The meaning of camaraderie
EDITOR’S NOTE: Columnist John Ostwald will submit daily columns for the two weeks prior to Veterans Day. The columns cover a variety of armed forces issues. The information in the columns comes from interviews with veterans and family members, research and John’s perspective as an educator and veteran.
Camaraderie: “A mutual trust and friendship among people who spend a lot of time together.” How about a few months or years together? How about eating together? Working together? Traveling together? Socializing together? It is starting to sound like a marriage.
Retired Sergeant Major P.J. Higgitt said this about his relationship with his friend retired Colonel Daniel Travers. “He knows more about me than my wife. We are joined forever.” The two spent over a year together in Iraq, at a time when, in their forties, they could have retired from the service. When asked about their motivation for volunteering for duty they said, “We wanted to be with our soldiers.” Coincidentally, Higgitt and Travers are from the same city, Troy, New York and their parents are buried near each other in the same cemetery.
During our talk, Sergeant Higgitt explained an interesting variation in the camaraderie concept. It is called the “battle buddy.” According to Wikipedia,” A battle buddy is a partner assigned to a soldier in the United States Army. Each battle buddy is expected to assist his or her partner both in and out of combat. Most participating soldiers have reported satisfaction and have agreed that the Army should implement the system fully. On some occasions, Higgitt would actually require that two people be tied together loosely with a piece of rope. It seems that this was more for humor than safety. Higgitt said that in general the idea is to make people more responsible for each other.
Greg Norton lived in a bunk bed over me for two years in our barracks. We ate together, went to the gym together and frequented dive bars near our base to diminish our loneliness, anxiety about possible deployment and boredom. I knew all about his family from Dayton, Ohio. I even went there with him once. When we went to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with other guys in our unit, we grew closer and complained about the heat, lousy sea rats and other things not nearly as difficult as being deployed to areas known as the “sand box”, the Middle East. Combat conditions seem to have an exponential effect on bonding in the service.
The development of this type of camaraderie also has a down side. One of my students found out on Facebook that his buddy from boot camp, Advanced Individual Training (AIT) and Afghanistan had died. It was traumatic and heart breaking. He had lost a loved one.
For many veterans this bonding starts in boot camp where we endure physical and verbal abuse designed to make us function as a formidable team. From there the service offers a variety of training experiences that can last for weeks or months. Sometimes the same people will be deployed to war zone.
I received an email, a few months ago, from a guy in Pennsylvania who asked if I was John Ostwald who served in Inshore Undersea Warfare Group II on of the amphibious base in Virginia. I responded, and was thrilled to have contact with a guy I hung around with decades ago, David Hake. Over the phone we caught up and I made a commitment to come to see him.
As you might imagine, transitioning to civilian life may also present challenges for building new relationships that will usually differ from those made while on active duty. Jason M. Callahan in Task and Purpose suggests that, “Veterans start making a conscious effort to adapt to the culture of the people you’re spending time with either at work or in your extracurricular activities. Accept the invitations that you’re given to participate in events and gatherings. Step back and realize that you’re part of the rest of the world, and there’s a fun and decent lifestyle there too.”