I am a Liar

             Yes, you read that correctly.  I’m a liar.  And, no I’m not a pathological liar.  I'm no Tommy Flanagan.

            This is difficult for me.  I’ve grown a lot over the years, and have to admit that I’ve also told a lot of untruths.   Many of us have, and no, I’m not saying that to make an excuse for my behavior.  Most of us at least tell some little white lies to protect someone’s feelings.  People do that. 

Sometimes, we lie to avoid conflict.  I’ve done that a lot.  For a long time, I was very conflict-avoidant.  The intense emotions of conflict brought me to a place emotionally that I didn’t understand and didn’t like.  I would lie about stupid things when I was married.  When asked simple things, like whether or not I’d paid the electric bill, I’d say that I had done so in order to avoid any potential conflict over why I hadn’t, even if I was planning to do the bills, which weren’t late, that evening.   Had I said that I was going to do them that evening, it would have been fine.  I was just incredibly insecure and afraid of where conflict would take me.  The great irony of those lies is that they caused a great deal more conflict than I was trying to avoid in the first place. 

I worked through this with a therapist, and I understand where the conflicts brought me.  I’ve made peace with this.  It doesn’t change the damage that those lies did, but I was able to move forward.  In subsequent relationships I’ve been able to be honest about stupid little shit like that. 

We may also say things that aren’t true in order to save someone’s feelings.  We may say that someone looks great in a new shirt because that person feels confident and beautiful in it, even though we wouldn’t let our dog have puppies on that shirt because we think it’s so grossly ugly that adding puppy afterbirth to it would just be more than we could bear.  We don’t want to hurt that person’s feelings.   It’s not my shirt, and I don’t have to wear it.  Along the same lines a teacher or parent may say that a child’s art is wonderful, even though the kid hasn’t heard of foreshortening and has absolutely no concept of the atmospheric perspective.   People tell that kid it’s great because we want to encourage her to explore her creativity, and hopefully, she’ll learn about depth.

And sometimes, people lie to hide their shame and embarrassment.  I’m never all that shocked when a politician or celebrity is exposed for a lie.  Of course politicians want to hide things that might be politically damaging, and of course celebrities hide things that may embarrass them or damage their reputations.  Of course President Clinton didn’t inhale, and of course he didn’t receive the historic Oval Office hummer.  Of course Larry Craig had a wide stance.  Of course Lance Armstrong and Aaron Rodriguez didn’t use performance enhancing drugs.  Of course Tiger Woods was a faithful husband.  Of course [insert female celebrity’s name here] has real boobs.   Of course [insert male celebrity’s name here] didn’t cheat on his smoking hot wife with the beautiful nanny.  Those are all damn lies!

People do things that hurt their careers and reputations and relationships, and they don’t want that truth out.  The truth hurts relationships and legacies.  The truth costs people their careers.  The truth can just be embarrassing.  I completely understand why people lie about this stuff.  I also completely understand the consequences.  If we don’t want to be embarrassed or have our marriages or careers ruined, then we should just do the right thing from the beginning.  We often don’t, and we pay the price. 

There are things I’ve done that are very embarrassing.  I’m glad no one knows about them.  I’ve lied about some of them.  Some I’ve told the truth about.  If TMZ were to get some embarrassing video of me, I’d own my behavior and try to move forward.  I don’t think there are any unrevealed lies out there that would hurt anyone who’s currently in my life.  There may be some things that would cause me some embarrassment.  I’d have to deal with that.  This piece isn’t really about those lies.  I’ve made peace with them, and I try to think about the consequences of what I do before I put myself in situations where I may be embarrassed by what happens.

There are still other lies that are harder to understand for most people.  These are lies that people use to create a back story.  Now, I’m not going to go after Ben Carson here.  That’s too easy.  But people create back stories to make themselves look better or to feel connected with something.  Comedian Steve Rannazzisi was working in New York in 2001.  After he moved to LA he started telling people that he had been working for Merrill Lynch in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.  I don’t know why he did this.  I’m not sure he does, but he’s paid quite a price professionally.   He’s pretty funny, and I hope, for his sake,that he can overcome some of the damage to his career.   There’s no excusing what he did, but he’s really only guilty of being an asshole and offending millions of people. 

