Flying Under the Radar (Part Two)

(Note: This is the second segment in a three part series. The first segment discussed the first of two distinctly different approaches to enlightened affairs on the path to human progress. Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, it is most prudent to fly under the radar.  Robert E. Lee, if not the greatest military general in US History, then certainly one of the most admired and revered heroes of Southern lore, is a primary example.)

U.S. Grant presents another interesting, yet entirely different, flying under the radar story.  The eventual head of all Union armies during the Civil War, Grant’s name is linked for eternity in military terms with his adversary, Lee.  For one thing, he looked more like a common foot soldier, rather than the man who at the Civil War’s end had grown to become the most trusted Northern man in the Southern Confederacy.  But, Grant did not receive the title until a series of Northern generals had failed miserably before him.

U.S. Grant’s background had also included graduation from West Point, but, unlike Lee, he was no better than an average student in the classroom.  He was an uncomplicated man from humble beginnings in small town Ohio, with a pleasant and straight forward disposition and a plain writing style to match.  His most noteworthy talent during his school days was a legendary proficiency in the handling of horses.  Even the most rambunctious, wild and stubbornly resistant to authority were brought to him and in short order these horses were broken and became obedient.  Grant consistently demonstrated the uncanny ability to become seamless with the four legged equine.  This would serve him well in his ensuing military career.

U.S. Grant’s journey to greatness, however, was neither direct nor without controversy.  After graduation from West Point, he was stationed in the West Coast territory above the new state of California, lonely and separated from his wife and family.  Bored and despairing, he began to drink more than what was good for him, and it began to affect his performance.  Having reached the degree of Captain, his commanding officer had then found him inebriated during a visit to the outpost.  The consummate military man, Grant’s commanding officer gave Grant a choice.  Grant could either resign the military without further inquiry into his conduct or face a damaging military court martial trial, during which all of the dirty laundry would be aired in public.  Grant abruptly chose to resign without giving reason, but the involvement of alcohol was confirmed.  Years later, Grant stated that “the vice of intemperance had not a little to do with my decision to resign.”

Returning home to Illinois, a subsequent attempt at farming failed.  When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Grant was broke and destitute, found peddling firewood on a street corner in St. Louis.  To say that he was flying under the radar at that point would be a gross understatement.  Nevertheless, a premium was placed on men who had officer’s training and experience, which fortunately Grant had, thus enabling him to re-enlist and entertain a command.

In 1863 President Lincoln summoned Gen. Grant to Washington, D.C. to attend the official ceremony, commemorating Grant’s appointment to the rank of Major General.  The ceremony truly was a big deal, since it marked the first such appointment, since Gen. George Washington ascension to the same rank generations before.

Grant traveled to the nation’s capital with typical understatement, in the company of his 13-year-old son.  A welcoming committee to meet the train and escort him to his hotel failed to materialize.  He was inconspicuous and unrecognized, most of his uniform hidden by mud and travel stains.  When the pair entered the hotel, the desk clerk, bored and accustomed to dealing with the capital city’s most distinguished guests, saw no one in particular.  The clerk suggested there might be a small room, if agreeable.  Grant politely accepted and signed the register.

However, when the clerk twirled the book around and saw the name, “U.S. Grant and son, Galena, Illinois,” suddenly everything clicked.  Recognizing the magnitude of his error, the stunned clerk was transformed into a model of hospitality.  The previously offered small room was forgotten, and instead the clerk suggested the best suite in the hotel, where President Lincoln had stayed the week before his inauguration.  Grant accepted the change without comment, not wanting to call attention to himself.  As he saw it, any room would do.  He was flying under the radar.

To be sure,

Not a sign about him suggested rank or reputation or power.  He discussed the most ordinary themes with apparent interest, and turned from them in the same quiet tones, and without a shade of difference in his manner, to decisions that involved the fate of armies, as if great things and small were to him of equal moment.  In battle, the sphinx awoke.  The outward calm was even then not entirely broken; but the utterance was prompt, the ideas were rapid, the judgment was decisive, the words were those of command.  The whole man became intense, as it were, with a white heat.

Grant’s rather ordinary, pedestrian disposition provided the perfect cover from which to fly under the radar.

One of the enduring legacies of U.S. Grant, his rightful place as the face on the $50 bill aside, is the trust and respect, if not the love, which the South had developed for him.  These accolades were earned largely on account of his having given Gen. Lee “honorable terms” of surrender at Appomattox.  They were also largely responsible for his accession to his place as the nation’s 18th president during the turbulent era of Reconstruction following the Civil War.

More than any other single factor, perhaps, the presidential administration of U.S. Grant set a more constructive, flying under the radar tone for Reconstruction, which could have been  much bloodier than it already figured to be.

(The third and concluding segment identifies the contrasting second approach to enlightened affairs on the path to human progress.  Sometimes, flying under the radar just doesn’t fly.  More is necessary.  The shirt sleeves must be rolled up tightly.  A man must stoop down into the mud and get dirty.  There is no better way.  He must enter the arena…)

-Michael D'Angelo

Flying Under the Radar (Part One)

(Note: This is the first segment in a three part series.  There are seemingly two distinctly different approaches to enlightened affairs on the path to human progress.  This segment identifies and discusses the first of these approaches.)

