Election Day

Today was the first day I asked myself a very specific question:

Was Grandma allowed to vote?

Specifically, I wondered whether Grandma was allowed to vote while interned in Rohwer.

For those of you who don’t know, my maternal grandparents and all of my mom’s older siblings were interned during World War II. (My father’s side was not -- they lived in Maui, and most of the Hawaiian Japanese-Americans were not interned. Some fought, including my grandpa’s brother, who died in a corner of France.)

Wikipedia didn’t have anything. But PRI’s The World did a characteristically excellent story on the matter.

The gist is that there was voting, but it was difficult, and the combination of ballot challenges, state laws, and logistics meant that voting rights were pretty much eliminated.

I try to avoid thinking too much about my racial or cultural identity. But otherness has been a feature of this election in a way that it hasn’t been, at least in the memory of my political life. And so it was perhaps inevitable that I’d come back to that memory, and think about what was, and what might have been, and of course, what may yet be.

It is with a renewed intensity that I gaze upon efforts to make voting harder, not easier. It is with renewed anger that I consider the efforts to change election laws, under the pretense of reducing fraud, to disenfranchise segments of the population. Because it was not so long ago that my family lost those rights, through no fault of their own.

And it’s with some amazement that I consider that, after that experience, my grandparents rebuilt, had sons and son-in-laws serve in uniform overseas, and voted. I wish I had the “I LIKE IKE” button that my grandpa had hanging near his desk for decades. I wonder if he ever knew that Milton Eisenhower led the War Relocation Authority. As a farmer/small businessman, he probably was a registered Republican.

I’m grateful he didn’t get bitter. I’m grateful he didn’t give up. And I’m grateful that he was permitted -- not easily, but permitted -- to rebuild his life. It’s a sobering lesson for me. I’ve experienced nothing remotely close to that level of dislocation, humiliation, and -- I don’t think this is an exaggeration -- state-sanctioned theft. I laugh at my friends who worry about big government taking away their rights or seizing their property. But then I feel shame -- every family has stories of civic failure and grievance, whether governmental or private. It does no good to dismiss their concerns and pain out of hand.

That’s going to be the hard part after today. How do we work together? How will the victors frame their victory in a way that at least reduces the chances that we will spend the next two or four years or decades as two armed camps, unable to do much because we begrudge each other the smallest things?

Because I do think a lot of people are terrible. I do think that support of Trump flies in the face of everything I know and love about this country. I do think that it shows a marked historical ignorance, a lack of empathy to those who would most be hurt by a Trump presidency that borders on callousness and selfishness. I do think that plenty of people, even people more or less on the same page as me, have become stark raving mad.

And I believe I have been one of those madmen.

I've embraced the toxicity that I criticize in others. I've become the partisan that sees winning as essential, even existential. And in my saner moments I feel shame at being part of the problem.

So I’m trying, hard, to remember certain things. I remember that my love for this country is not the naive love I had as a young child. It’s a love that is more aware (though still partially blind) to the real historical truths, and the present truths, experienced by those different from me. I see those flaws, and that pain, and the wars and the cruelty and the short-sightedness.

But I’m finding the strength to not just criticize or willfully ignore it. I’m finding the love that demands I reach out, and do things that are uncomfortable and hard, and pride-crushing, because I know that it makes my tiny corner of the world better.

Not enough. Never enough. But some. And maybe, after today, some more.

I love this country because of its history, too, and not just in spite of it. I marvel at how some individuals and communities discovered, in their pain, in their oppression, in their privilege, something greater, something beyond the limitations of I or tribe.

That all heroes wilt under the scrutiny of history and hindsight is necessary, and even desirable. If America depended on perfect women and men to achieve greatness, we would have no hope to maintain, much less advance, this experiment. I have looked into the mirror, and learned to appreciate the flaws, the dark shadows, without sentiment or excuse. Our scars are our story, though one hopes, not our future.

So this I pray -- and I say that sincerely as a man who has struggled to bend his knees and bow his head, but does so now, at a time of acute need. I pray for a peaceful election day.

I pray for good judgment on the part of the people.

I pray not for an easy life, but to be a stronger man.
I pray for powers equal to my tasks. (Phillip Brooks)

I pray that I remember that the spirit of liberty is the spirit that is not too certain that it is right. (Learned Hand)

I pray I learn how to borrow from those who came before, from those who know more, and love more -- that my pride does not prevent me from leaning too much on my own understanding, but that my honor demands that I develop my understanding to ensure I am not a weak reed.

Today, I will cast my ballot, thinking about my family that, within living memory, was denied that right. I will vote mindful of the past, with an eye toward the future, our future.

