My entire life has been about DEI

Yours probably has too

TAT readers,

Today’s offering is something that has been on my mind for a while. I believe that our current national disaster called Trump, Putin, Musk and the GOP, presents a good opportunity to say a couple of things about the topic of the GOP’s obsession with DEI. This won’t be a long or exhaustive history lesson of all the sub-categories involved in DEI, but more along the line of my personal history of where DEI played significant and very positive roles in my life. It is not that I think my history is all that interesting, but I have had a few life experiences that would help to put a human face on the importance of DEI.

First, a little background,

I was raised through part of my 5th grade year, in Springfield, Ohio (yes, the one of dog and cat eating infamy) by my mother, a life-long Republican and dad, the opposite. Mom and dad both were proud veterans and this is a heritage that was passed down to both me and my son. Both voted across party lines when it was justified and often, the same way. Both were as honest as the day is long and were exemplary parents, despite the turmoil surrounding the loss of my only sibling when I was still in school. Their challenges, like most Americans mostly revolved around the same things we all focus on today; parenting, family, work, chores and trying to make the next day better than the last. I like to say that I was raised by Ozzie and Hariett, the iconic and longest running television sitcom, that was seen as the embodiment of the perfect American family. I always felt that I had grown up wealthy, realizing only later in life, that my school-teacher dad and my stay-at-home mom after college, had not in fact been wealthy.

Dad always had at least two, part-time jobs to supplement his teacher’s salary, but always found time for me and early on, my brother as well. Quite the opposite of my dad, my hard-working mom’s quota for speaking was roughly a dozen words per year, but she noticed everything. In fact, what I came to understand as I grew up and ventured off into the Army at 17, was that I had never heard at home, a single prejudice regarding what most today, consider DEI topics. Not one, nor for any reason.

My lifelong habit of being protective of those treated poorly because they are different, began with my very earliest memories. My only sibling and my son’s namesake was born with an exceptionally rare syndrome that left him severely disabled from birth. It was one of those tragically cruel, degenerative diseases that required his fulltime hospitalization by the time I entered first grade. Once, while he was home for a weekend, I was pulling him up and down our street in a wagon, when a neighbor boy began loudly pointing at my brother while concurrently, hurling what to me at the time, were the vilest of insults. This became my first fight.

Watching and absorbing the lessons of how hard my parents worked to protect him, had rubbed off on me. To this day, I will defend those in need of protection. In many ways, this led to my military and national defense career. Attacks on DEI trigger in me the same response as it did when my neighbor hurled vile insults at my dear brother. As is popular to say now, “it’s who I am.” I believe this is a truth that beats in most American hearts. This true American trigger is the one that Trump, Musk, Vance and the entire Republican voting, MAGA GOP are trampling on at every turn. This will not end well for them or our nation. Forgive this little paragraph of editorializing in the middle of my story. Now, back to it.

While in Springfield, my parents bought their very first home, in a new subdivision that they at the time, probably didn’t know was all white. I found out the next year just how complicated this was, via my dad’s closest friend. One of his fellow teachers was a six-foot, nine teacher who moved into our neighborhood, the first black family. Curtis, the son of my dad’s friend, was my age and we got along famously. I noticed though that as Curtis and I would be out and about on bikes, playing whatever sport was in season, the blinds on neighbor's’ houses would be twisted just enough for them to peer out at the little black kid in the neighborhood and which white kid he was playing with. To make matters worse from a DEI perspective, he also had at the time, a cleft pallet. Besides being black, the cleft palate’s high noticeability, made him a target for derision from other kids our age.

As my five-foot seven dad walked down the street with his very tall, black best friend, the neighbors’ blinds, would once again open up just enough for them to peer at these two very different men, at least on the outside. On the inside, they were little different. Both would go on to distinguished careers in different parts of public education. Throughout all of the quizzical looks from neighbors, I was puzzled but not concerned. My parents had carefully and patiently explained that some people were for their own reasons, nervously curious about the new black family. They did not pontificate on the prevalent racism but rather, taught me a gentle way of not playing into the hands of provocative racists. At that age, that was enough explanation for me. There were fun things to do for Curtis and me and those things captivated every minute of our lives. In retrospect, I have no doubt that Curtis had more evolved talks at home from his parents, than I had been exposed to in our home.

