By Christian Hudson
Originally published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel: 05/25/08
Dawn patrol. Just to mention those words creates a mental picture for any surfer. If you're a local, then yours is probably like mine: foggy, glassy, uncrowded and so quiet you can identify the set through the fog because there is no sound other than the ocean folding over on itself.
In recent years, I've surfed the dawn alone, but that wasn't always the case. I never surfed the dawn alone in high school because of my buddy Kent "Cranberry" Crandall, or if you are in his Army Reserve unit then that's Sgt. Crandall.
I don't surf much with Cranberry anymore both because of geography and the pace of life. You see, he's still surfing, but after 9/11, like many Americans, he wanted to do something -- so he signed up for the Army Reserves. Or, as I've come to think of it, along with the National Guard, the Silent Service.
The difference between citizen soldiers like Cranberry and my friends who either make the military a career, work at the State Department, or even at the countless nonprofit democracy and relief organizations that ride shotgun to U.S. foreign policy is the way in which we as a society honor and support them.
Think about it this way, when you are at a party people feel like it is appropriate to ask the classic Washington D.C. question: "what do you do?" That's an easy answer if serving is your job. But if you are Cranberry, the answer is, "I'm an engineer." He and others like him don't get that basic appreciative feedback that the relief worker or Navy pilot would get in the same situation.
In fact, if you dug a little deeper you might discover that he put his life on hold for a different type of dawn patrol in Iraq for 15 months, tasked with Iraqi outreach while driving a machine-gun-mounted armor vehicle.
So what if you discover during conversation that's what he did while his wife was back home with their new baby. Would you feel awkward pressing questions that might touch an emotional wound? Would you, instead, remain silent and shift the topic?
That's why Cranberry and his buddies are the Silent Service.
The other difference is the career merry-go-round that reservists ride until the music stops and it's time for deployment.
Cranberry's music is about to stop again, and he'll return to doing dawn patrol Iraq style. That means a year away from his career, wife, daughter and friends. Can you imagine a 40-50 percent pay cut to serve your country for a year? Kinda hard on the mortgage, not to mention your 401k.
Consider this. Cranberry's daughter should be ready for college in about 15 years. If this year's deployment means foregoing his maximum 401k contribution $15,500, which at a conservative 7 percent rate over 15 years turns in $42,764.99. And on top of that, consider his prior year in Iraq at the same amount and rate, and tack on two extra years of growth. Well, that's $48,961.64. All together now ... combined that's $91,726.63 that Cranberry in theory is giving up to serve his country. Seems like his daughter's college education to me.
The Pentagon gets that there's a strain, but with Iraq and Afghanistan needs what to do? When I called over to the Pentagon to figure out how many times Cranberry could go back to Iraq, the public affairs officer pointed out that just last month deployment time for the reserves was cut to 12-month stints.
What that works out to for a reservist with say a five-year commitment is a year deployed, then a year and a half to two years home, then another year deployed, then home again for good. Of course, there's also an asterisk. That means if you have a skill that is in high demand, and they can't fill it another way, you might not be home again for good.
That's why this Memorial Day we might consider honoring those who are currently turning their lives upside down.
And maybe you'll think about Cranberry's dawn patrol next time you are paddling out.
Christian Hudson is a former Santa Cruz resident and a veteran journalist now practicing finance and real estate law in Washington, D.C.
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