Martin B. Erdheim divides his time between Sun Valley and New York.
By Martin B. Erdheim
In the fall of 1962 I was undergoing an extraordinarily stressful 13 weeks while in a minority status equaled by very few, ever. I was the only Jew in a battalion of young men in the United States Marine Corps officer boot camp. The sleep was limited, the physical demands were challenging and the psychological harassment was intense. Less than half would finish the course and be entitled to attend a six-month program designed to turn us into Marine Corps officers.
One evening, a fellow officer candidate made some rather disparaging remarks about my heritage. Following Marine Corps protocol, I administered a blow, which rendered him prone. Those of you who have experienced the pleasures of Quantico, the Marine Corps' answer to Canyon Ranch, surely remember that each platoon was assigned two D.I.s (drill instructors), one of whom stays with the platoon at all times. As fate would have it, the D.I. with us that evening, was a black combat veteran named Sergeant Smith.
Sergeant Smith, upon noticing a ruckus, beckoned the two quarrelling candidates to enter his office. The Sergeant, wearing his Smokey Bear hat in the cockiest fashion, began his diatribe with a verbal assault upon both of us. He did this with an élan unmatched by other human beings who are not Marine Corps D.I.s. In summation, he asked my antagonist a very logical question-"What do you say about me behind my back."
This was the last time that this issue was mentioned until several months later. I had somehow successfully completed the program and was in Quantico town having a cup of coffee. Sergeant Smith saw me and asked if he could join me. Even though I now outranked him, who was I to say no to this World War Two and Korean War hero? We exchanged the usual niceties and then he got to the point. He pointed out that there are people who don't understand that someday, they may be in a foxhole, back to back with another Marine. In those situations he went on, you don't concern yourself with what color your foxhole mate is, what religion he is, how far he went in school or how rich his father is. You want to know one thing. Does he have the character and will to stand tall and defend your back. Period. It was a moving moment. I've always thought that Sergeant Smith was also speaking allegorically. He was suggesting we all face important, stressful situations, and during those times it is essential to know the character of the other people in our metaphorical foxhole.
That being said, I will not vote for Senator Obama, but will enthusiastically support Senator McCain. My decision has nothing to do with Senator Obama's race, nor with Senator McCain's. This is an election, about character, experience, judgment and will. And on all four criteria, Senator McCain commands a decisive edge. I am pained to think that there are those who will vote against Senator Obama because of his race, and that there are those who will vote for him based on this characteristic of birth. We should be vigorously attempting as a nation to extirpate race from our day to day affairs, and yet there are some of us allowing race to soil our politics.
Several years after Sergeant Smith's position was aired that day in Quantico, Martin Luther King expressed the same understanding, when he proclaimed that the character of one's conscience is more significant that the color of one's skin. In that spirit, I will be in McCain's foxhole and I am more than confident that Sergeant Smith will be there as well.