In the middle of fifth grade, dad got a principal’s job about a half an hour north of Springfield in a small, rural school district where there were to my recollection, maybe one or two minorities of any type in the entire school system. In those days, I mostly just luxuriated in living on a farm with two new ponies, that I soon came to understand were trying to kill me. Those who know ponies will understand this claim. The DEI issues, had for all intents and purposes, disappeared. Then… at the beginning of junior high school, we moved to the small town of Urbana, that was the county seat of the next county. There I would remain until a late August day after graduation, when I left for Army basic training at Fort Knox. Basic training would forever reinforce my commitment to the values my parents had gifted me, including, a complete lack of prejudice.

In junior high and high school, some of my closest friends were black. We rarely noticed any bigotry at school and only occasionally outside of school. Sure, I sometimes had to pick up girls for a date for one of my black friends, because their parents would not allow them to date a black guy, but without any other overt racism, we all mostly just rolled with it. Then came the Greyhound bus ride to basic training, a game-changer.

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In my small hometown, we couldn’t feel much of the turbulence of the late sixties and early 70s, even though I lived about an hour’s drive from Kent State University, where the Ohio National Guard had opened fire on students, killing four, in May of 1970. I distinctly recall my homeroom teacher, Mr. Bradbury, a large and intimidating history teacher, and my homeroom teacher, gently trying to discuss such a painful event the following day. In eighth grade, size mattered and we were all very cautious of our behavior around him and for good reasons. In those days, paddling students was still a significant deterrent regarding our behaviour in class. In truth, Mr. B as we called him, was as kind and gentle as Ferdinand the Bull a then popular Disney cartoon that didn’t want to fight, but rather to pick and smell flowers all day.

As the Greyhound bus headed for basic training rolled out of Springfield, things changed immediately. There was tension on the bus between black and white and although I had been used to being as close as brothers with my black friends, these guys from much bigger cities like Cleveland and Columbus were different. I should have known, due to an incident at a football game, my junior year. We had changed leagues and were now in a league with many of the Columbus schools. While playing a school named Groveport, all manner of racism from their team and fans, nearly caused a riot. Big time racism had come to quiet little Urbana, Ohio. At school, we universally stood against the racism from the Groveport crowd. There were no known dissenters. I and my black friends still felt that they were safe in our school.

Still, as we drove through the luxuriant fall, Ohio countryside, things took another step backwards in the DEI realm. We pulled up to a long country gravel lane that accessed a juvenile prison farm. As the guards walked a handful of prisoners down the lane, they took off their handcuffs and up they went, onto the bus with us and headed for Fort Knox. The recently freed prisoners added another level of agitation to the simmering pot. In those days, some juvenile court judges still had the informal option to offer “delinquent youth,” the option to join the army or go to jail. these new passengers had opted for the former rather than the latter.

My seemingly idyllic childhood had come to an abrupt end. The great American melting pot, my studies and my father’s history books had talked glowingly about this and which, recognized equality as being a purely patriotic, and foundational concept. Was this concept outside of my rural world, not true? I was puzzled and wondered if the army would help or turn up the heat on the simmering pot on our Greyhound bus to basic training.

For anyone who has ever seen the iconic movie, Stripes, those barracks became my next home for seven weeks and a full seven years before the movie was released in 1981. I for certain had less fun than Bill Murray while in residency at those old, decrepit, WW II barracks. Drill Sergeants immediately introduced us to our new name, “maggots” and they did not care who was black, white, Christian, Jewish or otherwise. The cauldron of American youth, simmering on the Greyhound had become a basic training class, in the very first year of the all-volunteer American military. Our bus was in truth, full of “lab rats” set on the path of a nation attempting to escape Vietnam, the Civil Rights upheaval and the massive awakening of America’s long held grievances against slavery, racism, bigotry against any minority and social upheaval now only slightly waning, from the much wilder late sixties’ national protests.

As we were assigned bunks, the man on the bottom bunk of my rack was probably the most muscle-bound man that I have ever known. He was quiet, kind, gentle and black. He had gone to Grambling on a full-ride football scholarship but in his freshman year, he had blown out his knee and had found the army as the only remaining option, to be employed and begin a life post-football. Tragically, he was functionally illiterate and unable to read or write. He was though, a solid man or as is found in Judaism, a “mensch.” Judaism also enters this DEI story a bit further in.

