Reality Check

I certainly don’t consider myself a bad person. I don’t do drugs, always offer up my seat to elders on the subway, never steal or cheat and seldom lie. I have even cut down my drinking consumption to one or two watery Korean beers a week. I consider myself a loyal friend and an above-average son. However, I have a glaring personality flaw when it comes to my marriage and yesterday I received the gift of a much needed reality check.


I am inclined to selfishness and often act with my sole interests in mind. My credo might as well be: “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is ours.” As petty as it sounds, this darkside often manifests itself during a meal or snack-time. A prime example occurred two nights ago. After returning from our Korean lesson an hour’s commute into the city (here it is worth noting that it was my idea alone to attempt to pick up the language through professional tutelage- Sami wanted no part of it, but still consented to participate and even spends hours creating study sheets to aid in her reluctant endeavor) we sat down to watch Modern Family online. Sami had two cookies and I wanted one. She had already fixed us both a snack and I had already downed a snickers bar and a beer, but I wanted one of her two cookies. She said no. I already had my treat and this was hers. How about a half? After she finished the last bite I smacked her empty water cup off of the table and onto the floor. It was a juvenile. It was stupid. I knew it, but didn’t want to discuss it. While Sami attempted to calmly explain how this incident was only the latest in a pattern of self-centeredness, I walked off into bedroom #2. I knew that I had hurt her feelings both by smacking the cup and walking out, and that she would retire to bedroom #1.

I woke up at 2:00 am and tried to get back into her good graces, but still couldn’t bring myself to apologize. This only upset her more. I went online and searched out the latest occurrences taking place on the other side of the world. Earlier in the past morning I browsed an article on the first living recipient of the Medal of Honor from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The ceremony was held at the White House the day before. I was stunned to read that one of the central players in the recipient’s moment of heroism was a high school acquaintance of mine.

I knew Josh Brennan as a tall, skinny, quiet hurdler on the track team. He was a sophomore when I was a senior, and unfortunately, I don’t remember any specific interactions we had. More likely, I was too caught up in my own clique and self interests to notice anything outside of my very small, immediate world.

I had known Josh had been wounded in Afghanistan and was sent back home, but it was only this week that I learned Josh had won the Bronze Star, been named Soldier of the Year, and later sent back to Afghanistan where he was killed in action.

There was a 60 Minutes segment on circumstances surrounding Josh’s death and the actions of a fellow soldier that would earn him the Medal of Honor. In the middle of the night, while my wife drifted disappointed in the turn her evening took, while friends and family in Oregon and elsewhere cradled warm mugs of late morning coffee, and while the sun dropped cold and low on the mountainous war terrain of Afghanistan, I watched.

I watched and learned that Josh was in the lead of a march straight into the teeth of an ambush. I watched and learned that two infidels attempted to carry Josh’s mortally wounded body off into some nightmarish locale, uncharted and devoid of friends, safety- the godforsaken evil of the unknown. I watched and learned how one soldier ran into a wall of bullets and killed the infidels carrying my track teammate.

The soldier had earned the Medal of Honor and yet all he could talk about was how he was only a mediocre soldier. How he was uncomfortable with the accolades. How he had given nothing. How Josh Brennan gave everything.

Online there were extras to the 60 Minutes story. Pieces that had to be cut due to TV time constraints. They interviewed the Medal of Honor recipient and his wife. The soldier gushed about how he owes all of the good that he has to her.

Watching this and remembering the incident earlier with the cookies and the water cup made me feel ashamed. I am not the most spiritual man in the world, though like many people I believe there is someone looking down at each of us every second and judging our actions. When it’s needed most we receive a much welcome reality check.

I had heard someone say once that if a man is a certain way at 29, he’s the same at 39, the same at 49, the same at 59 and so on. I am 28 now, so I better get hurrying on making myself right.