And there are darker lies that create back stories.  Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and plans to attack out country and our allies.  Al Quaeda is in Iraq, and Iraq was involved in 9-11.  These lies get people killed.  They’re shameful.  I would only be avoiding telling my own truth if I delved into this, so I’ll move on.

My greatest lie is one of these.  No, I did not get anyone killed or start a war.  I did create a back story, to my shame, and my conscience can’t seem to shake it.  I have to process through this, and no mere discussion with my therapist will allow me to let it go.

But first, let’s briefly consider what a lie is.  A lie is something that someone says that is untrue.  And we have to know it’s untrue for it to be a lie.  Otherwise, it’s just a mistake.  If I say that the universe is about 10 billion years old, but I later find out that it’s really around 12 billion years old.  I didn’t lie.  I was just ignorant of the truth. 

   Now, let’s dig deeper.  What is truth?  Can we call it observable reality?  It’s more complicated than we think.  Can we say that something is true if it is observable, something that happened, without the filter of emotion or of judgment?  I believe this will work.  The sky is blue.  The earth revolves around the sun.  Ice cream is cold.  I have a maple tree in my yard.  These are all things that different people can observe and agree on. 

We also have to consider perception.  Our perceptions tend to influence our understanding of reality.   Is it partly cloudy or mostly sunny?  As a color blind man, I often have to check with others to confirm the colors of objects.  I may have purchased a nice, blue shirt last weekend, but the first time I wear it, someone compliments me on my nice, purple shirt.  But now I know the truth.  The shirt is purple, and I trust others’ perceptions of it.  That’s a very simple example.  Here’s another.  The city of Augusta, Maine, where I used to work, has a few traffic circles.  Some people perceive them as a pain in the ass, and try to avoid them.  Some people perceive presence of traffic circles as just how things are, and they perceive the idiots who do not know how to drive in traffic circles as the pain in the ass. 

Indeed, whether or not something is a pain in the ass is subjective.  People can objectively agree that there are traffic circles in Augusta.  This is factually observable and is, therefore, true.   The things that make the traffic circles a pain in the ass are matters of opinion, affected by an individual’s perception and experience.  While they are true for the individual, they are not something that everyone sees the same, so they can’t be accepted as a general truth. 

There are some things that may seem to be subjective, but they are, in fact absolutely true.  I have a great ass.  You’d think that using “great” makes it subjective.  Nope, it’s universally accepted that I have a great ass.  It’s one of those things like, “Angelina Jolie is beautiful” or “Peyton Manning is the best actor in the NFL,” that everyone universally agrees upon.

And I won’t get into the belief versus truth issue with religion versus science.  That’s a bigger issue, and, quite frankly, that would be another way for me to put off writing about my big, big lie, the reason for this piece. 

When I was younger and didn’t know myself well, I often probably didn’t know what truth really was.  I lied about things to protect others’ feelings or to preserve the idea that I’m a sweet and nice guy or to avoid conflicts.  Those lies hurt people and damaged my relationships.  There are days when I still kick myself for some of those lies.  But those lies are in the past.  I’ve made peace with them and learned from them.  I know myself better, and I know I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone with untruths anymore.  I’ve tried to become a truth teller, and I can honestly say that I’m proud of the progress I’ve made.

Except for one pretty significant lie. 

While I was in the army and army reserve I was over the army’s weight limit for my age and height for most of my career.  Whenever we had a weigh-in, I’d have to be given the body fat tape test even when I was in the best shape of my life.  I was often 15 to 25 pounds over the weight limit, but I always passed the tape test.  But the 50-ish pounds of pure masculine glory that I put on from the time I was 18 to the time I retired from the army reserve at 43 started to get to me along the way.  I made something up to try to explain it away. 

I guess I was embarrassed.  I don’t know.  I guess I wanted to make myself feel better about having to be taped because I was overweight.  I mean, I still don’t know why I did this.  I’ve never

Does this guy look like he
has any reason to be
ashamed of his body?

considered myself a Fatty McFatterson.  I’m kind of stocky, so I’m going to carry more pounds than I think it may look like I’m carrying.  I may have reverse body dysmorphic disorder, or something, but I’ve never thought that I was all that big.  Seriously, I carry it well, I think.

