Track Meets
Got up early this morning – had to get a workout in before “online” school began. I stepped outside to take the trash to the street. It was cold, clear, with stars in the sky, and the hint of a much warmer day to come. It was a “track meet” day in early April. The kids would have to do more warm-up to get going for the early races in the cool, but it would heat up enough by finals to run fast, throw far and jump high. I’m an old track coach: it’s not too often I miss track meets to my core, but this morning it was a “track meet day”. I went back into my elliptical machine and “Morning Joe”, back to our world of COVID-19 and desperate pleas from New York.
There’s no track meet today, not here, not anywhere.
Command
Desperate pleas might be the theme today. The Captain of the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt was fired yesterday. Corona-virus was moving through his crew of 5000 sailors, and he was desperate to find a way to separate the infected from the well. Obviously, his “chain of command” wasn’t responding to his requests, and he wrote an email to a wider spread of the Naval commanders.
One of the first rules of military command structure, is don’t go out of your “chain”, and even more, don’t make your superior officers look bad. But there’s another rule of command. As Captain of the ship, you are fully and ultimately responsible for what happens. You can’t push it onto a junior officer and you can’t share the blame. Captain Crozier knew full well that his career was in jeopardy by pushing for a solution to the problem. But he also knew full well the burden of command. His sailors were more important to him than his career. So he paid the price, and took care of the problem.
They gave him a standing ovation as he left the hanger deck.
Desperation
Mayor Bill DeBlasio of New York is desperate. He’s looking at the burgeoning crisis: the hospitals are filling, the medical personnel are worn thin, and he only has enough ventilators to cover through Monday. That’s this Monday, three days from now. After that, medical personnel will have to begin choosing who gets to live and who gets to die.
DeBlasio is begging the military: mobilize the military medical professionals and send them to New York. The doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists tnere are overwhelmed, and tired. Many are sick, and some are sick from the corona-virus they are constantly exposed to. Some have gone from caregivers to care-needers. And some have died.
They too cannot bear up for much longer without help.
Oh Captain!!
The Mayor knows that his demands are going out of “the chain of command”. Even if his oft-political rival the Governor joins him, the President is already on the record as saying New York “has enough”. Mr. Trump was immediate in responding to New York Senator Schumer’s statement yesterday morning. It’s like the President wants New York’s leaders to beg, and when they do, he still doesn’t respond.
Governor Cuomo and Mayor DeBlasio don’t often agree, but on this issue they are on the same page. We need a Federal “strike force”, a militarized medical team that can “fly” into the crisis with personnel, equipment, and experience. They need them in New York today, and for the next couple weeks. Then they’ll need them in other places, in Detroit and New Orleans, in Miami and in Texas. They are needed to supplement the local caregivers, to take up the overload.
It’s not a job anyone would want, but it’s one that needs to be done. And the need for it will occur over and over as the “waves” sweep over our nation. It’s a desperate measure, but it’s a desperate time.
Some day it will be track meet weather again. And some day we’ll get to run. But right now, we ALL have to be together to fight this fight, not as a city or a state, but as a nation of one. Send in the strike force. Make this a national war against pandemic. Mr. President, take command.