I cast it knowing that this is but a piece of citizenship -- that I will judge my worthiness of that vote based on what I do between elections to better advance this nation and the world, and the extent to which I have opened my heart to those across the fissures and chasms of discord and fear.

Today will be the expression of our will. But every day is the expression of our character.

To you good men and women: I pray you vote wisely, live well, and love openly. For you are why I vote, why I live, and why I love. Thank you.

Silent Warriors

On my last day in Maui, I noticed a dusty framed certificate in the living room. 

I doubt it had been looked at for years.

I knew that Grandpa Yamada had had a brother who served in World War II in the US Army, and who had died in France. I knew his name was Hideo. I also knew that his family did not want him to go, but he did. His family wasn't interned -- Japanese-Americans in Hawaii were largely exempt.

I remember finding his name on the monument to Japanese-American WWII servicemen in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. I remember making a pencil etching of his name, paying the recommended donation, and hesitating to send it home. Someone suggested that it was unwise to bring him up to Grandpa.

And so, like so many things in my family, it was discarded and unspoken, and the opportunity to hear the story died. How ironic that we would be so cowardly when it came to discussing frankly the brave and honorable death of a relative.

And so here was an artifact from that past. Here was the thing I kept in mind every time I heard a Jap joke, the thing that I thought about every time a Korean or Chinese client or stranger grew slightly brittle upon learning that I am of Japanese ancestry. I have been told that in Asia, a conception of nationality distinct from race is challenging. My exposure was limited, so I can't say if that's the case. But if it is, it is one more reason I am grateful to have been born on this side of the ocean.

But here was new information. I assumed, being Hawaiian, Hideo served in the 100th Battalion. But it appears he served in the storied 442nd Regimental Combat Team, in F Company -- a distinguished company within a legendary regiment.

In high school, I read Silent Warriors: A Memoir of America's 442nd Regimental Combat Team. The author, Jack Wakamatsu, served in F Company.

I think Hideo was mentioned in passing -- just a sentence. At the time I wasn't sure if it was my great-uncle... Hideo is a common enough name.

The certificate indicates he died October 15, 1944, which would put it at the beginning of the attack on Bruyères.  So he died before the regiment rescued the "Lost Battalion".

My father claimed that he was killed by a sniper. But my father had a terrible habit of embellishing stories -- it would be a shame if he chose to embellish this one, for surely it doesn't need artificial drama.

His awards, and brief mention in Silent Warriors, perhaps suggests that he wasn't an exemplary member of the unit. But I'm not sure that means much if the unit itself is the most decorated, for its size and duration of service, in the history of American warfare.

I know nothing else about the man. I can't claim any pride for his service. But I do hope to keep his service in mind as I try to be a more decent man.

How to change the world

There is a pattern for organizational change that seemed to work for major changes in military doctrine, and can probably be extended elsewhere.

Note that many organizations, or society as a whole, might not be able to apply this. Society is more diffuse, with fewer sources of broadly accepted legitimacy. Also, for more flexible organizations, change can happen more quickly with hiring and firing, and may require more of a consensus.

With those caveats, let me begin.

I learned this about the American switch from a battleship-centered naval doctrine to a carrier-centered one, and use it as a case study to illustrate the points. The analysis is borrowed from the history mentioned in Knox and Murray, The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300-2050.

Step 1: Create a vision consistent with the mission of the organization.

Someone's got to have an idea of how things could be different, and why. It has to be an idea, not necessarily novel, but perhaps novel in application, and different enough to substantially change things. That idea has to be wedded with a need, or mission, and is often triggered by changes in technology or society that transforms it from fantasy to possibility.

Case study: sometime around or after World War I, someone had the idea of taking the relatively new aircraft and making it an attack craft based on a ship. Aircraft could provide reconnaissance of the surrounding waters and launch attacks at greater range and less risk than ship-to-ship combat. This was, of course, probably prompted by the preliminary use of aircraft in a combat role during the end of World War I coupled with advances in explosives, making it more feasible for an aircraft to carry effective bombs.

Step 2: Find a patron.

Even the greatest idea needs to be recognized as great by someone who matters. Specifically, the ideal patron has high rank/influence within the existing hierarchy, but enough creativity/humility/wisdom to recognize a good idea that has the potential to supplant existing doctrine but will improve the organization's capacity to fulfill it's mission.

This must be stressed: it is usually someone who has unquestioned credentials within the existing hierarchy. It is very, very difficult to change an organization completely from without -- such events truly are revolutions, and often lead to the destruction of the organization.

