Missing Man

Of lost possibility and contribution

One of the great military tributes is the Missing Man Formation. Originally developed during WWII when air power really evolved into a critical part of the combined arms effort, the tradition started with airplanes flying in formation with one missing. Eventually the tradition became to have one of the airplanes break formation and fly heavenward, representing the departed member. Watch this short (1 minute) video if you are not familiar with the tradition:

https://youtube.com/shorts/zpnq60SxfrA?si=QviJITzeXxVXb7bI

I’m writing to you on a bright Memorial Day Monday here at the LHH. TLW and I went out for a morning walk, enjoying a cool spring morning. We don’t have any particular plans today, but yesterday I went to my jiu-jitsu school for a memorial barbeque and open mat to remember one of our members who recently passed. Let’s call him E. E was a young guy – 29 years old and already a brown belt, which is kind of a big deal in BJJ. He probably would have had his black belt in the next couple of years (it typically takes 10 years to earn your black belt). I heard about E before I met him. People talked about how his favorite move was the crucifix – a horrible position to get caught in, just like the name suggests – and he was legendary for it. So, I expected a tough guy who liked to inflict maybe just a little more pain than necessary. When I finally met him, he turned out to be a quiet, friendly guy. Given his bearing, I thought he was much older than he actually was. I told TLW something about him reminded me of one of our nephews. I worked out with E a few times a month because he switched between our early morning classes and the evening classes and even worked out at one of our sister schools, so I didn’t get to know him as well as some of the guys who had trained with him for years. But I did know something about him from working out with him: that he was a decent and kind person.

When external constraints come off and a person knows they can do whatever they want, whether it is because no one is watching or because they simply have the power to do what they want, what they choose to do says a lot about who they really are. In jiu-jitsu you learn a lot about people from the way they fight. Normal constraints are off – you are legitimately trying to make someone submit to you by imposing pain on them or by choking them – so how do they behave given the opportunity? We all like to win, and it is a game after all. But do you go slow when you are putting on that arm bar, giving your opponent the chance to yield to inevitability? Or do you snap it on to make your opponent yelp? This becomes especially apparent when there is a large rank differential – like a white belt fighting a brown belt. Does the senior belt let loose with all his knowledge and repeatedly submit the junior belt? Or does he moderate his intensity to match the skill of the junior belt, not losing, but not humiliating the junior belt? The latter, that was E. So that’s how I know he was kind. When he could have pounded me into the mat, he chose to be restrained. That’s not to say that I didn’t get a chance to feel his crucifix more than once, but it usually felt like a teaching moment rather than simply being dominated.

I think about the possibility of E’s life – already accomplished in at least this one dimension at such a young age. Well-liked by his peers. Clearly with a good heart. I knew relatively little about him outside the gym, but having been a teacher now for 15 years, and having been a leader for more than 30, I have a pretty good sense of what makes people flourish. When I think about E, gone so young, it makes me grieve for the lost potential.

Memorial Day began as Decoration Day in 1868, only a few years after the Civil War, when people began to decorate the graves of the soldiers who had died during the War. It became Memorial Day after World War I and a federal holiday in 1971.

I’m proud to have served in the Army. I’m lucky I only know a few colleagues who were seriously injured or killed. I absolutely think the military is necessary and a strong national defense is required, and we probably aren’t doing enough. But I also think war is a massive waste of human potential. As a species, I think we finally came to that realization in the wake of WWI. War has been glamorized throughout human history, but it is not worthy of that glamor. Some people do great and praiseworthy things during war, and those accomplishments should be respected, but war itself is just a tragedy. We would be better off if all of the young men and women who died in history’s wars had survived and gone on to make contributions with their lives. If they had lived to be old men and old women and raised their families and tended to their farms or their factory jobs or their homes. Imagine if the millions of young people who died in WWII had all lived. How many more inventions would we have had? How many more books would have been written? How many more stories told?

Yesterday’s memorial event at the gym was a lovely afternoon. We ate and fought and laughed. We paused for a moment to remember E, like so many, gone too soon. E was not a soldier, but he was our friend and comrade, and he leaves our formation incomplete. He had so much more to offer and contribute. His passing hovered over the mat, and I hope as his soul rises up to heaven, he knew we were thinking of him.