Message to America, Once the Wars Are Over

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Americans, anxiety, He Was Weird, intolerance, Marine Corps, Military, religion, social settings, stereotypes

Originally, my plan was to wait til the wars in the Middle East were officially over and all service personnel were back home before I posted about this but with the recent developments, there seems to be no clue as to when that’s going to be. What I am about to write has been slowly brewing up inside me for the past thirty years and is now coming to a head. I can’t wait anymore so I am going to get this off my chest. Here it comes.

No other country in the world honours its service personnel in war time better than the United States. True there is one exception to this and there is still plenty of room for improvement today but I can proudly say that this is one area where America does better than anyone else. My concern is what happens once the bullets finally do stop flying and American forces are serving in peacetime. See, while Americans honour their war time military, they go almost 180 degrees in the opposite direction towards the peacetime military. What were once heroes are now considered criminals, druggies and welfare cheats who only join the military to stay out of jail or because they were too lazy to get a “real job.” I know this because I served in peace time and while I thought I was doing my part in serving my country and no, I didn’t expect a big parade every time I came home on leave or when I got out, I didn’t expect the indifference or disdain a good number of Americans looked at me with at the time.

I would now like to draw attention to the white middle class parents of America. The fact that your child wants to serve his country, even in peacetime, is something to be proud of. The peacetime military is not a place for white trash and racial minorities to find employment but is there for all people regardless of race or economic or social class. Most importantly, your son or daughter will not be wasting their lives if they decide to give three or four years to their country. They will still be able to go to college or do whatever they want with their lives once they leave the service.

Now for you born again, fundamentalist and evangelical Christians: There are many good Christian young men and women serving in the military even during peacetime. Should one of your fellow Christians decide to enlist, they will not necessarily be corrupted and turn their backs on God. Even if they do, it will be through conscious choice they made and not because they were led astray by the ‘evil heathens’ who make up America’s peacetime military. That was one of the things I hated about so called Christians who judged me. Yes, I backslid while I was in the marines and I will admit that the marines and the people I served with provided the means and encouragement but they weren’t the cause of my supposed corruption. That is a cop out in my view as I made conscious choices and if you want to blame anything, it will be my literal belief in the scriptures being torn down by the reality I faced, even before I joined. Oh yes, another thing  I find hypocritical about these “Christians” is that they used to pontificate about obeying the government citing Romans, Chapter 13 and how all Vietnam draft dodgers will burn in hell for disobeying the Lord but were the first ones to brand peacetime military personnel evil heathens.

Let me explode another myth about those actively serving during peacetime. Even though there might not be a war on at the time, it doesn’t mean they are just sitting around looking good in a uniform and getting drunk. No, they are training hard for the next time they may be called to put their asses on the line. They will still be subject to the same discipline and be put in stressful situations to prepare them for the real stress they might have to face should they ever go into combat. While, they are not having it as tough as someone in war time, they aren’t having a picnic either.

My final point is how those who served in peacetime are treated when they leave the service. Because many people think military people didn’t have to go to war, that they should be able to simply adjust back into the civilian world. It’s not always that easy. In my case, I was fed up of wearing a crew cut for four years and dressing like everyone else down to the minutest detail that I want to assert my individuality and went the other extreme. I grew my hair long and wore Native American moccasin boots just because I wanted to stand out. Sure, I was aware that men were wearing shorter hair and Nike sneakers but I knew that I needed dress and grow my hair the way I did because of my experiences from the previous four years. My mistake was naively thinking that people would understand that I was just relaxing after living under military discipline but I was wrong. In the intolerant times of mid 80’s Regan America, I was treated not as a veteran returning home but an outcast. No one wanted to know my side of the story and the fact I had served my country either went unheard or didn’t matter. That along with other issues like my college not giving veterans college credit for Phys Ed in spite of the fact the government said they should gives me little wonder why I grew so bitter towards America three years after I left the marines.

I guess the lesson to be learned here is that Americans should regard all people who are willing to give up a few years of their lives to serve their country with respect. Yes, much more respect must be given to those who put their lives on the line but those who didn’t but still served should not be treated with indifference or disdain. They should get all the benefits their entitled to and you yuppies who managed to go to college and didn’t serve, you have no right to look down your noses at any veteran. The good thing is that now a days, I get Americans thanking me for serving to which I am truly grateful and you get a big hearty “You’re welcome.” However, it shouldn’t have take two wars in the Middle East to cause this and if people had thanked me thirty years ago, I would not have been so bitter for so long.

