Fifth Act--Relying on Connections

I blogged earlier about  Eliot Ackerman's Fifth Act,  Thinking about it some more--one thing stands out is the reliance on personal connections. In the chaos of our exit from Afghanistan, personal connections were everywhere.  Initially it was the personal connection of American soldiers, diplomats, and contractors with those who had worked with them.  The Afghani asked their friends to help. As the days passed and the panic spread, Afghanis who had no such history contacted Afghanis who had the connection: a friend of a friend, a cousin, a neighbor.

Once contacted the Americans, like Ackerman, relied on their own connections. An ex-soldier contacted an old comrade still in Afghanistan.  As the days passed, the calls for help spread, asking any acquaintance who might have any pull over the Marines at the Kabul airport for help.  Sometimes the calls go to the chain of command but those at the gates have more power; the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is eventually at the mercy of and relying upon the grunt, the lieutenant at the gate.

In the situation, the bureaucratic rules get bent and broken, which I imagine is common in extreme cases.

I also see the whole process is dependent on the internet--the appeals for help may be phoned, but the logistics needed to coordinate the arrival of a group at the appropriate airport gate at the time when the right American is there; they all rely on forms of internet communication: email, Twitter, Slack, 

I assume our exit from Saigon back in the day was somewhat similar, but without the internet the connections were much more limited.

Returning Lost Property

 Via Kottke, this article on return of lost property in Japan.  I'm reminded of some experiments done in this country--IIRC some involved leaving a wallet containing the owner's phone number with some money and seeing whether the wallet was returned, with the money. 

I think maybe it ties in with my recent reading of McManus on the Army's war in the Pacific--how was it possible to motivate Japanese soldiers to die rather than surrender--partially a concern for reputation in the community?  

The last thing I would think of if I found a wallet is whether my actions would be condemned or praised by the community. 

Where Have Friendships Gone?

 David Brooks has a column in the Times today discussing friendships, how many we can maintain at various levels of intimacy.  He ends by thinking our friendships have become fragile during the pandemic.

I'm certainly not an expert on friendships--I don't maintain the ones I once have, and since retirement I've not been creating new ones.  

I'm not sure Brooks is correct--I know my cousin's extended family has found new community bonds by having weekly zoom calls during the pandemic.  Before the pandemic, they were scattered across CA, CO, OH, PA, NH, MA, TX with much less regular contact.

I suspect the issue is what the psychologists call "availability"--we readily notice the  changes, the losses, which occur but we are less conscious of the new patterns we're establishing. 

Where Has Our Sense of Community Gone?

Short answer--damned if I know.

Longer answer--gone with dissolution of the Soviet Union. For my entire lifetime the US has had adversaries, first the Axis, then USSR. After 1991 we've had no such adversaries.  Brief flirtations with Japan as an economic rival, with Bush's Axis of Evil supporting terrorism, and later China as a rising rival don't match the threats those mid-century adversaries seemed to pose.  Today we're seeing with Russia's invasion of Ukraine we're seeing a resurgence of unity, of national feeling, etc. both in Congress and the country.

So--my answer: sense of community vanished with our enemies.