Case study: There was one battleship admiral in the entire US Navy that recognized the potential of aircraft to change the structure of naval warfare. His was a distinctly minority view. But he embraced the proposed idea, and was willing to undertake effort and risk on its behalf.

Step 3: Disguise or rebrand the change to minimize institutional resistance.

Most good innovations are resisted by the existing power structure. Why is that? It could be because the leadership feels that all the good ideas have already been adopted. It could be that they feel their position is threatened by the changes. It could be they don't understand it. It's not always the case that stability and familiarity are preferred -- presumably, some of these leaders got there by contributing innovative ideas themselves -- and so the reasons for resistance are often more varied than is often appreciated.

Nevertheless, it exists, and has to be overcome. All good insurgencies resist the temptation to match strengths -- if the minority upstarts had power, they wouldn't be minority upstarts.

One of the best ways to do this is to tweak the packaging, and even the secondary substance, enough to make it palatable to the existing leadership. Sometimes this requires outright lying, or some sacrifice of capabilities or scope.

The goal is to trade away some of these things for getting the Thing built. Once it's built, it's easier to change the parameters or scope of it. But all the principled statements in the world won't help if the Thing isn't built.

Case study: Recognizing the resistance of the leadership, as well as the technological testing and development period required to make the vision a reality, the admiral pitched carrier-based aircraft as support for battleships, used primarily for recon. Given that this was a pre-radar era, even the battleship admirals recognized this value, and reluctantly supported a modest carrier program.

Step 4: Create an incentive structure and promotion path built around the new doctrine.

A funded project founded on a good idea is worthless if no one wants to participate. If something is new, it's often not well understood. Most individuals won't want to risk their career on something that could be a huge waste of time. Plus, like the older leadership, it's easier just to buy into the existing system. The path has already been blazed, and the results more predictable, if not always glamorous.

By creating an alternate promotion path, the leadership, led by the patron, provides more security and stability to the new project by building in some structure. It's a tangible commitment of resources and will. Equally important, it shows that someone has put enough energy into the vision to understand how it would work in practice -- the new roles, the new skills, the new platforms and technologies that would be integrated into operations.

The alternate promotion path is critical because the technologies or the processes are new, and require specialized training. But it's also important because young, flexible newcomers will become indoctrinated into a new system, and not beholden to ideas or powers of organizations past.

Creating insurgent cells within an organization is easier if the organization itself gives you money and resources to do so.

Case study: After more general training, officers and enlisted men could specialize in carrier operations by attending special schools and programs designed to train crews how to operate and fight from these new platforms.

Step 5: Train, promote, improve, and do your mission. Wait about 20 years.

Why 20 years? Why so long? Basically, it's about the fact that old people die and retire.

It's a pessimistic view of human nature, one that suggests we are, in general, not very flexible in our beliefs and capacities. But it may be accurate. Even if, ideologically, we can change, often our training and abilities can't change quickly enough, or effectively enough, for us to remain relevant in the new era. It seems a bit sad, but it's the story of human existence.

For large organizations, like the military, or society itself, attrition doesn't happen on a large enough basis for any strategy other than a demographic long game to be reliably effective. Smaller organizations with more flexible hiring and firing policies can change things more quickly, though that has to be balanced by the costs of losing "good" institutional memory.

Case study: It worked. As the officers and enlisted personnel received training and assignments, they gained experience, promotions, and passed their lessons on. Designers integrated newer technologies into carriers, making them progressively more modern. Strategists refined doctrines, often through the crucible of warfare. Instructors grew in number and quality, as did the recruits. By the time of Midway and Coral Sea, only the most die-hard traditionalist could ignore the fact that naval warfare had revolutionized into carrier-centered missions.

Step 6: Repeat.

No generation has a monopoly on good ideas. (Or bad ones.) Each generation is destined to become the stodgy, inflexible elders, tempering the least productive impulses of a younger generation that feels it knows better and isn't willing to wait for change. (Keeping with the theme: "We want eight and we won't wait!") Ideally, any organization large and significant enough is reinventing itself at some low level constantly. This doesn't mean changing the job of everyone frequently, though certain organizations staffed with particularly flexible and capable individuals can do just that. It means simultaneously recognizing the desire for humans to take years to become proficient in specific, complicated tasks and the reality of a changing world. This can be accomplished by training individuals well to do specific tasks, but making sure that at least some new individuals are being trained in newer doctrines and principles.

