I recently finished a three-volume account of the war in the Pacific theater during WWII. The books, Pacific Crucible, The Conquering Tide, and Twilights of the Gods, by Ian W. Toll were a deep dive, with each book being nearly 30 hours in length (I chose to use Audible to listen) which meant it took me nearly 18 months to finish.
Being a WWII Pacific Theater history nerd, I thought I knew every detail of every battle. After all, in my youth I was a modeler and built lots of historically accurate dioramas. Wow was I wrong! I learned things I never knew. I didn’t realize how close we were to losing everything in the months after Pearl Harbor. The Battle of Midway, six months after Pearl Harbor was the turning point, but there were still four hard years of fighting left. Most people think after Midway it was a cakewalk to the final surrender because of our massive industrial capabilities, not to mention Hollywood’s portrayals frame it that way. The historical accounts, found in logbooks, journals, and eyewitness accounts from news correspondents on the battlefield tell the real story. History and time tend to gloss over things. It’s easy to think you would have made different decisions and ended the war right after Midway. But you wouldn’t know the many unknowns that led to those decisions.
It’s tempting to think that AIDS was probably a little overblown, if you think about AIDS at all. We’ve long since developed medications and treatments for it and the stigma and shame around it is not nearly what it was.
But I was around when it was discovered. And I worked in health care as a dental assistant in the Navy. Here’s what I remember. I was stationed over in Australia. It was isolated duty. We NEVER wore gloves when treating patients. Because there were only about 300 active duty stationed there, we knew everyone personally.
There were some news reports coming in about a virus discovered that was causing people to lose immunity. Nobody knew what was causing it, but it seemed to be impacting the gay community and IV drug users. We didn’t think anything of it. We were a world away. Besides, both were illegal in the Navy at the time.
In 1986, one of my shipmates got really sick. We didn’t know what was wrong with him, but he was losing weight and was gaunt. I remember cleaning his teeth. It was a bloodbath. He didn’t take really good care of himself. He was sent to Hawaii, and then on to the mainland. We never saw him again. About six months later, we found out he had AIDS. He died soon after. Now it became real for me. And it was scary. Remember, I cleaned his teeth without gloves. And it was a bloodbath.
When I transferred back to the States in 1989, there were processes to test us annually for HIV in the Navy. We knew who was positive at the Command and kept their dental records in a separate file with a large special stamp that told everyone this person was HIV+. When they came in for treatment, we put them in a separate room, lined everything with plastic and aluminum foil, wore surgical gowns, head and shoe covers, double masks, and double gloves. The patients were ashamed, and we felt sorry for them. But mostly we were terrified of getting a needle stick from them. AIDS was real and it was KILLING PEOPLE!
But after a while, science and medicine and research and studies helped turn the tide. We like to think it happened fast. It didn’t. We like to think we could have cured it quickly. I’m sure we could have, if we had today’s technology. We could have whipped the Japanese with just one Gerald R. Ford Class aircraft carrier, a couple of stealth bombers, and Tom Cruise. The real story tells the real story.
A few weeks ago, my wife’s trainer was railing against COVID protocols that shut his gym down a couple of years ago. He said it was ridiculous that everyone over-reacted and it nearly cost him his business. Of course, he didn’t mention that he managed to collect plenty of Federal money to keep his business afloat anyway.
Barb, who treated HIV+ patients alongside me in Long Beach years ago, reminded him of what we knew of COVID in early 2020. We knew virtually nothing. Nobody did. When the reports started coming in around January of a Corona virus, most people ignored it. I did. But by March, it was real. I remember EVERYONE being afraid. I live in a FIRE ENGINE Red County in a very Red state and in those early months, even here there was little complaining about mask wearing. Streets and stores were empty. My calendar was empty. Each night we would watch the news and hear the death toll ticking upward. Barb had an app that tracked COVID deaths worldwide. She became obsessed with it. It didn’t help that it was a particularly cold and grey winter. One of my most vivid memories was watching news reports from Italy, which was hit particularly hard. People were isolating in their apartments, but a few opera singers would stand out on their balconies and sing arias. It was beautiful and haunting, all at the same time.
By June though, COVID had become politicized and even though it’s managed to the point that nobody is freaking out about the latest FLiRT variant, or even thinking about COVID for that matter, we all tend to look at the past with a view that is clouded by time and possibly political ideology. But if you put yourself back in early 2020, without the benefit of hindsight, or put yourself back in 1985, without the benefit of hindsight, or back to 1942 for that matter, you would realize that things were really bad, and you were probably terrified.
In 2020, I wrote my first blog compilation book The Art of Ambiguity. I realized that my weekly blogs were in a sense a journal for me to keep track of my thoughts. I re-read that book not long ago. Each of those posts were written in a vacuum. I wanted it to be that way. My fears came through in those posts. My uncertainties too. I wrote to encourage others and to find lessons. I hope I did. I certainly learned some lessons. The biggest one? Hindsight gives you the clearest, most inaccurate portrayal of past events. Hindsight is our greatest hits album. In hindsight, we ALWAYS knew AIDS would be cured and COVID would eventually beaten back.
But I didn’t. I thought AIDS and COVID would plague us forever. I was terrified when we launched Operation Desert Storm. When our shipmates began being mobilized, the fear was palpable. When I was notified I was on a deployment platform, heading to be part of the surgical team on the USS Iwo Jima in the Persian Gulf, I threw up. That’s what really happened. I was there. I was a terrified witness. It’s easy to say I was cowardly overreacting to the deployment. After all, the Iraqi army was soundly defeated in what is now looked at as a massive ass whipping. But in those early weeks of 1991, there was not that certainty.
I remember sitting in traffic in 2008, listening to the radio news reports each day of the stock market tanking. I worked in outplacement then. I had more unemployed clients to help than ever before. It was dark, bleak, and depressing. It was also 15 years ago. The Great Recession is long gone. It doesn’t seem like it was all that bad.
But it was. I was there. I remember. And I was afraid.
We are always the heroes in our own recollections. Our opinions have proven true for us. All the more reason to go back to moment and view events in the context of when they happened. And another good reason to begin journalling.
What do you think?