And pretty much everyone agrees how desirable and awesome I am.  A recent Gallup poll showed the 89 percent of single women wanted to be with me and 99 percent of men wanted to be me (3.5 percent margin of error).   Hell, a lot of the men wanted to be with me, and a significant percentage of the women wanted to be me.   And there I was lying about stuff for all those years of my military service.  What is wrong with me?

I may never understand why, and I may never be able to make anyone understand.  I just had to make up a story, a story, incidentally, that could pass no test of the truth.  It was objectively and subjectively false.  No one, and I mean no one, would be able to objectively observe me and concur that what I had been saying was even remotely true.  I couldn’t even make a subjective argument that it was true in my perception.  I fully acknowledge that it was a lie, and I own this.

I don’t even know if I’m going to be able to post this.  I may just delete this file.  Here’s what I did.  Here’s my lie.  I implied that my, ahem, “masculinity” was the reason I was overweight.  Hell, who am I kidding?  Not you.  Not America.  I was a soldier with a security clearance, and I couldn’t say a basic truth about myself. 

And for crying out loud, I didn’t imply anything.  I just lied.  I’ll spare you the indelicate language I used, but I said that it was all “junk" weight.  That was why I didn’t meet the army’s weight standards.  Seriously, 25 pounds?  That’s a hell of a lie.  I’m sorry.  I know.  I’m a bad person.  I failed to live up to the army values, and I failed my country.  I failed you all.

I’m a bad person, and I hope that someday, I will be able to regain your trust.

I Live by a Certain Code

Well, that seems a bit more dramatic than what I’m going for here.  I don’t want to come across like one of those crazy Guantanamo Bay marines from A Few Good Men.   I just believe in returning favors and that sometimes for someone to get me to do something, I may have to get him to agree to reciprocate in advance.

Now, I don’t do things for people always expecting something in return.  I try to be a good person, and I try to do good things for people.  That’s just the right thing to do.  I try not to expect anything in return.  All this being said, I also try to do what’s funny.  Sometimes, I can effectively blend good deeds and humor.  Sometimes, being funny trumps that.  A man has to live by some standards.

Anyway, during my last drill weekend in uniform, in May 2013, before I became a member of

Me and my trusty M16 on our last day together.

the retired reserves following my 20-plus years of combined active and reserve service, I was presented with an opportunity to do a solid for one of my fellow soldiers.

That drill weekend was a four-day training event in Camp Ethan Allen, Vermont.  My battalion was spread-out with detachments from Maine to New Jersey, and for the last six or so years of my service, we’d been getting together for battalion-wide training at least once a year instead of doing our regular thing at our various detachment locations.  I hated these weekends, fucking hated them.  They often meant no booze, officially anyway.  That last weekend, I had a stainless steel water bottle filled with Jameson’s, because I was a God-damned rebel.  But this was my last drill weekend.  I was in good spirits, so the six-hour bus ride didn’t bother me.   I was almost free, and I had some whiskey. 

On our first morning, I was doing KP--kitchen police, for you civilians out there.  It may be odd for many to think of a Staff Sergeant doing KP, but I was in a small detachment:  just about everyone had one of these stupid jobs to do on these weekends.   I preferred KP over waking up in the middle of the night for fire guard.  Screw that waking up in the middle of the night bullshit.  Anyway, I was doing KP for breakfast, and I was helping  to clean up after morning chow, when Sergeant First Class Hatch, my detachment chief, came up to me.

“Hey, Ted, can you do me a favor?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied.  “What’s the favor?”

“Can you try to qualify this weekend?”

This may need some explanation. . .

So, I mentioned that this was my last drill weekend.  Late in the previous September, I had received my “20 Year Letter,” meaning that I had 20 good years of combined active and reserve service, creditable toward military retirement, for which I will start collecting a pension when I turn 60.  For a few drill weekends after that, I kind of went off the rails.  I was kind of an unpredictable asshole around my unit, and these weren’t exactly the best few months of my many years of military service.   That’s another story, though.

