My good friend and illustrator of my book Jack Cassady forwarded me this article about a Marine Corps Officer assigned to a position requiring him to do Casualty Notifications during the Vietnam era. Jack sent it to me in complete text without a reference. I did some poking around and apparently the piece first appeared in the Marine Corps Times or Marine Corps Gazette. I have it for you as posted in The Sand Gram Blog.

I consider this powerfully written essay a must read.

Here’s the link.

http://www.thesandgram.com/2009/07/28/burial-at-sea-by-ltcol-george-goodson-usmc-ret/

 2. Predictable Behavior Patterns

Listening to a taped interview a few years ago of Stephen Covey by Tony Robbins was like being given the key to a puzzle. Although the interview was primarily focused on the teachings of Covey’s book about how individuals and organizations could live more effective and efficient lives, Robbins and Covey also readily described the mindset of those who subscribe to polarized politics. Their discussion made the behavior of polarizers both understandable and predictable.

I’ve been reminded of the interview lately with the issues regarding the so-called Birthers and health care insurance reform because the behavior of so-called conservatives regarding those issues dovetails exactly with what Covey and Robbins described.

If you advocate a position other than the one self described Conservatives advocate, then you will probably be called a liberal. This is regardless of whether the position you advocate truly deserves to be defined as liberal or not. In addition, the word liberal will be said in the same way you might say the words child molester. Here is why this happens. (By the way, these principles apply to the other side of the political spectrum, too. But the example of the so-called Birthers is more recent and too compelling to ignore, so I’m going to focus there.)

Birthers are people who have settled into a set of beliefs. Politically (and probably in other ways) Birthers use those beliefs to categorize and de-humanize people. So long as they are able to categorize and de-humanize other people, . . .

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