Next post: You’re an Asshole, For Standing Up For Yourself

To buy He Was Weird, go to: http://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408963325&sr=8-1&keywords=he+was+weird

 

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My Official Apology to the United States Marine Corps

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Americans, Asperger's Syndrome, Autism, bullying, films, He Was Weird, labels, Marine Corps, Michael D LeFevre, Self Esteem, stereotypes

You’re probably thinking why I would need to apologise to the US Marine Corps. The answer is the fact that I resented them for one thing for the first two decades since I left that great organisation and that is that they didn’t solve all my problems for me.

For all of my childhood, I was a shy, wimp brought on by my experiences and especially my Asperger’s which I didn’t know about back then. I was perceived by many as being weird although worse labels were given to me. As a result, I often suffered at the hands of bullies, the worst of which was during my junior high school days when I lived in one particular town. While the bullying lessened a great deal after I moved out of that town and throughout my high school days, it didn’t totally go away. Furthermore, the effects of those earlier days continued to plague my mind and by my junior year, I deduced that I was a pathetic creature.

During my high school years, I was a total war buff, especially World War II. I watched plenty of war movies during those years and many of those featured the marines. I loved films like “Sands of Iwo Jima,” “Retreat, Hell!” and “Beach Head.” Those films, often backed up from what I read in books, both historical fact and fiction had me thinking that the marines were supermen and that joining the marines was going to strip me down and build me up into something better. Therefore, in my senior year, I enlisted in the marines.

I went to boot camp full of expectation that I was going to come out a lot different than I went in. For the first few weeks, I eagerly tried to do everything I was expected to do, with some success in some areas and struggles in others. I was always getting PT’d for drill. However, in the back of my mind, I kept asking, “This is all good but when I’m I going to start to become tough?” Then about the fourth week, when my senior drill instructor was having an open Q&A session, I asked when the platoon was going to learn unarmed combat. The senior answered that they no longer taught it on account of the mothers of America complaining that their boys were getting hurt during training.

After that, while I continued to go through training, the back of my mind questioned whether it was worth it. It did cause struggles with me for the rest of boot camp but I did manage to graduate and be called a Marine. When I went home on leave from boot camp, I was nervous that some old nemesis would start trouble with me and whether I could handle myself. I thought I tempted fate when I put on my uniform and went to my high school but I had none of the problems I envisaged. A few days later, I got involved in a football game with an old bully from my early high school years but nothing came of that. Those experiences were great confidence boosts for me and all during my time in the corps, I would come home on leave and act tough while all the time, knowing the old me was still there.

I served my time and left after four years attaining the rank of corporal so I think my time was successful. However, throughout the time and after getting out, I still felt that I had wasted four years of my life because joining the marines hadn’t stripped my down and made me into a different person. This was after taking into considerations all the positive effects that my time in had on me. The fact that I could afford to go to college, that I had literally seen the world, (not many people go to both the European and Pacific theatres in a single enlistment). But still, inside I felt the sad loser and victim that I always believed myself to be and others too. As a result I thought I wasted four years.

Salvation came about ten years ago when I finally thought that professional help was a good idea when I was feeling way down. I began counselling and it was what the counselor said when I told her about joining the marines being a mistake. She told me that joining the marines wasn’t the mistake, my mistake was thinking that it was going to solve all my problems. It was a eureka moment for me, I finally realised that my problems were such that even twelve weeks on Parris Island wasn’t going to solve them. Furthermore, it did give me some tools to use to solve these problems but because I was too angry with the Marine Corps for not being a cure all, it took me two decades to realise that I had these tools to solve my problems with assistance on my own.

Now, I officially apologise to the Marine Corps for my resentment that it didn’t solve all my problems for me. It never said it would and I think I knew that all the time, it was just easy to blame them. I have moved on now and another thing my experiences gave me was the technical knowledge in writing “He Was Weird.” Who better than an ex marine to teach Mark how to shoot a gun although I know the marines wouldn’t condone a boy shooting up his school, some in the Corps would take pride that at least Mark had the best training possible to carry out his revenge.

Next post: How America Should View Its Peacetime Military

To by He Was Weird, go to: http://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408389389&sr=8-1&keywords=he+was+weird

 

 

Things That Got Left Out

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American football, Americans, anxiety, Asperger's Syndrome, Autism, bullying, D.A.M.P., ice hockey, Philadelphia Flyers, race relations, stereotypes

Over the past several posts, I have said a lot about stereotypes, race and related topics but for everything I have mentioned, there have been many areas I wanted to talk about but when I sat down at the computer to type my posts, they went out of my head. I think that’s one of the problems with me caused by my DAMP. I get loads of ideas, too many in fact that when it comes to putting them all together, some of them end up going south. I know I made that mistake when I wrote my first book “Rock and Roll Children.”

