The Eighth

While I’m on the military thematic—see yesterday’s posting—and with the calendar helpfully cooperating, I will mark July 1 by remembering the 8th U.S. Infantry Division, which was my home for five years. Known as the Golden Arrow Division, this military formation came into being in the twentieth century and took part in World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and finally in Desert Storm. It has seen three activations. The first came in January of 1918—thus too late to do any fighting, but the division went overseas anyway. Today is the anniversary of its second activation, on July 1, 1940; the “Crazy Eights” saw some serious action in World War II, beginning with the Normandy landings. It was sent home and deactivated in 1945. When I joined the Army in 1956, the division was just being reformed at Fort Carson, Colorado, preparing for deployment to Europe under what was called Operation Gyroscope, the concept being that entire divisions would be rotated in and out of theaters of operation, ours being U.S. Army Europe (abbreviated USAREUR, pronounced as “You, sir, are.”). We went over to replace the 9th Division—but after we gyrated, the operation was evidently suspended because the 8th remained in Germany until 1992, when it was deactivated; it only sent some units to Southwest Asia to participate in Desert Storm. Thus it came about that I served in this division during the most quiet time in its entire history. Not a shot was fired anywhere during my time in the military. The most robust military activity that took place in that blessed time was a brief landing of Marines on the shores of Lebanon for a few days. That was under Eisenhower; no combat took place, no casualties. All in all I have been lucky. In many ways the Army was my real education for life; there I learned what institutions were—and how to work. My chief military activities—after learning the deadly art of lofting mortars on huge stacks of old wrecks obtained from junkyards—was to manage maneuver damage claims with my left hand while my right hand administered the complicated process under which soldiers were permitted to marry what our jargon labeled “indigenous personnel”—German women, in other words. As luck would have it, one of the cases I managed was my own marriage to Brigitte. Make love, not war. But semper be prepared!

Rays of Sunlight

Struck by the dark tone of this blog, I thought I’d start to note now and then matters that please me as I learn of them—and thus hope to make “Rays of Sunlight” a recurring title in this account. The occasion today was Brigitte’s enthusiasm as she shared a story from the New York Times announcing the appointment, as NATO commander, of Admiral James G. Stavridis. The Admiral’s last posting was the Southern Command. The “area of focus” of this command, as the military dubs its geographical coverage, is the entirety of the South American subcontinent including portions of Central America. As the article states, the Admiral’s command of French was already excellent when he assumed that command in 2006, but he spoke no Spanish. The text continues thus:

Over the next three years, his fluency was measured not only in the high-level meetings he conducted in the native tongue of his military hosts. He also read the novels of Gabriel García Márquez, the Nobel laureate from Colombia, in the original rich and lyrical Spanish. [NYT, June 30, 2009]

Terrific, we both thought. Admirable admiral! Brigitte and I both have extensive military experience—she as an employee and I as a soldier. We met in Germany because, in our respective jobs, we were coordinating various activities at a major military facility in Baumholder, an important artillery post and firing range, one of two, in Germany. We knew this institution from the inside, and, as insiders, we saw many things that were wrong, but, on balance, the military has always struck us as one of the stellar institutions of American life. There have always been, and, thank heaven, continue to be, outstanding figures like Admiral Stavridis, at every rank, by the way, not merely at the top. We saw back then, in the 1950s, how the Army—long before the Civil Rights Movement really got going—had completely integrated the races. The military could and did accomplish the job—without fuss and feathers. It is very pleasing to see that the tradition of excellence continues in its ranks.

Thirteen

Numerology, particularly the meaning of the number 13 and its rotation (31), expansions (49, 94, 58, 85, 67, 76—numbers the digits of which you must add), and its multiples (26, 39, etc.) give me the same innocent pleasure as do meaningful coincidences, sometimes called serendipities. A genuinely original and insightful modern parapsychologist, J.E. Kennedy, has suggested that the ultimate purpose of the phenomena he studies may serve as reminders to us that something transcending the obvious may simply be there. I’m putting this in rather too simple a summary. My object is not to discuss the insight, which is more sophisticated. To learn more about Kennedy’s thoughts, I recommend perusal of his papers, accessible here. What I want to talk about, lightly, as it were, is the number 13 itself. Contrarian as it is—being viewed as unlucky—in my family it has been a portent of good fortune, in the last generation as in mine, and seemingly also in the next one down in time.

This is an innocent preoccupation because like everyone else I’m a complex being and fully possess the kind of rationality which can bluntly, brusquely, and dismissively say: “Give me any other number, and if I know enough details about your life, I could construct the same castles-in-air around that number too! In your life or anyone else’s.” Having put that in, just to stay on the safe ground of modern meaninglessness, let me enjoy my 13 for a moment.

I was born on July the 31st which is obviously very meaningful—after all my birth date, turned around, is 13! We’re presently residing in the 13th Congressional District of Michigan—to be sure I don’t know the numbers of the others where we’ve lived. But there’s a whole string of thirteens that mark our coming to America. The Certificate of Eligibility issued to us in Germany permitting our entry to the United States was dated January 13, 1949. The 49 is significant too. And in my case 113 (thus January 13) is doubly meaningful because my name, ARSEN, decoded numerologically is 5, and 113, magically, collapses into five. And 1949, if you drop the first nine but not the second, also results in 113. Get it? Good. Let us move on. We spent precisely 13 days at sea making the passage from Bremerhaven to New Orleans. Our eyes beheld the American coast on June 13 of 1951 (ignore the year). Then, years later, when Brigitte, Barbara, Monique, and I came to America together, by air this time, we landed in New York on January 13, 1961. Now, finally, to the intriguing image that illustrates this post. It is the shoulder patch, incorporating the coat of arms, of the 13th Infantry Regiment—the military unit in which I served my first several months in the Army. We were “First at Vicksburg,” one of the bloodiest and nastiest events in the history of the Civil War, alas. That number was not quite so lucky for the many who died there. But then a deeper lesson of numerology—hear me, Kabbalists, hear me moderns—is that reality is greater than can be inferred from number, unless that number is 1.