Case study: The modern US Navy is still heavily based on carriers, but is also developing new, smaller ships with the goal of littoral combat. In the future, rail guns might replace larger weapons platforms completely. Nuclear power extended both the range and the mission of carriers. Nuclear submarines provided strike capabilities less vulnerable to surface attack. And STOVL aircraft provide a capability that permits carrier redesigns and somewhat less dependence on the carrier as both starting and ending point of all flights.

The history of cheating at cards: FDR and the war

(From No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II, by Doris Kearns Goodwin, p. 159-160)

The 76th Congress had been a tumultuous gathering. So trying were the conditions, observers noted, that, just after the final House vote on conscription, Speaker William B. Bankhead died of a stroke. (He was replaced by Sam Rayburn of Texas.) But in the end, despite the blunders, divisions, and dillydallying, the Congress had granted the president the legislation he needed to begin the process of mobilization, and with it the revitalization of the American economy after a decade of depression.

It was the president's custom each year on the night that Congress was due to adjourn to host a poker game in his study. The game would begin in the early evening, and then whoever was ahead at the moment the Speaker called to say that Congress had officially adjourned would be declared the winner. On this night, Morgenthau was far ahead when the Speaker phoned, but Roosevelt pretended that the call was from someone else and the game continued until midnight, when Roosevelt finally pulled ahead. At this point, Roosevelt whispered to an aide to go into another office and call the study. When the phone rang, he pretended it was the Speaker and declared himself the winner. Everyone was in high spirits until the next morning, when Morgenthau read in the paper that the Congress had officially adjourned at 9 p.m. He was so angry that he handed in his resignation. Only when the president called and convinced him that it was all in good fun did Morgenthau agree to stay. Morgenthau should have realized that Roosevelt was not above a little deception if it helped him win his bets!

Preliminary lessons from No Ordinary Time

I have finally finished No Ordinary Time: Franklin & Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II. It was a great read, filled with amusing stories as well as gripping drama. The book is too long and too interesting for me to feel comfortable summarizing it. However, it's also too important for me to not at least try to capture a bit of the lessons learned.

1. A mask of charm is both an invaluable political tool and incredibly hollowing. Both FDR and Reagan had a charm that seemed effortless. But both had been characterized by those closest to them as individuals for whom there remained a wide gulf between their essential self and the outside world. That gulf could not be bridged even by those closest to them. It seems a hard way to live, but I suppose being President is not easy.

I can't speak for Reagan, but FDR's pattern of charm and distance was established well before he contracted polio. It appears to stem from the early death of his father, his demanding (even domineering) mother, his status as a sheltered only child, and perhaps his social difficulties at Harvard.

I have been told by those somewhat close to me that they are surprised when I am honest with them about my past, about my feelings, and about my despair. Evidently I also use charm as a way of distancing myself, although obviously with considerably less facility than FDR.

2. It is important to have both a hammer and an anvil to effect social change. The anvil is sedentary and patient. The anvil waits for things to come to it. The hammer is impatient, restless, relentless. The hammer seeks to achieve through sheer determination a changed world. But the anvil knows that, with the hammer's help, good things will ultimately be forged.

Eleanor Roosevelt could accurately be characterized as a battleaxe, but for this analogy, she is the hammer. For her own personal reasons, and personal tragedies, she had a restless, relentless drive. This often led to a lack of focus - and in the case of Japanese-American internment, perhaps a critical level of diffusion that prevented an eleventh hour rescue from internment. But she was incredibly consistent, and very aggressive about pushing everyone, especially her husband, for change.

FDR, on the other hand, was a careful student of polls, and often moved very slowly on issues of social justice, economic restructuring, or other policy changes he knew were not widely supported. It is perhaps his genius, as well as a stain on his legacy, that he did not lead on issues of African-American rights, labor's struggle with crony capitalism, or war mobilization.

But it is fair to say that he depended upon Eleanor as a way of saying and doing things he could not, by virtue of his twin handicaps - one physical, and one vocational. Often, the President can't lead, and it's not because he lacks courage. It is because, by coming from the President, things that should be broadly supported, or self-evident in their justice, become immediately contentious. Recent history illustrates this.

It's also fair to say that Eleanor alone could not have done what she did without FDR's backing. Even though he was called upon repeatedly to rein her in, he refused. FDR trained Eleanor to really investigate things - to ask specific and incisive questions, to observe and remember. His gifts of memory are legendary; what I did not know was how he literally taught and trained his wife to become such a keen judge of organizations and individual character.

It's worth noting that they were aided tremendously by a press that regulated itself regarding the president, his wife, and the president's relationship with women. This probably will never be possible again - the press was, by and large, very deferential to the office and to the man. Even as his powers were failing in his fourth term, the press, his staff, and even members of Congress would do their best to conceal his lapses.