On the bunks across the aisle from ours, was a shy timid recruit from Tennessee. He was polite, kind and hard-working but painfully introverted. Sadly, for him, the recruit on the bunk above him, was the worst type of “Yankee” redneck, aggressive, loud, crude and deeply bigoted. The redneck Yankee from Detroit, constantly attempted to harass, humiliate and bully his quiet, shy bunkmate from Tennessee. Having been raised by my parents to stand up for those bullied for any reason, the Detroit thug and I were constantly at odds. At about the same size, sometimes he got the better of me, and vice versa. I can now only dream of being 135 lbs. with a 27-inch waist. At five foot eleven, we looked like toothpicks engaged in mortal combat and only creating splinters. Neither gave up. Then… I had an “ah ha moment.”

It was then that I sat down with my bunkmate, the former Grambling football star and hatched a deal. I will call him “Charles” instead of his real name, in order to protect his identity. Our deal was that I would teach him to read and write the basics, so that he could graduate basic training, and he would become my bodyguard. After this deal was sealed, I found every opportunity to stop or preempt, the white, Detroit bully’s attacks on anyone who wasn’t a white bigot like himself. It didn’t take long for the Detroit bully to learn his lesson, nor either of his two accomplices. All I had to say when confronted again by the Detroit bully, was, “get ‘em Charles.” When Charles had cured their enthusiasm for bullying, we all got along far better. To this day, “Charles” is in my book of heroes and patriots. Everyone has a role to play in supporting equality. Yes, or DEI.

Between our drill sergeants enforcing the rule that everyone was equally a “maggot,” and the efforts that Charles and I put in, our platoon soon acquired an “every man is equal” perspective. We became a team, worked together and succeeded together. To this day and despite the racism and sexism of Pete Hegseth and his boss, I credit the first year of the all-volunteer military, as a great step forward in leveling the playing field for disparate groups of Americans. The draft that fell on minority populations far more harshly than on their white, fellow citizens throughout the Vietnam War, was dead, and now it was time for the military to begin the process of protecting everyone’s freedom, regardless of any type of minority status.

Like the Army’s desegregation under Truman, the US military has dared to do what no other major entity would, boldly move towards the “more perfect union” declared in the preamble to our constitution. It has not always gone smoothly, but now, it would be difficult to compare the Vietnam era military with the professional, diverse forces we have today.

What most Americans refuse to understand in modern America, is that we may have declared the highest of human principles in our founding documents, but the progress towards that “more perfect union” was and has always been, a work in progress. Where we are now, with a controlling GOP, dieting exclusively on the dregs of American, far-right, extremist ideology and Russian far-right extremist ideology, we are now generations behind our zenith, towards that “more perfect union.”

Being raised as previously described in Ohio and spending much of my early life visiting with mom’s family on small family farms in NE, Missoura, as natives call it, I experienced a loving family full of preachers and teachers. Sunday visits began in Sunday School and Dad often taught the adult class. Life was good, decent and wholesome and I treasure these memories. This part of my family does not condone Christian Nationalism any more than the NCC/ National Council of Churches or the leadership of any major Christian church. Discrimination against other faiths, people of color and country of origin, is inconceivable for true Christians and all truly patriotic Americans. My family are true Christians that don’t wear their faith on their sleeve but in their actions, within their faith and communities. My children are moral representatives of their Jewish faith. None of us understand today’s MAGA Christians.

Now, I’ll toss another plot twist into this story. While serving in the Army at the end of Vietnam, I met and married an extraordinary woman who bore us three beautiful children. Although we split after 28 years, I still hold her in high respect. We simply grew in very different directions. What matters to this story though is the actual “wrench.” She and my former sister-in-law were the very first women in my army unit. My wife, although she served in the US Army, was at the time an Israeli citizen and if I remember correctly, had to give up her dual citizenship with Canada in order to enlist. These early women performed with excellence and resilience in a male dominated world. They earned the respect that they received, and against substantial odds. Later in my Special Operations phase of my career, I worked and deployed with exceptional, elite units that included some of the most remarkable women that you will ever meet. They even made a movie about one of them, that did not make it home.