Let’s begin straight away and I will start with my posts about interracial bullying. Today there is a popular phrase being batted around whenever the subject of race comes up. That phrase is ‘playing the race card.’ I will be the first to admit that there are many instances where the race card is needlessly played in situations where it wasn’t warranted. It’s also true that some members of racial minorities will play it to gain and advantage. However, it is gotten to the point that whenever race comes up that many white people immediately assume that the race card is being played. My fear is that when there is a genuine case of racism, it will just be assumed that the race card is being played and any quest for justice will be ignored.

In my last post, I wrote about the racial stereotype that African Americans want to solve everything with their fists. I remembered after I made that post that the redneck who admitted he was in the Klu Klux Klan also thought he could get anything he wanted by using his fists. That proves that African Americans aren’t the only ones who think like this besides the fact there are many who do use their words.

On my post about “Race and the Numbers Game,” I left out my observations about (American) football. Many will point out there there are more African American quarterbacks and head coaches in the NFL then there were just a decade ago. I have noticed at least last season that there seems to be more caucasian wide receivers, a position pretty much monopolised by African American players, than in previous seasons. What I am saying here is that a balance is beginning to be struck here and I hope it can continue.

Another area of the numbers game I left out is interracial relationships. I think the main reason many white people at least have problems with it is because it has been mainly black men with white women. Maybe it’s me but I am seeing more and more white men with black women. Now some will point the accusing finger because they heard a black man say that if his sister or in some cases any “sister” was with a white man, they were going to kick his white a*s and I admit, I heard it said on several occasions too. However, these are still in the minority. It could have been dealt with in the UK back in the late 80s on the soap opera “East Enders” when one of the black male characters goes way off the scale because his sister brings home a white man but the BBC went chicken sh*t and didn’t do anything with it. The bottom line is that if two people like or love each other, than the colour of their skins doesn’t matter.

This flows greatly into another point I missed about British people being more tolerant than Americans. In Britain, mixed race persons are more easily accepted. Sure, Britain has it share of humanitarian fascists (people who justify right wing views on humanitarian grounds) and like America, interracial families are fertile ground for them. But in Britain, the argument that people of different races shouldn’t be together because no race will accept their children is on extremely thin ice.

Back to American football but this time from a standpoint of the UK and US. In 1991, the London Monarchs American Football time achieved world wide glory by winning the World Bowl. I thought that the people of London would celebrate the fact that a championship trophy was brought to their fair city. I was wrong. The Monarchs’ victory received very little recognition outside the American football world. There was very little said about it in the media. To most Londoners, it was simply ‘a bunch of Yanks coming over here to play their game’ which I thought rather ignorant. After all, when my beloved Philadelphia Flyers won the Stanley Cup in 1974 and 75, it didn’t matter to me that the entire team was Canadian nor did matter to the people of Philadelphia because all that mattered was that a Philadelphia team had won a championship. I used to further add that if a kabadi team from London had won a championship, that anyone who didn’t celebrate the victory would have been branded racist but I know that they do play the game in London so that theory is wrong. My moral here is to support your city’s team no matter where the players come from.

My beloved Philadelphia Flyers

I have to admit that for a while, I had a stereotype about British people. One day when I was crossing a zebra crossing in London, a motorist who had to grudgingly stop because he was legally obligated to let me cross, flipped me the finger when I crossed. So after I got to the other side of the road, I turned and said “Same to you” when he drove past. As I was walking off, I heard screeching brakes and horns beeping. I observed that the car I had said that to had stopped on the crossing and was going to back up to come after me and would have done so if there hadn’t been a line of traffic behind him. This incident along with some others like when I worked as a market research interviewer and had people on the street say unsavoury things to me but threaten to report me when me or one of my colleagues give a sarcastic response to such comments convinced me for a time that British people loved to dish it out but couldn’t take it themselves.

I know that this isn’t really the case about British people but some individuals and misguided youths who bleat on about respect. The British are capable of taking the piss out of themselves and there are plenty of examples of films and television shows where this happens. Americans are capable of doing the same, “South Park” and “The Simpsons” are proof. However, but you still couldn’t do it about their military. To find any satire about that, you’d have to go back to the pre-Regan days with MASH and the film 1941. Americans, me included, do need to lighten up a bit more.