Eleanor also benefited by having a weekly column. She got plenty of hate mail over it, especially from the South over her support of African-American civil rights. Still, I wonder whether any first lady would, or could, write a weekly column appearing in newspapers across the nation, and the extent to which that could be a bully pulpit for change.

Catt needed Paul in Women's Suffrage. King needed X in Civil Rights. FDR needed Eleanor to preserve the home front, even as foreign affairs consumed him.

3. The story of race relations is intimately tied to the story of the American labor movement. I did not realize how little I knew about American Labor, nor about its role in the advancement of African-Americans. Even with the existential threat of world war, the fight for manufacturing jobs and combat roles for blacks was a brutal one. Perhaps less dramatically violent, but equally powerful, was the struggle to allow women to do factory work. Eleanor later realized that the war did more for the poor and the oppressed than the New Deal ever did, or perhaps could.

This period saw the increased militancy of African-American groups and American labor, including some incredibly unpopular mine strikes during the war. Fortunately for everyone, they were resolved more or less peacefully, with the president exercising some wisdom on the matter (of course supported by Eleanor's field reports).

4. Great individuals often depend upon several people to give them what they need to be great. FDR fed voraciously among various men and women for social company and relaxation. It wasn't parasitic, but it was a very aggressive symbiosis that often threatened the ability of others to enjoy basic levels of independence. Few gave more to the President than Harry Hopkins, but Roosevelt resented that Hopkins' marriage would eventually lead his key social and intellectual partner to move out of the White House.

Eleanor, similarly, depended upon Joe Lash, Lorena Hickok, her daughter Anna, and a number of people as sounding boards, foils, and, ultimately, sources of love. I'd say each of them demanded, and got, almost the entirety of the lives of ten individuals.

It's teaching me to be both more giving and more demanding of the people I would have close to me. Each of us has to find the handful of people -- rarely biologically related -- that make time and make a difference.

5. FDR overruled his military in key strategic decisions, and was right. But he did not try to fight the war himself, and he did not interfere at levels below grand strategy. To do this required tremendous confidence in one's self. In fact, it was Roosevelt's ability to remain calm even in the darkest days of the war that stunned, even creeped out, many who observed him.

This was a surprise to me, as I had previously read Partners in Command: George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in War and Peace. In it, it appeared that the American general staff in general, and Marshall in particular, possessed unusually clear insight into the strategic aspects of the war. However, as No Ordinary Time reveals, Marshall himself admits he was wrong about a number of things - notably the need to support Britain and the Soviet Union early in the war, at the expense of US readiness. Also, both books acknowledge that American combat forces were too green, and would have been slaughtered had a premature European invasion taken place. Rather than a sideshow, the African and Italian campaigns helped harden American ground troops, and prepared them for success in Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge.

After Korea and MacArthur, civilian leaders were especially wary of military overreach. After Vietnam, civilian leaders were unnerved by the use of force. One hopes America is only now finally emerging from an unhealthy period where both military and civilian leadership lacked the self-confidence, tempered by the wisdom of restraint, to exercise effective leadership.

6. One can be in love with someone and mostly live separate lives. In many ways, FDR and Eleanor's relationship has strong parallels to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Both couples loved each other, and drew upon each other's strengths. Both wives were betrayed by their husbands, and in important ways, never forgave them. But both women also used the experiences as proof that they had to develop their own separate lives.

The American Experience: Clinton (one of a fantastic set of documentaries about American presidents, including FDR) mentions that Hillary Clinton actually moved back to Arkansas during one of Bill's early campaigns, and looked as if she was going to become a housewife, albeit one who worked outside of the home.

FDR and Eleanor redefined their love, what it was to be in love, even as they both needed emotional support and got it from people other than their spouse. Even more than the case with the Clintons, one gets the sense that something is keeping them together that is larger than either political necessity nor the mores of the time. It's fair that both were in love with each other, but both were also exasperated by each other. They depended upon key intermediaries to know how to manage them, singly and together. Most couples are not so lucky.

7. Sometimes, we can be surprised by the simplicity of the needs and desires of people far form home.

I'll mention briefly that one poignant vignette concerned Eleanor's visits to field hospitals in the Pacific. She was initially worried that the troops were going to be disappointed, as security procedures only announced that "a woman" was coming to visit. Eleanor, ever conscious of not living up to her mother's beauty, was worried the men would be expecting a pinup girl. But she found that they appreciated her visits, because she was something they hadn't seen in a year of service - an American mother.

Of all the things that tug at the heart in this book, this seemed a particularly touching insight.


There are many other lessons. But this is a good starting point.