One thing on my unit’s training schedule while I was “off the rails” was a range day for my unit.  During our October drill weekend we had to qualify with our individually assigned weapons.  This happened just about every October, and during our combined battalion training events in the spring, anyone who didn’t qualify would have a chance to try to qualify again, if needed.

Over the years, I’d become very proud of my ability to qualify on the first try.  This hadn’t always been the case.   During basic training, I’d internalized the four fundamentals of marksmanship:  breath control, site picture, trigger squeeze, and relaxing.  I was the perfect soldier, except for the whole “relaxing” thing, I’d misinterpreted the living shit out of that.  Nobody noticed this until around my tenth year of service.   I’d usually hit 18 or better, out of 20, from a supported position, with my non-trigger hand and the barrel resting on a sandbag.  I’d also usually fail to make it to 23 total hits the first time from a non-supported position, with my non-trigger hand holding up the barrel.  So, I was a pretty shitty marksman until someone in my reserve unit was coaching me during one of our range days, and he said, “Why are you holding your weapon so loosely?”

I told him that I was just relaxing, and he explained to me that the whole “relaxing” fundamental thing meant to just relax, but you still have to hold your weapon firmly. 

Noted.

So, having figured this out, with the help of ol’ Staff Sergeant Buckley, I qualified as a marksman or sharpshooter, on the first try, every time, for about the last half of my military career.

Until, of course, the last time.

Now, in October 2012, with my 20-year-letter in hand, I simply did not give a fuck anymore

This is me, actually
giving a fuck.

and went off the rails—again, that is another story.  So, why bother wasting M16 ammunition on me when I was so close to putting in my retirement paperwork?  There were plenty of people in my unit who could have used those 40 rounds, either to practice or to just meet the requirements after a failed attempt.  So, I decided that trying was a waste of time.  Instead of just refusing to fire—which probably would have sufficed—I took the more hilarious route, and I decided to aim all of my rounds into a single silhouette.

Allow me to ‘splain.  For M16 qualification, the minimum standard is usually hitting 23 out of 40 targets on a range where the targets randomly pop up at varying distances, from 50 to 300 meters away.  The range is programmed for a machine to pull each target up in a set order for a set amount of time.  Sensors register each hit, and the target will drop after a hit or after the set time elapses.

I saw a documentary once that showed how this started.  In the World War II and Korean War eras, soldiers fired on circular targets as they learned to use their weapons.  The documentary discussed the invasion of Iwo Jima and how a large number of American soldiers and marines didn’t fire a round.  The defense of the island was so furious that many of our boys kind of freaked out (my interpretation) and didn’t fire back. Of course they didn’t respond, for they had been trained to fire at circles (my oversimplification).  So, the US Military came up with the whole pop-up target thing, with targets in the general shape and size of a person that popped-up to be shot.  The stimulus, as the documentary described, was seeing an enemy silhouette.  The response was to shoot him.  Stimulus-response, BF Skinner would be so proud.

But, these ranges are expensive, millions-of-dollars expensive.  So, unless there’s an active duty base or regularly used National Guard training area nearby, a lot of guard and reserve soldiers use an alternate, paper target to qualify, like the target in the picture below.

As you see from the paper target I’ve shown—and I’ve used this “alternate target” every time

Only five of these glorious 38 hits counted. 

but once in my reserve career and even a few times during my regular army years—there are ten silhouettes to hit.  And depending on variations in the standards—and they’ve changed over the years—you have to get three to five rounds in each silhouette from various firing positions for the shots to count.  In the picture, only five of the hits in the 50 meter silhouette counted.  I know, bullshit, right!  I told everyone that I scored a “38, because I waited for them to get close enough for me to take the high-percentage shot.” 

Now, I’ll admit that it is pretty “lame” that I missed the 50 meter silhouette twice, but I also must point out that I wasn’t trying my hardest.  I figured that any rounds I fired were a waste, and I was trying to make that obvious, in the most hilarious way possible.  Sure, there were some people who didn’t get it.  There always are.  “You know all those don’t count, right?”  No shit.  I was a soldier who was off the rails, not a fucking moron.  And I’m not sure why people didn’t get it.  I’d made a point of telling everyone that I didn’t give a fuck anymore.  (Again, that’s another story.)

