[Rhodes22-list] Brad Mercer - What I Felt - Katrina (was Herb's sailing trip)

[Herb Parsons]

When I was 20, I decided to join the CG. I talked to a recruiter, and 
didn't like the 6 month waiting list. Went next door and talked to the 
Navy recruiter, and ended up signing up with them.

If I had known at 20 what I know at 51, I would probably be in the CG 
today.

Brad Haslett wrote:
> Herb,
>
> Beautiful story, thank you for sharing it with us.  As you know from
> your first-hand experience, there were thousands of acts of courage
> and selflessness in the aftermath of Katrina.  Natural disasters of
> that magnitude tear the thin fabric of civilization that binds us
> together, and often the bad actors of our communities appear. To
> balance that, courageous and kind souls, such as your friend Brad,
> find strengths that perhaps they didn't know they possessed to fill
> the void.  May he rest in peace.
>
> Here is a video of the USCG rescue swimmer he spoke of -
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxEKHzgEDDA
>
> Brad
>
> On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 12:28 PM, Herb Parsons <hparsons at parsonsys.com> wrote:
>   
>> I'll write another one later, but for now, I'll share what my old
>> college roommate wrote about Katrina. But first, a little background (I
>> think I shared this writing on here before, but some of you weren't here
>> back then)
>>
>> I'm registered as a captain with a company that runs a sight-seeing tour
>> system using DUKWs (pronounced duck). It's an amphibious WWII era
>> vessel. They decided to send one of then down to NO to assist in
>> rescue-recovery immediately following Katrina. Even though I had not
>> actually worked for them, they wanted a USCG licensed captain operating
>> it on this trip, so they called me, and I jumped at the opportunity.
>>
>> In some ways, the trip was a bust - the boat developed engine trouble
>> the second day, and we had to have it picked up, the company lost a LOT
>> of money on the effort. On the other hand, we pulled 67 people out the
>> day we ran it, and spent the rest of our time there running supplies to
>> other parts of LA and MS, so I felt we were productive over all.
>>
>> Brad Mercer was my old college roommate. He and I have stayed close over
>> the years. We didn't do 1/10th of the "grand adventures" we planned as
>> college kids, but we have gotten together a few times to revive the
>> spirit of them. This was a good opportunity for that, so I invited him
>> to come with us. "Us" turned out to be him, me, and Max, another guy
>> that worked for the tour company.
>>
>> Obviously, Brad and I made the trip in 2005. We talked about it a lot
>> since then, and he wrote three very good journals about our experience.
>> This was the best of the three. It's a bit long, but definitely worth
>> the read.
>>
>> Brad was seriously considering writing a book, but shortly after our
>> trip, he moved to Australia to help another friend start a church. He
>> and the friend, who was from Australia, had successfully started a
>> church in the Dallas area, and now Brad felt it was time to repay the favor.
>>
>> They got the church started, and it's still growing, but about a year
>> after he moved down there, around March of last year, Brad called me
>> with the terrible news that he had colon cancer. Not the "big C", but
>> the big "C C", and it was amazingly aggressive. We lost him late
>> November of last year, and though the world at large took little notice,
>> we lost a good one.
>>
>> This is what he had to say about our adventure
>> =====
>> Katrina, Part III, What I Felt
>>
>> I have seen in this past week more literally overwhelming destruction *
>> and more humbling nobility of spirit * than ever before in my life. I
>> have felt more encouraged and affirmed than I can remember being in a
>> long time. By the end of the week it felt like a badge of honor, a mark
>> of distinction, to be able to call myself a human.
>>
>> It began at the Coast Guard operation in Alexandria, Louisiana. The
>> person in charge there, in certainly the biggest assignment of his life,
>> and one for which he couldn't possibly be adequately prepared, had been
>> working 20 hours a day for a week, and we civilians had shown up
>> uninvited, offering to help with our amphibious vehicle (called a DUKW,
>> pronounced "duck"). Yet he was as courteous and gracious as he could be.
>> He showed us around the facility, introduced us to someone who could
>> figure out how to plug us in, and bragged on his people, who had also
>> been working 20 hour shifts, and who were also gracious and attentive
>> and helpful. He told us about a girl in the Coast Guard in New Orleans
>> who had just the previous week obtained whatever licensing or
>> credentials are required to do aerial rescues from a helicopter. He said
>> a typical Coast Guard helicopter pilot may do 20 aerial rescues in a
>> career, and this girl had done 70 in her first week after qualifying. So
>> before we got close enough to see the first sign of wind or flood
>> damage, my heart began to swell with admiration for all of the rescue
>> and relief workers.
>>
>> The sun was rising on Saturday morning as we entered the city of New
>> Orleans, a major port and renowned tourist attraction, a city of a
>> half-million people, the home of the Superdome and the New Orleans
>> Saints NFL football team and the French Quarter and Mardi Gras * the
>> city where the party never stops. The sky was blue, the sun was shining,
>> the temperature was perfect, the roads were clear.
