Looking into the night
Temme, Leonard A.
in Desert Shield and Desert Storm. The fundamental lesson of the war, which even I was aware of before the meeting opened, was that it was because of our night vision capabilities that we won so...
...Because of NVGs and something called FLIR (Forward Looking Infra-Red), we were able to function at night as easily and effectively as during the day...
...Again, the individuals working for the Coast Guard in some of these assignments are heroes...
...Suddenly, because of"The Gulf War: Lessons Learned," the nice academic-like meeting going on here today and tomorrow carries a heavier moral load...
...These uses of NVGs seem to me as socially redemptive as one is likely to find...
...It was a large complex with several types of hotels, ~k cabanas, restaurants, bars, pools, each facility designed with a different architectural theme...
...It was not shooting fish in a barrel...
...Tasteful music was quietly piped in through speakers hidden in lavish vegetation...
...I had not done that...
...But tomorrow I will be presenting to the group of DOD scientists, my colleagues, my beginning work on NVGs, the device that enabled us to "own the night...
...A narrator speaking above the music described what we were seeing...
...Tomorrow morning I make a brief, informal presentation of the Navy's newly launched research effort on NVGs...
...Who can judge the maybe 15 to 30 percent of the audience who laughed...
...The narrator told us the shadows were people, and he may have said something lighthearted about "getting the hell out of Dodge...
...The meeting was just ending...
...The fundamental lesson of the war, which even I was aware of before the meeting opened, was that it was because of our night vision capabilities that we won so decisively...
...We saw tapes, made with NVGs, that had been used in court in trials of cases involving drug interdiction off the coast of Florida...
...terror of the situation...
...During the last day of the "Lessons Learned" meeting last week, the Coast Guard presented films depicting their experiences with NVGs...
...In the meanwhile, as soon as I retumed home from the "Lessons Learned" meeting, I submitted an application to the National Institutes of Health...
...a reflection, perhaps, not on rock music itself but on the general tone of our popular culture and our society...
...These attacks were not easy...
...After the first target was hit we saw some shadows moving on the screen, little dark spots...
...The sign outside the door said something about a family reunion...
...The "Lessons Learned" meeting occurred in one of the most elaborate resorts I have ever visited...
...there was risk involved, danger, the unknown...
...Anyway, as the shadowy figures scattered, a sizable proportion of the audience laughed...
...When I first heard the music I was shocked and debated with myself whether to leave as a form of protest, and wondered what kind of statement such a protest would make...
...Because of the auditorium, the music, the style of presentation, the distinction was lost for many people...
...went into a long prayer/speech with a lot of direct appeals to Jesus, asking Jesus to help them with their business, since, he asserted, they know that it is Jesus' will that this business grow...
...Some of these videos included footage of the initial attacks on the enemy's air defense systems...
...he made a few flip comments about weapons paying their respects to Saddam...
...On the way to my room I stopped at one of the several bars for a couple of martinis, another form of communion, and read the funnies...
...Other tapes recorded surveillance of waste dumping in the Gulf of Mexico and work to control poaching in wildlife refuges...
...I felt some- what relieved and blessed...
...it was the appropriate end to a confusing, morally ambiguous couple of days...
...I'm sure that most or all of them were available to the news media (there was nothing discussed at the conference that was classified...
...It was elegant...
...I was impressed that there were so many people in one family and poked my head into the room to see what was going on...
...Understand, in the room were many people who had risked their lives in this conflict...
...During "Lessons Learned" I was treated to a number of video tapes made during actual combat...
...I believe strongly that we should acknowledge nobility of motivation when it likely has been a factor, even if one disagrees with the behavior itself...
...I am hopeful...
...On my last night there I went for a walk through the grounds and stumbled into a meeting of about two hundred people...
...we should be able to recognize courage and honor when they are present...
...I felt more perplexed that ever...
...One tape of a night attack was presented with a sound track--some kind of rock music I did not recognize but which fit the action perfectly...
...What we saw on screen last week was visually indistinguishable from low-budget slapstick comedy--rather like watching the Three Stooges scatter after finding they had set a house on fire...
...Several times at the Phoenix conference the lesson was capsulized: "We owned the night...
...those who took part chose courageously and nobly to risk their lives...
...othing is ever so good or so bad...
...I am absolutely certain that there are many truly moral people dis- tributed throughout this loop...
...These videos were used to demonstrate night oper- ations, and to illustrate various problems associated with the use of FLIR and NVGs...
...In Jesus' name, he asked for them to know the right words to say on Sunday, and that next year, with Jesus' help, their numbers should be more than doubled...
...they risk their lives...
...Even with the music, what we watched could be seen as rather tame entertainment, nothing like so grisly as Die Hard or The Terminator...
...said that the business (whatever it was) was Jesus' business...
...Rock music, I found myself thinking, has become the music of war...
...The M.C...
...When the video showed the second missile fired to the second target I tried to pick out a shadow and follow it, but because of the nature of the technology these video images fade, all the definition washes out, the screen goes white...
...The master of ceremonies asked everyone to stand and join hands for a closing prayer...
...I 11 October 1991:573...
...I particularly enjoy adventitious prayer...
...Gallows humor---e.g., the jokes medical students make about death and body parts--is a way of dealing with the stress caused by one's sensitivity to the (unavoidable...
...The M.C...
...But I stayed...
...Nothing is so bad or so good...
...This has to be my faith...
...The way they talk about the Iraqis and Saddam is different from the way I talk, and understandably so...
...A friend once generously said that, with me working in this area, there are at least some moral concerns introduced into the loop...
...He went on like this for some time...
...Who can say why they laughed...
Vol. 118 • October 1991 • No. 17