Once married, my wife and her delightful Israeli family took me lovingly into their world, where I experienced something that I had never experienced as a white, English-speaking American from the Midwest, antisemitism. In Judaism, the mother determines the religion of a child. In other words, children born of Jewish mothers are Jewish. Now, I was in a world where I began to feel what Jews all over the world have felt for thousands of years, overt and brutal discrimination. My nature is to be a protector, and this is especially true of my family. My children learned how to be strong in their Jewish culture and to be always “on alert” for antisemitism. I can tell you with absolute certainty, that one develops a veritable sixth sense for when antisemitism is present, intentionally or not. To this day, I am very alert to these anti-Semitic inklings, especially now that the party leading America is inundated with antisemitism and all other forms of bigotry.

Jews, like Arabs, Africans, Indians, Asians etc. have this “sixth sense.” They have this because it is a survival tool, and in the Trump era, a first line of defense.

Finally, I’ll share that I came back to active military service when I was 48, deploying immediately to Baghdad for a year. My skills in dealing with the majority of my clients in Southern California from all over the Middle East and North Africa, I had learned how to talk to and with cultures from across the regions. It was an invaluable skillset in those days, and I found a great deal of success running and improving Baghdad’s potable water and sewer systems for all of 2004, because of those DEI skills.

I have served all over the world in and out of uniform. DEI makes relationships possible and when relationships are possible, American democratic concepts move forward, resilient from those radical extremist ideologies that support Putin, Xi, Modi etc. DEI is American.

Those skills became more important as I entered the CT/ Counterterrorism world and spent part of five years straight in Afghanistan. The only thing that matters in life, is learning how to work with people, regardless of race, religion, language, ethnicity or any other favorite MAGA social division, towards a moral goal. I like to say that “all humans around the world, want the same things; security, a roof over their heads, food for their family and to dance at their children’s weddings.” It’s really not all that complicated to be a decent, moral human being.

It would seem that today’s Trump, Putin and Musk GOP, only want this for white men loyal to cruel oppression. They are not conservatives, but far-right extremists. I cannot be one of them and the overwhelming majority of Americans, cannot do so either. Why are we allowing these people to run our government and oppress us? Why are we allowing them to partner with genocidal despots like Putin and Xi? Why are we allowing them to persecute and intimidate us, our families, our neighbors and in fact… anyone not perfectly aligned with their far-right extremist ideology? Of course, these are rhetorical questions, because real American patriots, won’t stand for such behaviour. I am one these patriots and this cause, is one of the reasons that I write this publication. I suspect that those reading this, are the same. Thank you.

My friends, today I simply wished to tell you my story and how that at every turn, DEI was an unstated but significant and positive issue. My friend Curtis in grade school and my friends in high school were DEI and I am better off for knowing them. DEI represents the very best of America, not an obstacle or evil concept. We are truly a “melting pot” and have succeeded because of this, not in spite of.

Those who buy into the anti-=DEI extremist ideology have not lived my life, to be sure. Frankly and if you are reading this, I don’t believe that they have lived your life either. From grade-school through my now elevated years, DEI issues were always there and had to be overcome in order to close in on that, “more perfect union.” DEI is a founding principle of our constitutional republic and must be protected at all costs. No, I don’t think I will allow the GOP to erase the constitutional obligations that I swore a sacred oath to protect. If I and millions of others did, America would no longer exist.

Together my friends, let’s protect our birthright and that of our grandchildren. I hope that you will join me in stopping this insane, un-American, fascist movement masquerading as a legitimate political party. We are all Americans, regardless of race, creed, religion or otherwise. In America, we are all equal and there is no small print.

Everything in this story, from my brother’s terminal disability, Curtis’ cleft palate and being black, to my Middle Eastern clients in LA and my fellow warriors of all races, religions, ethnicities and sexual preferences, are all DEI. DEI. DEI, is America.

I hope that by representing DEI in my life and on such a personal level, it has helped you to see where it has been present in yours. Canceling DEI is easily as un-American as imposing a state religion on everyone or removing our constitutional rights. We must stop the Trump, Musk, GOP insanity now, before it is too late. Presidents don’t get to alter our constitution and our heritage. Either they work within our constitutional framework, or its the duty of true patriots to remove them from office. Yes, I mean this in all seriousness.

Enjoy your weekend readers,

Paul