My Turn: A veteran tackled his blind spot and tells the story

By Lawrence Climo

I’m a retired psychiatrist. Sometimes I write. Many years ago, growing frustrated by the growing toxicity of civil discourse in our split nation, I wanted to find a way to stop it. Like everyone else, I complained but kept indulging it, but I also began gathering research material and playing with hypothetical ideas. I even began writing a book. Although my data and those ideas led nowhere, I kept trying. Eventually, out of ideas and frustrated, I gave up, and continued feeling sick about our nation. I continued seeing an illness here for which there was no treatment.

It was only after several years and downsizing and moving and making new friends that I had my breakthrough. Reflecting on America’s chronic split, I realized something I’d long ago pushed from my mind. Hadn’t I once been, myself, personally split? Yes, I had — in the military, when I refused to follow some orders and disobeyed others. From that awakening and those confessions, I realized I had overlooked and ignored something important. Instead of beginning with “us Americans now,” I should have begun with “me and America back then” and then followed where that led. What I had overlooked — that blind spot — was personal, but I knew that despite discomfort and confessions, the America issue was more important.

I fleshed out uncomfortable details of what my military behaviors back then had meant, not just how they made me feel. Dots connected. Memories were revisited that were not just personal and complicated; they were disconcerting and distressing as I had expected, but I also found an unexpected source of support. Reading a recently published book about ancient medicine and healing that was filled with Jewish commentary or midrash, I found that I was not so alone with my issues. Those ancients had their own ideas and some of them were tried and had effect, and it was in that literature that I found what I’d been looking for.

I re-wrote my book, gave it a name (From Toxic Civil Discourse To Saving a World: A Midrash-Guided Memoir of a Vietnam Vet), and found a publisher (Ktav Publishing House, Urim Publications). I’d finally tackled that wind. I’d finally found a treatment that provided the peace of mind I’d sought, along with an opportunity to share it. And what turned out to be the biggest surprise for me wasn’t that the solution (show respect for the other) was so simple and obvious. It was the rest of it. It was the fact that one needn’t feel that respect or even mean it. One had only to show it. Just show it. And, of course, our self-respect is the key.

“My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their letters to the editor or views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.