The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 41: Words, Words, Words

Episode Date: February 7, 2017

Choose them wisely or deal with the consequences.  

When Hamlet was pondering suicide, he didn't say, I can't assign if I want to live. He said, to be or not to be. When Nathan Hale was asked if he had any last words, he didn't say, Go ahead and hang me. He said, I regret that I have but one life to give for my country. Words matter. Choose the right ones and future generations will quote you forever. Choose poorly, and you'll be forgotten or damned for all time. George understood the consequences of words better than most, and so did his son. But now, staring dumbly at the blank tombstone that would mark his boy's final resting place, George was at a loss to find the right words.

What words could possibly sum up the life of the famous poet that millions were now mourning? Loving son? No, that wouldn't work. Beloved husband and father? Hardly. In the end, George went with catatone diomona et toy, true to his spirit. George was satisfied with those words, and he hoped that James would have approved. But, truth be told, approval was not something that George had ever received from James,

nor in fairness was it something George had ever offered to his rebellious son. Indeed, father and son hadn't spoken since that fateful day. when James told his dad he was joining a band. A band? What kind of band? said George. A rock and roll band. I'm going to be the singer, said James. That's ridiculous, George scoffed. Rock and roll isn't even music. Besides, you can't even sing. Now, as George looked upon the granite bust of the young man with the long hair and the otherworldly gaze, he contemplated the magnitude of his mistaken. assessment and thought about the many thousands of protesters galvanized by his son's words and music. But George also thought of some other words, words spoken in haste six years earlier. Back then, George was patrolling a tense and dangerous coastline in a place most Americans had never

even heard of. The seas were high that evening and the fog was thick. But the radar screen was undeniable. Enemy ships were approaching from several directions quickly. They didn't respond to any warning or communication, so George, George did what he had to do. He spoke the words that would change the history books forever. Open fire. Those words floated down to the gunners, who, unlike his son, were not inclined to ignore his orders. For nearly four hours, George's Navy fired upon enemy ships that stubbornly refused to leave his radar screen. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in Washington, D.C., President Johnson got word of the sea battle and interrupted all three networks with some words of his own.

Quote, this new act of aggression on the high seas must be met with a positive reply. On national television, the President of the United States asked for and received congressional approval to retaliate, and the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was passed. Back in the Gulf, though, after the fog of war, had finally lifted, George saw why the enemy ships appeared to be unsinkable. They weren't actually there. The radar hits were not ships at all. They were anomalies brought about by weather and high seas, or maybe a technical glitch,

whatever the cause, George had been firing for four hours into a ghost fleet. George reported the error to his commanders in Hawaii. They called McNamara immediately, but the Secretary of Defense, for whatever reason, didn't relay the message to the president. So, the retaliatory airstrikes went off as scheduled. And just like that, the United States was at war with Vietnam. Vietnam. So, yes, George understood the consequences of words. Spoken in anger, they had divided his family. Spoken in error, they had divided his country. Today, people still argue about

whether his words were an honest mistake or part of a government conspiracy to push Congress into declaring a premature and completely avoidable war. Maybe the answer to that is, best addressed by the words of his son. There are things known and things unknown, and in between are the doors. A father and a son who had words, the father who lived to regret them, and the son who died, rebuking them. Rear Admiral George Stephen Morrison, and his son, Jim, the dead poet, who could sing after all, and provided the soundtrack to the war his father started in a little band called The Doors.

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