In Australia with
the Diggers!
By
Mike Rankin
M.D., Capt., MC, USN
(Ret)
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When I served in
Vietnam, our Marine base
was very close to an
Australian base camp.
There was a lot of
interaction between us,
we became fast friends,
the "diggers" and us
Marines. Over the years
some of us have stayed
in touch. In early
November, I got an
invitation to join them
at their Remembrance Day
celebrations, an
invitation I was honored
to receive and eager to
accept. It was also the
centenary of the Royal
Australian Navy, so that
made it even more
special. I flew to
Australia with a fellow
retired Navy officer and
his partner, a pediatric
dentist. We landed in
Sydney, took a hotel
across the street from
the ANZAC memorial,
where the ceremony was
held, and took a couple
tours to other parts of
the country. I was
asked to speak at the
ceremony, and I did so
very briefly, just
saying how honored I was
to be included, and how
much my friendship with
the "diggers" meant to
me over the years. It
was much like the
ceremony I lead every
year at the
Congressional Cemetery
on Veterans Day, except
that instead of "Taps"
they conclude with a
trumpet solo called "The
Last Post." Equally
moving. We had a
wonderful reunion,
comparing our
post-Vietnam stories,
showing pictures of
their spouses and
partners and kids. They
congratulated me on the
repeal of DADT, without
a hint of "what took you so long!" It was everything I hoped it would be,
well worth the very very long flight.
That was November. In
December I had another
military experience,
this one at National
Harbor, near
Washington. It was the
Biennial convention of
Reform Judaism, with
about 5,000 delegates
from all over North
America. I was asked to
speak about my 30 years
as a Jewish lay leader.
The title of the panel
was "reaching out to our
Jewish service women and
men." It included one
of only two rabbis I've
met in my many years in
the leadership of the
Reform movement that I
consider homophobic.
The other was in the
audience.
I spoke about a Passover
seder I led in Yokosuka,
Japan, where my young
assistant, the son of an
American Navy officer
and a Japanese Naval
architect, translated
the prayers into
Japanese. I spoke of
mentoring the conversion
to Judaism of a fellow
officer while on board
our ship on Yankee
Station, off the coast
of Vietnam. And I spoke
of the attempted suicide
of a young sailor,
brought on because a
fundamentalist chaplain
told him God would send
him straight to hell for
his feelings about men,
even if he never acted
on those feelings.
After the panel was
over, both of the rabbis
came up to me to
apologize for their
previous comments about
gay people, saying they
very much regretted any
pain they might have
caused. They also
expressed outrage at the
chaplain's treatment of
the young sailor.
In the Jewish tradition,
this is called "making
tshuvah." Literally,
turning from the bad to
the good. That they
did. It was wonderful
to see.