Last week, I wrote about nicknames and it brought someone to mind. I try not to use anyone’s real name here out of respect and also because I might be telling about an event they’d just as soon not be associated with, but in this case, I’m pretty sure this person’s first name was Ted. He was one of the cadre at a sub-course within the long and involved Special Forces Qualification Course and was simply known as “Evil Ted”. If the other cadre introduced him as Sergeant so and so, I don’t recall, because I think they referred to him as Evil Ted too, as in, “Go change into your PT (physical training) clothes gentlemen. Evil Ted will be waiting for you at the combatives pit for hand to hand training and character building.”, (nothing builds character quite like having your head in another man’s armpit for an hour.)
Now, there are probably different degrees, but Ted wasn’t actually evil. Even the one occasion that comes to mind now could be better described as…… playfully cruel. It happened like this…..
Evenings at that particular part of the Qualification Course were pretty laid back. There were four or five small barracks with a group of students, a sleeping area, and a classroom in each one. Between dinner and lights out, you could pretty much do as you pleased, including watching movies on the TV in the classroom section. Each building had its own set of cadre for the day’s activity with one assigned to stay in the compound each night. Evil Ted was an instructor for the small group in the building next to mine and on the night he stayed, he brought in a recently released on video, copy of “The Ring” for his guys to watch. For reasons that can best be described as “mean spirited”, he didn’t start it until after lights out and by the time they finished the movie, it was a very dark and slightly foggy, midnight. He then told his guys that since they were all wide awake from adrenaline, they should all go outside and work it out of their system in order to sleep that night. They did lunges and the like in the compound’s parking lot for a few minutes and then moved over to the obstacle course right next to the compound where he put his guys in the tunnel.
A quick bit of background is necessary here. The obstacle course I’m referring to is the one used for Special Forces selection and has a number of high obstacles to weed out candidates with a fear of heights and the longest, darkest, narrowest, tunnel system in existence, to weed out candidates who are…….normal and sane. It has sections big enough to crawl on hands and knees, sections where you have to crawl on your belly, twists, turns, and chimneys, and can be configured with different exit points, one of which was through a manhole in our compound’s parking lot, which was the one Ted set up for his guys. Ok back to the story….
From start to finish would take about 10-15 minutes, so after the last of his students entered the tunnel, Evil Ted raced to the building I was in, woke us all up, and filled us in on what was happening. He quickly picked one guy, had him strip to just his shorts, wet him down with a hose outside, and had him crawl down into the exit and lay in the tunnel while the rest of us stood in the parking lot, waiting in…..well, I guess “horrified fascination” sums it up nicely.
Now, I’m prone to exaggeration and perhaps a little embellishment from time to time, but in the seconds after the first man in that tunnel, (no doubt already seeing the dim circle of light from the exit), stretched out his hand and touched that cold wet body, it felt like the earth shook a little. There was an eerie moan from the tunnel, sort of like the muffled shriek of a distant train and guys began to pop out of exits all over the obstacle course. Two even popped out at the entrance point which might be the most incredible feat of the night since they not only covered the entire distance in about 30 seconds, but they either did it in reverse, or were somehow able to turn themselves around in the narrow confines of the tunnel.
That was the only borderline evil thing Ted did. He was probably harder on us than any of the other cadre, but it seemed very important to him to let us know he was one of us. For example, if he dropped the class for pushups, etc, he did them with everyone. It’s hard to call someone “Evil” for having you do lunges around the compound if he’s leading the lunge parade.
In the MS community, people say, “You have to get it to ‘get’ it”, and as much as I don’t like cutesy sayings and cliches, I tend to agree. My neurologist is an amazing MS specialist and professor at a teaching hospital. He, no doubt, has forgotten more about it than I’ll ever learn, but he doesn’t have multiple sclerosis. He can describe, in as much detail as I can handle, the physiological, biochemical, and biomechanical processes behind nearly every one of my symptoms and can even sympathize with my difficulties, but he can’t empathize because he isn’t one of us. Harsh? Maybe, but I think he’d agree.
In an interview with a combat veteran regarding the difficulty of talking about his experiences, Dr. David Grossman quotes him as saying something along the lines of; it’s like going to a nursing home and asking a resident if they’ve ever wet their pants. Maybe they have, maybe they don’t even mind talking about it, but only with someone else who has wet their pants too. Someone who can empathize.
I think that’s why I’m still a little bitter at my first support groups. I had hard questions and only wanted answers from someone in the same situation. Maybe I’m being too hard on them. After all, as I’m fond of saying, MS isn’t a one size fits all disease, but I’m also fond of asking, “Why didn’t anyone tell me ______?”.
Be your own advocate and maybe just as importantly, find someone, or several someones, who don’t mind talking about the hard stuff because they’re going through it with you.
Don’t traumatize them, but be someone’s “Evil Ted” of multiple sclerosis.