When I was in the Army, I was a young 2nd Lieutenant stationed in Panama. I got a platoon after a while and got a Platoon Sergeant a while after that that I really liked. Sergeant Gates. He seemed young. He was an E6, which is a Staff Sergeant, rather than an E7, which most Platoon Sergeants were. He was smart (although he was so cool that you wouldn't think he was brilliant when you first met him). I had just had an E8 Platoon Sergeant for a very short time, Sergeant Messer, who was a lying really stupid arrogant bullying piece of shit. I still remember the only time I almost cried was when I was getting my ass reamed by Captain Toombes over an issue where an official report I had submitted was in error because my piece of shit Platoon Sergeant, Sergeant Messer, had lied to me. I was in a horrible conflict, because on one hand, it was against my style to rat out someone, I simply wanted to go and confront him myself. On the other hand, I was being asked specifically by the Captain about this issue, and I found that I could not tell him the truth. I remember telling Messer later that he lied to me and made me look bad, and I remember it was the only time I ever saw him with any humility. I finally shamed him, because he realized that I knew he was a lying sack of shit, and the only thing I wanted from him was for him to move on so I could forget about him and try to erase the damage he had done to the platoon.
Gates came in after that. Actually, there was a short stint with another Platoon Sergeant, a black quarryman named Sergeant Farmer. I can remember his face, he had been in a horrible accident at some point and his head was dented above his left temple. He was not very bright about a lot of things, like speaking clearly and spelling and writing, but he was a really nice guy, kind to the troops and very good with equipment. Then Gates came in. This was the best thing that happened to me in Panama, having a Platoon Sergeant that knew what to do with the platoon and knew how to play the Army Game. He was married to a Panamanian woman, had two enormous and very scary Rottweilers, and had a tattooed biker past, probably complete with lots of drugs and alcohol. He was funny. He also treated me with a combination of respect and friendship that I appreciated, partly because it was good and right, and partly because it was the first subordinate I had that I both liked and trusted.
Things were always chaotic, confused, and harried back then. I would get rattled, trying to do what was right when the odds against being able to get anything done, much less everything done, much less correctly, approached certainty. When I would get bent out of shape, he used to say, "Don't panic, sir." It was said with a great deal of humor, and although I would not say I was panicking, more like stressing, obsessing, or fretting, the phrase never ceased to make me stop what I was doing and laugh. It was like this perfect antidote to the daily disease that was life in the Army in Panama just prior to Noreiga's downfall and the American invasion.
That's a long lead in to the real story I wanted to tell, but I haven't thought about Sergeant Gates for a long time, and it is fun to recall what a great guy he was.
The real story is about panic. I was listening to an "All in the Mind" radio Australia podcast (rebroadcast) about panic disorders the other day. The gist of the program was looking into panic attacks and panic disorders and the drugs that are thrown at them today. The main person being interviewed was a psychologist that had personally had panic attacks herself and been prescribed Xanex. She actually participated in a clinical trial for the drug and tampered with the results. That part of the interview was a little weird, but mainly the story focused on people prone to panic attacks. Apparently, it feels like you are about to die, and it's a lot more serious than just some person being a drama queen.
I can't relate to that, just like I can't relate to manic depressive disorder. I'm not saying I'm not sympathetic, I'm just saying I haven't personally experienced that particular malady, so I don't know what it's like. Just like I can't relate to childbirth - and never will.
I'm always calm, cool, and collected. I never panic.
OK, that's not true. It's one of those things that you want to believe about yourself, but if you really had to be honest with yourself, you'd have to admit the truth. In this case, I recognize that we as a society value those that can maintain a calm, even in a crisis. I wouldn't say that I panic so much as the fact that I get very irritated, almost bent out of shape. When things aren't right, particularly when things aren't fair, it really bothers me. When bothered, I sometimes expend a lot of energy trying to get things back on track, and/or ranting about what a bunch of shit the screwed up situation is. When in Panama, everything was screwed up all the time. You spent most of the day being somewhere between pissed off and furious about how fouled up things were. What we developed after a while was an attitude of humor about all the crap that was happening. You learned to laugh at everything, because everything sucked.
My brother recently was telling a story about how his boys were complaining about how things were not fair. His response was, "Life isn't fair. Get used to it." Alternately, the soldiers in Iraq come up with slang to describe what a bunch of crap a particular situation is. They've got this great expression: "Embrace the suck": Translation: The situation is bad, but deal with it. These phrases can be found at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7458809 if you are interested.
I was describing the program on panic disorders to my wife, and I started thinking about synonyms and antonyms of panic. This was a useful exercise in thinking about how this flavor or mood infects everyday society. Panic is a form of stress or distress. Panic has a flavor of being completely irrational. Anger isn't the same thing. When soldiers panic in combat, they may retreat or surrender, and it leads to a rout. The opposite of panic would be serenity. If you are calm, cool, and collected, you are as far from panicked as you can get. So what is the secret to serenity. I guess there is this happy balance where you are taking care of business, so you are engaged and concerned, but it's not bothering you. Is this the zen state we are looking for? I know that we tend to think of people like this as cool characters, not just that they keep their cool, but that they are cool.
I guess it doesn't matter if you're happy with what you are doing in life, and you're not driving the people around you crazy.
That's cool with me.
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