Finally, I can say that there is some ways to go even here in the UK. For example, I have found myself wanting to play the nationality card on the grounds that nobody is going to cry racism for a white American. However, although I can’t prove it, I do believe that there were times where I have experienced discrimination but if I say anything, I will be told that I’m just playing that card. This was reinforced by the one time I did try to make a complaint and was told that white Americans don’t come under the racial equality act. But nevertheless, I have still managed to forge a career for myself here in the UK, so it can’t have been that bad.

While I have gotten a three ton weight off my chest, I know, thanks to my Asperger’s, that these thoughts will never go away and will play havoc with me in the back of my mind. Another point I missed was the was the case of Sophie Lancaster, the goth girl who was killed in Manchester a few years back. Some Americans who like to tease and ridicule people who adapt that life style have probably said to them, “You think we’re bad, you’re lucky you’re not in England, they’ll kill you for looking like that there.” What these people forget is that most Brits saw this as an unnecessary tragedy and proves my points on tolerance. One wild speculation is that if Halloween was from any other country than the US, would calls to ban it be considered racist? I went trick or treating as a kid and it never did me any harm. Likewise with the anti American teacher who thought proms should be banned because it was an American institution. I am resolved to the fact that there will always be nit wits like this but there are even more in the US, you can’t escape them. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

Next post; My Official Apology to the USMC

Stereotypes and Its Affect on Asperger’s Syndrome

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Americans, anxiety, Asperger's Syndrome, Autism, friendship, Great Britain, intolerance, race relations, stereotypes

This post should really be called “It’s Affects on My Asperger’s Syndrome” as different things hit people who have Asperger’s in many different ways. With me and I know I am not the only person in the world affected in this way, is the tendency to take things too literal. That makes stereotyping very dangerous for me especially if the subject of said stereotype is behaving in the way people of that group are stereotyped.

One major one was a confrontation I had with an African American man when I was in the service. Growing up, family and others pronounced the stereotype that African Americans would rather use their fists to settle a dispute as opposed to their words. This particular man was ready and willing to use them in this particular instance and only somehow being able to come up with the right words avoided that. I can’t remember what the issue was about but it definitely wasn’t worth fighting over. I have seen others who fit this mold and reinforced the stereotype handed down to me and the result was that I avoided interaction with African Americans out of fear of saying something and getting punched. Unfortunately, there were some, I think, that sensed this fear brought on by the combination of stereotype and Asperger’s Syndrome and played on it a bit and that left me open to some bullying. See the vicious cycle here? Fortunately, there were some African Americans who saw that I wasn’t that bad and offered the hand of friendship. That allowed me to realise that they all didn’t fit that stereotype. However, it did linger in the back of my mind for many years sending great anxiety through me whenever I crossed paths with an African American man.

What can be worse than someone who adheres to a stereotype about their group is one who contradicts a positive stereotype of it. Like I said in a previous post, when I first came to the UK, I thought all Britons were tolerant and left of centre. To top it off, I thought this would be particularly true of English metalheads. Therefore, when I was confronted by an intolerant Englishman at an Iron Maiden concert, I didn’t know how to respond because after all, I thought all English people were open minded and tolerant causing great levels of anxiety. The only thing I was able to do was just walk away from him but it did leave my mind very confused.

These anxieties increased a few weeks later after, when I was informed I wouldn’t be getting my veteran’s educational benefits and I openly declared that I hated America. I went to see the college chaplain who was known to be on the left. At least he held similar views to me on Regan’s Contra war in Nicaragua. However, I was taken back that after I told him I hated me country and wanted to emigrate to Sweden, he didn’t aid me in buying a plane ticket to Stockholm. The fact that he said I shouldn’t be quick to run away from America had me believing a redneck’s stereotype that all non-Americans are trying to get to the country. Again, it all left me feeling confused.

Of course, when you are put into a stereotype that you know you don’t belong, it can also cause great anxiety, at least it does for me. As an American living in the UK, I get this a lot but it does seem no matter how hard I try to show that I don’t fit those stereotypes, there is someone who insists on believing it, especially those in the less than ten percent margin I mentioned before. Some, like an ex girlfriend, seemed to be disappointed that I didn’t fit many of the stereotypes about Americans. It feels at times that I can’t win but fortunately, the vast majority of those in the UK have accepted me.

In conclusion, I think that believing stereotypes has had a negative impact on my Asperger’s Syndrome. That is why I do try to judge people as individuals although this isn’t always easy. I still won’t stop trying and hope people will do the same with me. I wonder what Mark Leversee would have thought.

Next post: A Few Things I Missed

To buy He Was Weird, go to: http://www.amazon.co.uk/He-Was-Weird-Michael-Lefevre/dp/1909740942/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407271872&sr=8-1&keywords=he+was+weird