Oh, and this led to the most hilarious and awesome “needs improvement” supporting comment on my final Noncommissioned Officer Evaluation Report, something along the lines of “Purposely failed to qualify by aiming all 40 rounds into the 50 meter silhouette.”   Also, telling everyone that “I didn’t give a fuck” anymore led to another “needs improvement” on that evaluation.  Apparently, making public professions of “not giving a fuck” displays a “lack of military bearing.”  Well, whatever.  I went out in style.

Anyway, that’s what I thought about my marksmanship score.  Whatever.  But apparently, a certain battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Dan “Big Dan” Cloyd, wanted to clear my poor showing of “five” from the battalion’s readiness stats.  Sure, I had less than a month left on the battalion's books, but if Big Dan, my favorite battalion commander, ever, wanted me to try, I just might have to take something seriously, for a change.

Or would I?

You see, ol’ Hatch had made this whole “qualification thing” about the two of us.  He asked me if I would try to qualify as a “favor” to him.

So, I asked him, “Can you do me a favor?”

“What is it?” he asked.

Then, I opened the curtain on one of the longest running gags in the repertoire of the Ted Perrin Theater of the Absurd.  “Ask me if that’s a banana in my pocket, or if I’m just happy to see you,” I said.

Yeah, perhaps this might need some explanation, too.  You see, in military dining facilities, you can always take hand fruit with you after your meal.  In my barracks rooms, throughout my military career, I always had plenty of oranges and apples to snack on.   Indeed, that’s where I discovered that pairing orange sections with a nice pilsner was a great treat.  I didn’t put orange wheels in my beer.  I just ate the orange while sipping the beer.   For that idea, you’re welcome.

Anyway, one day, after lunch—probably in Bamberg, Germany—I put a banana in my pocket and walked around my battalion headquarters, where I worked, and I had people ask me if I had a banana in my pocket or if I was just happy to see them.  My reply was, always, “It’s a banana.”

I used that gag in many a dining facility in many duty stations, on many of my fellow soldiers.  I used it in Bamberg and Babenhausen, Germany; in Fort Hood, Texas; in Riyadh and Dhahran, Saudi Arabia while on deployment; during my annual training periods in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and Fort Lewis, Washington; and on many a guard or reserve training base throughout the northeast.

That's it, The banana in my right ammo
pouch.  That was the one that had been in my
pocket.  I wasn't "happy to see" anyone.

For some reason, this often made people feel uncomfortable.  Some people even suggested that this might be “kind of gay.”  Let me say this, as a heterosexual man, it’s not gay if you have a banana in your pocket.  And I’m sure that I’ve had more bananas in my pockets than just about anyone in history, so I’m an expert on the subject.

Now, if you randomly ask me if I have a banana in my pocket or if I’m just happy to see you, you’re on your own.  I cannot guarantee the contents of my pocket.  But if I ask you to ask me that question—unless you’re someone really, really special, and you’ll know if you are—just assume it’s a banana. 

I hate showing my hand like that, but seriously!

And, yeah, the request was out there.  “Ask me if that’s a banana in my pocket or if I’m just happy to see you.”  A very simple request, that I have a difficult time believing Hatch hadn’t received before, or at least hadn’t witnessed before.  But he looked at me, having asked me to qualify “as a favor,” and given this simple request in return—just a little something for my troubles—he said, “No.”  And he walked away.

Now, I ask you this.  Would you have been able to “try to qualify” that day and then be able to look yourself in the mirror and feel that you’d done the right thing?

Actually, you probably could.  But me, when a man asks me for a favor and won’t even ask me a simple, harmless question in return, I just can’t let myself be taken advantage of in that way.  I traffic in some next-level ethos, y’all.

Luckily for my friendship with Big Dan, they ran out of ammunition on the M16 range that day—see what I mean about wasting rounds on me—so I didn’t have to aim all 40 rounds into the 300 meter silhouette and disappoint him. 

And I’ll always have that shitty evaluation report to put an exclamation point on my marginal service.  You’re welcome, America.