought he was criticizing my sweaty uniform and I tried to straighten out my shirt. For the first time, I noticed it was covered with mud and dried blood.

He grabbed my wrist to keep me from straightening out my uniform. He looked at me straight in the eyes. “Slow down”, he said as he firmly grasped my wrist…and then to the bartender, “Gimme a rum’n’coke. Hotter’n hell out there!”

He let go of my wrist, and flipped his hat around on his head so the bill faced backward as if to equalize our status.

“It looks like y’all had a bad mornin’. You OK?”

“Yeh, I’m fine”.

“What happened?”

I told him. He looked pensive but he only stared off into the distance. It was quiet for a few minutes. The air conditioning was beginning to cool the place down.

Father Barker changed the subject, “Did you go to college?”

“Well, I went for one year and then dropped out”, I said.

“Did you like American Literature?” he asked.

“Yeah, I liked a few authors. I liked Hemingway”, I said.

Actually, “The Old Man and the Sea” was the only book I remember completely reading in High School. I had a flashback to my favorite high school teacher, Mr Coogin. He taught me literary words such as metaphor and simile, although I could never remember which was which. I remembered that ‘alliteration’ was a string of words beginning with the same sound…such as, ‘Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers’. I even remembered the term,’ fricative alliteration’, because I thought it was funny that you could string a whole bunch of “F” words together and produce a bawdy phrase that Shakespeare would have liked. I told Father Barker about symbolism, metaphor, and fricative alliteration.

Father Barker looked me in the eye real hard and then looked me up and down. What did he see? It was at one of the lowest moments of my life. I was covered with mud and blood. I was high on my own adrenaline. I had a drink in my hand at 10 in the morning. I was manic and sort of dancing to the jukebox. That’s what was standing in front of him. But, that’s not what he saw. In an instant, he made a decision.

This is what made him a member of my Council of Dads. He tapped into his 50 years of experience and saw past the mud and the blood. He saw past the mania that was my coping mechanism. He saw past the bravado. He saw past the alcohol. He saw past the wise guy attitude about literature. He saw a talented human being. Then, he bet some of his political currency on my future.

“Ah, good!” he said, “I’ve been talking with the Dean of Vinh Long University. He wants a volunteer to teach American Literature to his graduate students. I think you would be a great teacher. It means that you have to teach class every afternoon from 1-4. The University is five miles from the village, and it’s not in secured territory. You have to go unarmed and in civilian clothes.”

“That doesn’t sound too good. Why won’t I be killed on the way over or back?” I asked.

“Well, doesn’t look like y’all gunna to be too safe if you keep going up in helicopters behind a machine gun. You won’t be killed on the way over or back because the Vietcong want to learn English too. Some will undoubtedly be in your class. It’s a price we have to pay”.

As if to remind me of the danger, there was a loud explosion nearby. We looked in the direction of the airfield and wondered what the explosion was but there was no more noise. We went back to our conversation.

Father Barker continued, “Our President has asked us to try to win the hearts’n’minds of the people. This is one of those jobs. I want you to start this afternoon. Now, y’all go over and introduce yourself. I’ll get you off duty. Change your clothes. Bring some books. Try to look more studious than you do at the moment”.

He walked back out the door in a blinding flash of daylight. I never saw him again.

Back at the barracks, there was another officer milling around the bunk across from mine.

In a matter-of-fact voice, he said, “You probably heard the explosion a few minutes ago. Chris Riley was killed in an accident. We’re sending the body back to Saigon for processing. Pack up his gear and his footlocker and bring it down to the runway in a few minutes”.

I had known Chris Riley pretty well. He was a helicopter mechanic. He was from Chicopee, Massachusetts, not far from my hometown. He was a few years older. He had a wife and two kids.

At the pace and deliberation of the honor guard at Arlington, I walked over to his bunk. I turned and looked at the gold-framed photograph on the wall of his wife and two children. Two other photographs flanked the family picture. The picture of his two-year-old son was on the right. His 4-year-old daughter was on the left. Briefly, I felt the need to help raise those children. At that moment, I would have volunteered to be on their “Council of Dad’s” if someone had thought to asked.

I lifted his footlocker onto the bed. I packed his things. I removed towels and carefully wrapped the photographs separately as if I was folding the American flag and put them safely below the t-shirts. I dragged the footlocker out to the sidewalk, loaded it on a jeep, and drove it to the airfield.

There was a dark green body bag on the runway. I placed the footlocker next to the body bag, turned and left… to begin my new life…a life that left the “F” words of the barracks behind and embraced new “F” words, the fricative alliteration of Fitzgerald and Faulkner.

This morning, I salute Father Barker and have to say that his 10 minutes of service on my Council of Dads changed the course of my life…maybe, even, saved my life.

I finished my tour in Vietnam with six months of rich graduate level teaching experience that propelled me to go on to college and become a High School English teacher. Father Barker played a key role on my Councils of Dads, but he was only one of a dozen or so who shaped my life. There was my father, Dick Cowles, Bob Murphy, Charlie Hanscomb, Roy Mansur and Daniel Dixon just to name a few.

Each of these men, unselfishly, gave me something I needed. They were models of commitment, humor, wisdom, joy, discipline and love. No one father can easily provide all of that. The expectation is probably unrealistic. Maybe it takes a Council to father a child.

I believe most of us had a Council of Dads without realizing it.

I believe many of us serve on several Councils of Dads without realizing it.

I’ll give you an example…

In 1986, I was sitting on a Continental Flight from Hartford to Baltimore. Before the doors closed, a young man, probably about 22 years old, awkwardly ambled down the aisle. He was tall, maybe 6’5” and a bit gangly. He grasped a manila envelop with both hands and held it against his chest as if the contents were of great importance. When he reached my row, he stepped in and sat in the middle seat clutching the envelop to his chest.