>>
>> And the great city was empty, abandoned, desolate. We passed mile after
>> mile of highways, homes, shopping centers, hotels, offices, churches and
>> franchised fast-food places without people or traffic. I have seen a
>> great city skyline standing black against a black sky. There was nobody.
>> That was the single eeriest experience of my life. It was like being in
>> some sort of post-apocalyptic movie. I felt the emptiness, the
>> abandonment, the smallness and the weakness and the transience of the
>> greatest human achievements. I felt what hell would be like for me *
>> alone in a world that was built for relationships.
>>
>> As we roamed the desolate city, I felt the perspective of the looter. No
>> one else was around. No one seemed to own anything or be in charge of
>> anything or responsible for anything or able to provide anything or to
>> care about anything at that location. It was like being the only person
>> left alive after a world-ending nuclear war. The whole material remnant
>> of the "developed" world is now just your unexplored urban jungle for
>> hunting and gathering, which is what you are reduced to in a place that
>> is, for the moment at least, too primitive even for agriculture, much
>> less manufacturing. I could see the signs on the small shops that said
>> things like "We shoot looters" and identify with the person determined
>> to protect at any cost what was left of his property, but for the first
>> time in my life, I could at least imagine what the world looked like to
>> the looter, too.
>>
>> One of the most remarkable emotional experiences was just the spirit of
>> the workers. We must have seen agencies from 20 states represented. We
>> saw every possible law enforcement and military agency from every
>> possible level of government, as well as countless private organizations
>> like us. It could have been a bureaucratic nightmare, but every leader
>> we encountered, no matter how harried and overworked, was kind and
>> willing to help and be helped. Every one of them offered to share their
>> food and drink (but not their gasoline), and looked for ways to keep
>> structure and coordination intact while still incorporating unexpected
>> offers of help. Every one of them was working as hard as they could to
>> make it work and get the job done. One Louisiana Parks & Wildlife leader
>> snapped dismissively at us when we pulled up and tried to ask a
>> question, but I spoke to him affirmingly and encouragingly and
>> sympathetically for no more than two minutes before he was nearly in
>> tears, talking about the challenges that he faced, offering us food and
>> drink and a place to park our duck. That was probably the first moment
>> in our adventure when I actually felt useful and valuable. I couldn't
>> captain the boat and I wasn't a mechanic, but I could reflect to people
>> their own value in a way that made it possible for them to work
>> with us.
>>
>> We found people at the Crossroads Church of the Nazarene like all the
>> other workers. Their brand new building had sustained damage, but the
>> pastor and a group of Red Cross volunteers formed a bucket brigade-style
>> line and helped us unload 217 cases of Similac like it was a party.
>>
>> I came close to feeling something less than admiration for the actual
>> people we were trying to help, which is never a good thing. People who
>> don't want to leave stinking, flooded homes in an abandoned neighborhood
>> without utilities are not apparently normal people. Most of them seemed
>> to be kind of marginal in some way. They were physically sick and weak
>> and frail, or they were a little mentally deficient, or they were just
>> emotionally unstable. They seemed to be totally out of touch with
>> reality. We tended to be in a hurry, trying to reach as many people as
>> possible before sundown. The National Guardsmen and professional Search
>> and Rescue people who directed us were allowing one bag per person and
>> no pets. I'll never forget the little old lady who came to the boat, and
>> then remembered that she had forgotten her Bible, so we waited for her
>> to go back into her house for her Bible and come back to the boat.
>>
>> When we picked up one group of 25, they were actively engaged in their
>> situation. They didn't seem disconnected at all. When Herb asked for a
>> head count, one man immediately jumped up and counted for us. Another
>> told him some of what he needed to know about what was under water, that
>> we were going through or over. Another wrote our names down on a pad for
>> the book she hopes to write someday, and to pray for us. They helped
>> each other sort out their bags when they left the boat for the big
>> helicopters. One chatted with me about where I was from, and about
>> relatives he has in this area.
>>
>> They were people, like me. For all their differences of accent, skin
>> color and lifestyle, we were linked by an extraordinary circumstance,
>> and I felt what it means to talk about our "fellow men". We were part of
>> the same extended family, and when push came to shove, we would help
>> each other. In the commonest of people is the spark of the divine. In
>> people for whom it would be easy in other circumstances to feel contempt
>> or incomprehension there is something admirable and likable and akin to
>> our own family and heroes.
