Grieving after Veterans Day

In 1962 when I was twenty-six, the Navy sent me and two other young lieutenants in my field to the University of Michigan for graduate studies leading to a masters degree. We never wore the uniform to class, and so at university I melded into the general population and watched other students agonizing over where they were going to develop careers, most of them yearning for management trainee positions at nearby Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler headquarters; and I remember not understanding, wondering why they would give their lives there when I, perhaps naively, felt such high honor in devoting my life to serving my country. To me, young and innocent, it seemed like choosing between self and others, even between greed and honor. As I completed my degree, the university invited me to stay on in a doctoral program, and the Navy likely would have approved that, but I didn’t ask, being anxious to get back into the service.

This week we observed Veterans Day. Today people call me Father Tom; but the highest and most distinguished honor I have known in my life was serving as an officer of the United States Navy, including sea service in WestPac during the Vietnam War. For a while in my Navy years I was a Department of Defense contracting officer, where I took seriously and to heart the charge of integrity in all that I did; particularly responsibility not only to avoid any conflict of interest, but especially taking care to avoid even any possible appearance of conflict of interest. To have brought shame upon the naval service would have been inconceivable.

It grieves me deeply and personally now, beyond anything I can express or imagine, to see in the news, two flag officers, a rear admiral and a vice admiral, caught up in a bribery scandal associated with their responsibilities to the Navy and to the United States of America. Before anything else in life except husband, father, grandfather, I was and am a naval officer, and it gives me an indescribable sense of shame to see this happen in my service. For some reason, perhaps vanity or pride, I might have expected it anywhere else but never in the Navy. If this were to fall upon me, if I were to disgrace the naval service and my country, there would be no way out of the shame except to end my life. Sadly, I doubt that the officers caught in this scandal will have that grace, courage or sense of honor, and it makes me hope that I am not some relic of a foolish bygone era when nothing meant more than honor and integrity.

During the past year or so, the media have reported several incidents of naval officers being relieved of command for various offenses, moral issues, leadership failure, incompetence, superiors‘ loss of confidence. But until this I’ve seen none for dishonesty, a lack of integrity, a lack of personal honor, a violation of trust, from which there is no way back; and for which now I, even as a priest, say there can be no forgiveness if this is borne out.

Veterans Day brings all this to mind. Unlike many officers and enlisted with whom I served then and with whom I share stories and memories now, I never missed the Navy after I retired. All of my service friends, my Marine Corps friends especially, seemed to have an extraordinarily painful time letting go of all that the Corps had been to them. I didn't miss it, though for six years after my retirement I consulted in Navy and Defense related fields, and taught graduate courses in defense contracting at university, so admittedly it wasn’t a complete break. Several years on, I went to theological seminary, was ordained, and moved along in life without looking back and with no regrets or longings. If I were starting life over I would not change a thing, literally not one second of it, including every day in uniform, even the hardest years away from family with salt spray in the face. And doing it all over, I would hope again to honor the Navy with my service as much as the Navy honored me by letting me serve.

Tom Weller, USN