For the past couple of months, I have been working as a Census Field Supervisor, supporting a team of enumerators who are doing the heavy lifting of door-to-door census-taking for the U.S. Census Bureau.

The census, of course, is explicitly required by the United States Constitution, so it is obviously an important project. Every employee took an oath to support the constitution and to protect the confidentiality of any information collected.

While none of the enumerators I support have been assaulted, pretty much all of them have been insulted, harassed, yelled at, ignored, and treated with undeserved discourtesy by their fellow Americans.

And really, not just by their fellow Americans, but by their actual neighbors. During this phase of the census – called the non-response follow-up operation – enumerators are assigned to visit residences in their own neighborhoods. This increases the comfort level for enumerators, and, theoretically, encourages residents to cooperate. That’s important, because the folks the enumerators are visiting now are people who have already declined to respond by mail, telephone, or online.

While many residents are courteous and some are helpful, a distressing percentage are not. While some people are just rude, and others are justifiably frustrated because they already provided the information – or they believe they did – a fraction overreact wildly, becoming highly agitated at the mere presence of a census enumerator at their door.

It might take ten minutes to answer all the questions on the survey – two minutes if you simply provide the minimum information the Census Bureau needs. But that’s apparently too much to ask of some Americans. Instead, they are happy to harangue an enumerator for ten minutes about the evils of government or they feel compelled to yell, make a scene, and slam the door in their neighbors’ face.

For enumerators it can seem like a masters class in bad behavior.

Well, this is America, and if people don’t want to provide basic demographic information to the Census Bureau to help the nation, no one is going to force them. But, if you don’t want to answer, can’t you at least be civil about it? Do you think your neighbor standing out there, sweating under their mask, is responsible for the things that have gone wrong in your life? Do you think they personally added the census requirement to the constitution to irritate you? Does being discourteous to them put a few extra bucks in your pay envelope this week?

I have no idea if Americans are more discourteous and disturbed now than they were years ago, so you won’t hear me blustering about the decline of America. But regardless of how things were in the past, we can do better now. Its past time we started.

September 17, 2020

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/im-a-census-enumerator-each-person-i-count-feels-like-a-victory/2020/09/16/80a9813c-f847-11ea-be57-

We are currently wading through yet another slimy Trump episode, this time prompted by reporting in the Atlantic that Mr. Trump repeatedly disparaged veterans – including those killed in action – as ‘suckers’ and ‘losers.’

At this time the sources of the information remain unnamed, though several major outlets (including Fox News, the Associated Press, CNN, and the Washington Post) have reported that their sources have confirmed at least parts of the original story. Those sources, however, also remain unnamed.

So, naturally, supporters of the president have been quick to accuse the Atlantic of fabricating the entire story, even though Mr. Trump has in the past very publicly defamed prisoners of war, the parents of servicemembers killed in action, and the retired and active military personnel that served in his administration.

This type of knee-jerk support of a political figure is something we have come to expect, and no one should be surprised when partisans attack the reporter rather than address the substance of the report. But I do feel sad when I hear military officers rush to publicly defend Mr. Trump.

The US military places a very high value on effective leadership. The military services – all of them – teach leadership, train for leadership, mentor young leaders, and evaluate personnel based on their effectiveness as leaders. Service in the US military is perhaps the finest leadership training opportunity available on this planet.

So, it is disappointing that military leaders are so eager to praise and support Mr. Trump, who represents the complete antithesis of leadership as it is practiced in the American military.

The military values of courage, commitment, self-sacrifice, honor, truthfulness, comradeship, and placing the well-being of others before your own mean nothing to Mr. Trump. He demands fealty, yet offers nothing but contempt in return. He spurns advice, refuses to learn anything at all about his job, and refuses to take responsibility for his actions.

He boasts about his support for the military, yet when he lists his own accomplishments he mentions a Veteran’s Administration reform bill signed by his predecessor in 2014 (though Mr. Trump did sign an expansion of it), pay raises which he falsely claimed were the first in ten years but which, in fact, are set by Congress and which have been included in every federal budget for many decades; and an undefined improvement in the Veteran’s Administration which he neither documents nor explains. He did sign budgets that increased defense spending, continuing a trend that began under his predecessor, but it is hardly conceivable that any other Republican president wouldn’t have signed those same budgets and they were passed in Congress with bipartisan support.

Based on his disregard for the well-being of others, his untruthfulness, his refusal to learn the rudiments of his job, his disregard for professional ethics, his disdain for advice from experienced members of the military, his willingness to publicly excoriate anyone who disagrees with him, and his willingness to shift the blame for any misstep to his subordinates, Mr. Trump would almost certainly be removed from any position of leadership within the U.S. military.