Is there any appreciable benefit to flying under the radar?  What is the enduring message to be taken from the life of Civil War General Robert E. Lee?  For whom did General Lee reserve his greatest reverence?  And why?

I’ve heard it time and again.  Friends routinely lament my very existence (or so it seems) in a rant that goes something like this: “What is it with you?  You live right in amongst us.  You’re accessible most of the time.  You show up at enough social events to conclude that you’re still alive and in the loop.  Yet no one truly knows what you’re doing.”  In fact, even while in the course of writing this, a colleague called and left the following voice message, which I will paraphrase for convenience: “You have a new nickname: ‘The Phantom,’ who is mysterious, who comes and goes.”

“That’s because I fly under the radar,” I respond glibly.  But what does it mean?  Why is it important to fly under the radar?

In a commercial setting, radar is a device typically used to locate and map the direction of airplanes, travelling in different directions or flight paths and at different speeds and altitudes.  This facilitates safe, efficient civilian air travel.

But, consider the concept of radar in its more ominous, military application.  The radar operator uses the device to locate and lock on a target, typically an enemy plane, to deliver information to a weapons system designed to bring the plane down.  These days, the weapons system is guided by radar actually affixed to the weapon.  During the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s, military briefers reveled in public briefings to display the devastatingly accurate effect of radar guided bombs on their intended military targets.

So, if one flies under the radar, as the expression goes, one may go about the business of daily, ordinary life with fewer distractions and minimal detection.  This enables sharper focus with corresponding productivity gains and a higher quality of life.

Another way to minimize the glare of the spotlight in one’s life is to keep it simple, or, if it is overly complicated, to learn to simplify.  US History is replete with examples of exceptional men who had begun their lives as merely ordinary men, flying under the radar and keeping it simple.  But, due to a sudden change of circumstances beyond their control, these men would become forever immortalized by historians, academics, as well as ordinary citizens, thereafter.

A primary example is Robert E. Lee, if not the greatest military general in US History, then certainly one of the most admired and revered heroes of Southern fame, to this day.  Robert E. Lee was a Virginia native, a top student at West Point, a born leader by all accounts -  tall, handsome, spirited, yet reserved in many ways, and honorable to a fault.  In a letter to his son in 1860, a copy of which Mattie Truman also gave to her son, Harry, on his 10^th birthday in 1894, Lee counseled:

You must be frank with the world; frankness is the child of honesty and courage.  Say just what you mean to do on every occasion, and take it for granted you mean to do right.  …  Never do anything wrong to make a friend or keep one; the man who requires you to do so, is dearly purchased at a sacrifice.  Deal kindly, but firmly with all your classmates; you will find it the policy that wears best.  Above all do not appear to others what you are not.

Few will recall that the lasting message of Gen. Lee was not his legendary generalship against great numbers in numerous acts of courage on the battlefield.  Rather, the enduring message of Robert E. Lee was the way in which he handled defeat.  Perhaps you could say that Gen. Lee’s message has flown under the radar.  The issues which had brought on military hostilities could not be solved politically.  Consequently, they were submitted to the battlefield, and then resolved on the side of the Union.

Gen. Lee was aware of the script that had to follow.  On that fateful day in April 1865, Lee agreed to a meeting with Gen. U.S. Grant at Appomattox to negotiate the terms of surrender, like the gentlemen that he was.  He accepted his fate and the fate of his fiercely loyal troops, put down his sword and returned to peaceful civilian life.

But what would Lee do, now as a former general?  After declining several more lucrative financial opportunities, he finally settled on what he felt was an appropriate position which would permit him to fly under the radar in a new civilian role.  He agreed to accept the presidency of Washington College, a small, Southern school located in rural Virginia (better known today as Washington and Lee University).  Lee understood the implications of his enormous influence as a role model to his devoted people that they, likewise, must bury the ax and carry on peacefully.

But perhaps it is best for the ordinary citizen to appreciate that his greatest reverence was reserved for the common foot soldier, infantryman (or GI, standing for government infantry, as these soldiers are called today).  According to Lee, these soldiers did what they were ordered to do without complaint, without question, and without regard for what might be in it for them.  Lee’s men would perform any act; endure virtually any hardship, of which there were many, if Lee would only say the word.  Fight hard and spirited, endure incredible deprivation, and usually prevail in battle against the overwhelming material and numerical superiority of the North.  This would be proven time and again.  His common foot soldiers were totally selfless, according to Lee, who took care of his men.  Not flashy, perhaps, nor even newsworthy, they flew under the radar.  But, Lee loved his men, and they loved him.  So, they performed for him.

(Next week’s second segment in this three part series on the approach to enlightened affairs on the path to human progress continues through the story of Lee's military counterpart, U.S. Grant.  Grant and Lee were very different men in appearance.  Yet despite their differences they shared common traits which underscored both their popularity and success...)

-Michael D'Angelo