>>
>> I had one emotional experience that I can't imagine anyone could ever
>> understand who hasn't been there. We had only experienced the emptiness
>> and desolation of the evacuated New Orleans for two days. For only two
>> days had we had to drive 70 miles to Baton Rouge each day for gasoline
>> and a restaurant and a place to sleep. But when a Domino's Pizza place
>> opened up on Monday morning, it was like seeing a loved one's eyes
>> flutter and open when you had thought they were dead. It was shocking
>> and exciting. The only drinks they had were two-liter bottles, and they
>> only had four available toppings: pepperoni, pineapple, jalepeno and
>> olives, so I ordered a two-liter coke and a large thin crust pepperoni,
>> pineapple, jalepeno and olive pizza, and it was very heaven. It wasn't
>> so much the food that was wonderful, as just the ability to order
>> something, and hear the cash register and sense hope for a returning
>> normality. And then a man walked in and announced to the crowd of
>> customers and employees that a service station down the road at such and
>> such a location actually had gasoline for sale! This crowd of normal,
>> simple people were a victorious community in that moment. Domino's
>> Pizza, which was never anything special to me until then, will
>> henceforth always represent to me the indomitable human spirit, and the
>> determination to rebuild what is destroyed, and to revive what is
>> mortally wounded, and to regain normality that catastrophe has stolen.
>> Civilization is not normal. It is a phenomenal pinnacle to which
>> humanity claws its way by superhuman effort, and which it maintains at
>> heroic cost. With the help of my own overactive imagination, in a mere
>> two days, I caught a glimpse of that truth.
>>
>> The most impacting emotion of the whole week, though was an odd mixture
>> of humility and pride. I don't have any military or governmental
>> affiliation that makes me "official". I don't have any practical trade
>> skills that makes me "essential". I was just tagging along at the last
>> moment, doing whatever I could, lowering and raising a ladder, landing
>> out or loading and unloading boxes of water or formula, rolling a flat
>> tire out of the way. I can't imagine anyone who had the opportunity that
>> presented itself to me, choosing differently than I chose. But for a
>> week, I was treated like a hero.
>>
>> Driving down the road with a load of baby formula, we were passed on the
>> left by a white pickup truck from the maintenance department of some
>> local school district, and the driver gave us a thumbs up sign as he
>> passed us. A few minutes later a woman in a sedan passed us on the
>> right, made eye contact with us, and mouthed the words "thank you." We
>> would stop for gas or a meal in Baton Rouge and someone would hear us
>> talking to each other, or see something on our truck that suggested what
>> we were doing, and * male and female, young and old * they would come up
>> to us, and their eyes would water and their bottom lip would quiver, and
>> they would say with a thick, choked voice "thank you for everything
>> you're doing. This is our home. You are our heroes." And we would get to
>> say: "You're welcome. You're worth it. Everyone's just doing what they can."
>>
>> We were looking for a way to reduce the number of trips we would need to
>> make to Baton Rouge to get gas, so we asked a customer at a gas pump who
>> had 3 5-gallon gas cans tied on top of her car, where she got them or if
>> she knew where we could get some. She said we'd probably have to go all
>> the way to Lafayette, another hour and a half past Baton Rouge. A couple
>> of minutes later she came back to us and asked us where we were heading.
>> We said we were doing relief work in New Orleans. She said: "My home was
>> destroyed, and you're going there to help. You take my gas cans. And
>> thank you." Of course, she refused payment for them.
>>
>> I have never lived before in a culture of such sincere mutual admiration
>> and gratitude. Surely that's what the church is supposed to be like, and
>> what heaven will be like. People who were providing us with food and
>> shelter and a shower were thanking us as we were thanking them. The
>> National Guardsman who guided us on the boat, who made it possible for
>> us to do anything useful at all, thank us as we thanked him, for making
>> it possible. And every night that we went back to the Baton Rouge
>> church, we'd find a mint or a piece of candy on "our" bed, with a thank
>> you note * sometimes a printed one from an adult, but usually one
>> written in crayon by a child from a local Christian school. The one I
>> saved and brought home with me is written in red crayon. In a childish
>> scrawl it says:
>>
>> "Thank you. Thank you so much for coming down here you are so brave. You
>> are risking everything for us and I want to thank you. You will be in my
>> prayes. You will always be blessed by God. I hope you get enough food
>> and rest. Sense you have treated us so well here is a treat for you.
>>
>> Ryan
>> Victory Academy" * and at the bottom it had a cherry-flavored Jolly
>> Rancher candy taped to the note.
>>
>> I came away from this week feeling grateful for a God who is bigger than
>> the big storm, and grateful that he has made us in his own image, and
>> allowed me the companionship of creatures who are only a little lower
>> than the angels.
>>
>>
>> Brad Mercer
>> September 10, 2005
>>
>>
>> Chris Geankoplis wrote:
>>     
>>> Wow Herb,
>>>             Thanks for so elequently sharing the story.  Great imagery and
>>> human connections.  I am so glad you told me about the trip.  Thanks, and if
>>> you have any other stories please share them.  Tell you what.  I found some
>>> old journals I wrote as a kid over in Italy and some old negatives, all in a
>>> box of my late mother's.  The day after these elections I'll pass some of
>>> the stuff on if you will tell me another story.
>>>
>>> Chris G
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>       
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