If members of the military want to vote for Mr. Trump, that is certainly their right. But it is still jarring to see military leaders heap praise on someone who so completely rejects the values that are the bedrock of our military institutions.

September 7. 2020

“When you are commanding, leading [soldiers] under conditions where physical exhaustion and privations must be ignored, where the lives of [soldiers] may be sacrificed, then, the efficiency of your leadership will depend only to a minor degree on your tactical ability.  It will primarily be determined by your character, your reputation, not much for courage—which will be accepted as a matter of course—but by the previous reputation you have established for fairness, for that high-minded patriotic purpose, that quality of unswerving determination to carry through any military task assigned to you.”

– General George C. Marshall

https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/07/10/trump-draws-stronger-support-from-veterans-than-from-the-public-on-leadership-of-u-s-military/

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2020-08-31/half-of-the-military-disapproves-of-trump-as-commander-in-chief-poll

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/12/03/trump-is-most-anti-military-president-weve-hadand-he-doesnt-even-know-it/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/todaysdebate/2020/05/05/trump-achieves-major-victories-veterans-opposing-view/5173324002/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/todaysdebate/2020/05/05/trump-says-he-supports-troops-his-record-says-otherwise-our-view/4870524002/

This is a Twitter thread from an Army veteran named Charlotte Clymer. It is extremely powerful throughout, and if you are a diehard partisan you can skip the final paragraph and still be moved. Late in my military career I was trained as a Casualty Assistance Officer, which meant that I would have provided direct support to the families of deceased service members. I was never called on to actually provide the service, but the training itself was affecting and if I had performed the task it would have been the most important and honorable event in my career.

Here is Ms. Clymer’s post:

“The straight line distance between Washington, D.C. and Dover, Delaware is less than 85 miles. It takes a helicopter about 40-45 minutes to make the trip. I was 19 years-old, and it was my first time riding a helicopter. I barely remember any of it. I was distracted.

I was more nervous than I’ve ever been in my life about what was to come next, and so, as this Black Hawk floated above the earth with my casket team–me being the youngest and most junior–I could only think: “What if I mess this up? What if I fail? How will I live with myself?”

That’s how it should be in a moment like this. You should be nervous. You should let that sharpen your focus. Because there is no room for error when handling the remains of a service member returning to the U.S. after being killed in combat. You should strive for perfection.

The helicopter landed, and my anxiety spiked. In retrospect, I recall noticing the silence of the rest of the casket team. These were young men, mostly early 20s, loud and boisterous and chests puffed. Now, they were quiet. It was unnerving.

When you’re a new enlisted soldier in an infantry unit–the FNG–you’re treated like you know nothing. Because you don’t. Everyone around you is older and vastly more competent and confident. Yet, in this moment, despite having done this before, they were all nervous, too. Scary.

We were brought into a holding area near the tarmac on Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the remains of service members who have died in a theater of operations arrive on a C-17 transport plane. We rehearsed our steps. And did it again. And then again. No room for error.

The plane arrived. The ramp was lowered. The transfer vehicle that would complete the next leg of the journey was parked. Our casket team was positioned. We were now each wearing ceremonial white cotton gloves we had held under the bathroom faucet. Damp gloves have a better grip.

We’re a casket team, but these are not caskets. They’re transfer cases: rectangular aluminum boxes that bear a resemblance to a crate for production equipment. Yet, the dimensions are obvious. Any given civilian would take only a few moments to realize that’s for carrying bodies.

It’s called a “dignified transfer”, not a “ceremony”, because officials don’t want loved ones to feel obligated to be there while in mourning, but it is as highly choreographed as any ceremony, probably more so. It is done as close to perfection as anything the military does.

I was positioned in formation with my casket team, and I could see the transfer cases precisely laid out, dress right dress, in the cavernous space of the C-17, each draped with an American flag that had been fastened perfectly. I remember my stomach dropping.

There is simply no space for other thoughts. Your full brain capacity is focused on not screwing up. The casket team steps off in crisp, exact steps toward the plane, up the ramp (please, oh god, don’t slip), aside the case, lift up ceremonially, face back and down the ramp.

During movement, everyone else is saluting: the plane personnel, the OIC (officer-in-charge), any senior NCOS and generals, and occasionally, the president. The family is sometimes there. No ceremonial music or talking. All silent, save for the steps of the casket team.

You don’t see the family during this. You’re too focused. There are other distractions. Maybe they forgot, but no one told me there’d be 40-60 lbs. of ice in the transfer case to prevent decomposition over the 10-hour plane ride. You can sometimes feel it sloshing around a bit.