After wrestling with his seat belt, he asked, “Do you fly often?”

“Yes”, I answered.

“Wow! I’ve never flown before”, he said with great excitement.

I looked at him and said, “Well, now I know two things about you. You’ve never flown in a plane before and you joined the Army this morning.”

He was startled. “Yeah, I did! How did you know?”

“I recognized the manila envelope with your orders. I carried them once myself.”

“Yeah, I signed up for four years...Airborne and Special Forces. I’m headed for Ft Leonard Wood, MO to begin basic training.

He continued, “You fly a lot”. Could you tell me when we reach 3,000 feet?”

“Yes”, I told him, ”I suppose I could”. I leaned over and looked out of the window beyond him. Right about now”, I said.

“Wow! That will be the altitude of my first jump.

“You’ve never had a plane ride and you’re going to jump out of the next flight you take?” I asked incredulously.

“Yup”, he said proudly.

After a brief silence, I probed, “What made you join the Army?”

“Well, I graduated from High School in Chicopee 3 years ago and been installing aluminum windows ever since. You can only do that for so long”. Besides, my father was an Army hero and I want to follow in the tradition”.

He asked me where I served in the army.

“Vietnam”, I said.

“Wow!” you’re lucky to be alive”.

“And your father, where was he?” I asked.

“He was killed in Vietnam when I was about two years old. I don’t remember him. He was in the Special Forces and died in the Mekong Delta”.

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. He died about the time I was there.”

I began to think about the missions to pick up the dead in their dark plastic bags. Maybe I picked up his father. I’d have no way to know. I never knew the names of the soldiers in those bags.

No way to know, of course, but I couldn’t help but take a peek at his manila envelop sitting in the seat pocket in front of him. I couldn’t make out the name on the outside of the envelope.

On the second look I saw that his first name was Michael.

On the third look, I saw that the last name ends in ‘iley’. Michael what? It could be Michael Wiley? It could be Michael Riley? It didn’t ring any bells.

In the silence that followed, punctuated by the sound of a jet engine revving up and then dying down, it hit me!

“Is your last name Riley?”

“Yes, I’m Michael Riley.”

“Do you have a sister about 2 years older than you?”

His head swung around and his eyes opened even wider than they were. He didn’t answer.

“Was Chris Riley your father?”

“Yes.”

I stared at the floor and then at the ceiling of the plane trying to swallow my emotion.

“I knew your father. He lived in a cubicle across from mine for about half a year before he died. He was from Chicopee. He had a wife and kids. The kids were two and four when he died. The younger child must be you!”

I tried, desperately, to get a grip. In 1966, my emotions were safely buried. I wouldn’t have been so affected then. By 1986, my emotional response had returned to normal. My eyes filled up. My throat hurt. My heart beat at twice the normal rate.

I took it in quickly. I was sitting next to Chris Riley’s son about 20 years after his death. His son, Michael, was on his way to basic training…his first day in the Army. His son, with great innocence and enthusiasm, was trying to follow in his father’s footsteps.

Then, I realized that I was in a dilemma. I don’t know what his family told him about his father, but he was under the impression that his father died a war hero. He probably didn’t hear anything until at least 4 years after his father’s death.

Regardless of what he was told, he had a clear idea of who his father was, what he did and how he died. And, it was all wrong. I was OK with that for a moment, but then I thought about the fact that this young man was intent on living up to the image of his father.

Had fate had appointed me, without warning, to Michael Riley’s Council of Dad’s? What council should I give? This young man had just dedicated his life to the myth of his father. Should I tell him the truth? He might be devastated, but I’m afraid he’ll soon try something unnecessarily heroic and be killed. What would his father want me to say?

Before I could decide what to say, he asked, “What was he like?”

“Well”, I said, “I liked him. He was quiet. He was very dedicated to his job. He was head of an avionics unit. He kept the helicopters flying. Any mistake could have cost a lot of lives. He talked, every day about getting back to his wife and kids.”

Michael looked devastated… “He was a mechanic? I thought he was Special Forces”.

I mustered my 42 years of experience and instinct and said, “I think there is some confusion. His rank was called Specialist 4th class. I suppose over time Specialist fourth class sounds something like Special Forces. He had a special skill, but he wasn’t Special Forces.”

“How did he die”? “He pushed a rocket in the pod of the helicopter and it fired accidently, hit him, and exploded. He died instantly.”

I told him about packing the footlocker … about packing the pictures. He told me that his mother took him to the attic when he was 12 and opened the package of his father’s belongings. She showed him the papers, the medals, and then unwrapped the towels around the three pictures...maybe for the first time since I had wrapped them in 1966.

We talked so intently that the wheels touched down in Baltimore before I was aware of landing. Michael was changing planes in Baltimore, so I walked with him to his next flight gate. We continued to talk. I shared all I could about what I learned about surviving the military and surviving a war. Time was up and he headed for the jet way. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Michael, take care of yourself”, I said.

He smiled, turned and walked into the jet way, turned, waved, turned again and disappeared into the darkness. I walked back toward my job in Baltimore. For a few hours, I hadn’t thought about work. I had been totally consumed by my job on Michael Riley’s Council of Dads.

Without realizing it, I’ve served on a number of Councils of Dads. I wonder if I can do a better job on those councils. Can I see past the indiscretions of youth? Can I see past the mud and blood? Can I see past the apathy? Can I see the emerging strengths of these young people? Can I express faith in those strengths? Can I invest my political and economic currency in them?

Those are good questions for tomorrow. For today, let’s just honor and celebrate our fathers and those who served on our Council of Dads. Happy father’s Day!

To the Glory of Life!