Some of the transfer cases feel slightly heavier, some slightly lighter. The weight is distributed among six bearers, so it’s not a big difference. But then you carry a case that’s significantly lighter, and you realize those are the only remains they were able to recover.

It probably takes all of 30-40 seconds to carry the transfer case from the plane to the mortuary vehicle, but it felt like the longest walk ever each time. The case is carefully placed in the back of the mortuary vehicle, and the casket team moves away in formation.

I don’t know how to describe the feeling after you’re done and on your way back to D.C., but it’s a mixture of intense relief that you didn’t screw up and profound sobriety over what you’ve just done and witnessed. I wouldn’t call it a good feeling. Maybe a numbed pain.

From the outside, the most egalitarian place in America is a military transfer case. They all look exactly the same: an aluminum box covered with the American flag. We didn’t know their names, rank, race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation–none of it. All the same.

Whatever cruel and unfathomable politics had brought all of us to that moment–from the killed service member in the box to those of us carrying it to the occasional elected official who attends to pay respects–there were no politics to be found during a dignified transfer.

The fallen service members I helped receive and carry during this part of the journey to their final resting place were not “losers” or “suckers”. They were selfless and heroic, and I had the honor of being among the first to hold them when they returned home.

There are service members around the world involved in caring for our war fatalities. The mortuary specialists, the casket teams, the family liaisons–so many people who work to ensure that this final act is done with the greatest amount of dignity and honor, seeking perfection.

I suppose the one thing we all took for granted is that dignity would always be affirmed by all our civilian leaders to those service members who gave everything. I never would have predicted any official, let alone a sitting president, would insult fallen service members.

I cannot adequately describe my anger at Donald Trump for being so willing to send service members halfway around the world to die on his own behalf and then call them “losers” for doing so. This coward is unfit for his office and the power it holds. He needs to go.”

September 5, 2020

Though the COVID 19 death toll continues to climb, there are still a few holdouts who remain convinced that the pandemic is some kind of fakery intended to bring down the president.

Which is amazing, since if anyone had a reason for creating a fake pandemic it was Mr. Trump. Elected by razor-thin margins in a few key states, trailing in the polls, with negative opinions of his performance consistently outpacing approval, Mr. Trump needed a way to convince doubtful Americans that he was capable of leading this country.

A nationwide public health emergency would work just fine. After all, nothing brings the people together like a shared crisis.

For Mr. Trump, then, the actual pandemic was an unexpected and undeserved gift. He wouldn’t have to create a crisis or falsify one – his specialties – the crisis he needed was right in front of him. Any third-rate politician would have immediately recognized the potential for even a disinterested and semi-literate president to focus on the virus as a deadly serious public health threat – which it actually is – and to step forward as the leader that would guide Americans through a dark and perilous time.

And the best part for Mr. Trump was that he wouldn’t have to actually do anything. Thanks to decades of work by previous administrations of both parties, as well as by thousands of public health officials, state and local planners, the medical community, and private sector organizations, the United States was well-prepared for this pandemic. Plus, the virus’s origins in Asia gave American officials priceless months to prepare. The administration needed only to give the nation’s highly-capable public health machinery a gentle shove to activate the plans and procedures that were already in place and the professionalism and skill of the public health and medical communities and the resourcefulness and resilience of everyone else would do the rest.

Managing the coronavirus pandemic was never going to be easy. The virus was unknown, and its ease of transmission, multiple health effects, and especially the fact that asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic infected persons could spread the disease for many days without even knowing they have it would have meant that many thousands of Americans would die, even with a well-coordinated and well-resourced response. But that, too would have worked to Mr. Trump’s benefit. The pandemic would have been widely recognized as a real threat, successful containment would have been seen as a significant achievement, and Mr. Trump’s re-election would have been assured.

But, somehow, that’s not what happened.

Lacking any political sense whatsoever, and heartlessly indifferent to the human cost of the pandemic, Mr. Trump responded with denial, lies, inaction, and ignorance. He squandered years of planning and months of preparation time. Worse, he actively impeded the efforts of public health and medical community experts, turning an extremely serious public health crisis into a full-fledged disaster. We’ll never know how many Americans died needlessly because of Mr. Trump’s callous and selfish disregard for the well-being of Americans. But it is clearly many tens of thousands, and the number is growing every day. There can no greater proof of Mr. Trump’s utter unfitness for the presidency.

Now, with election day nearing, Mr. Trump is desperate to deflect attention away from a mishandled pandemic that has killed 190,000 Americans in six months and will likely kill a hundred thousand more.

Incomprehensibly, Mr. Trump’s abysmal performance in response to the pandemic seems not to have hurt him at all among his fervent supporters, many of whom are at high risk for serious complications or even death from the virus. One more undeserved gift, apparently.

September 3, 2020