Reluctant to Lead: Overcoming Fear of Failure

Chapter 1 - Disturbing Decision

1969

Our fruitless reconnaissance of a foliage-covered hinterland fifty miles west of coastal Qui Nhon, Vietnam, contradicted intelligence reports of enemy presence. I turned the radio selector for my order to abandon the mission.

A stream of burning green projectiles penetrated an olive drab, egg-shaped OH-6A helicopter a thousand feet below. Gray smoke snaked up through silvery mimosa trees into the space it had occupied.

“Red One-Four’s down.” The scout wingman’s businesslike tone didn’t convey the gravity.

My grip on the controls stiffened as I lowered the command-and-control helicopter for a better view.

“They finally got the son of a bitch.” One of the two gunship pilots overhead acknowledged the obvious—Warrant Officer 1 Bruce Carlson concluded his prolonged defiance of the enemy.

An Army captain in my eleventh month as an air cavalry troop executive officer, I had seen adversaries ground him four times but inflict only scratches and bruises.

I clung to hope God granted one more miracle.

Dark forces sneered at my faith by erupting a brilliant cloud filling gaps in the trees.

“Woah! The poor bastards are charcoal now.” My copilot spoke from experience. We saw white phosphorus grenades burn to death the crew in a similar crash. Had this downed pilot and two observers also perished?

Emotion had no valid role in decision-making, yet those snatched into the attacker’s lair had names and faces. Carlson’s friendship with me began with a random encounter on a basketball court.

A scramble of men in their late teens and early twenties pound their boots on a makeshift concrete slab by the perimeter wire at Lane Army Heliport. I struggle to shake a taller and stronger stranger, who bumps and hacks as if each inflicted bruise will score two points. Our uniform shirts with nametags lay on the ground, keeping our identities hidden.

The first sergeant introduces us later. Carlson replies with a nervous chuckle, “Ever since your West Point ring caught my eye during the game, I’ve been worrying about beating up an RLO.”

He jests with the pejorative term “Real Live Officer,” a mock deference to those awarded higher rank and pay than warrant officers assigned the same duties.

I put my hand on his shoulder. “No problem. Rank’s meaningless on the court.”

“Twenty minutes of fuel.” The copilot’s alert ended my musing.

The maxim “leave no one behind” neither clarified the chances some of those downed were still alive nor assessed the risk of losing more than a rescue would save. Envisioning Carlson’s impish grin deepened the dilemma: accept abandonment or pursue an infeasible retrieval? To overcome stiff resistance required at least a battalion of hundreds, but the opponents and life-threatening injuries wouldn’t wait an hour for these reinforcements to arrive. Twenty-five ground soldiers aboard four circling UH-1Hs were ready to act right away but risked decimation. Backup crews nearby with two OH-6As and two AH-1G gunships had insufficient firepower to compensate for a greater enemy force benefiting from cover and concealment.

Predators closed in on charred and bleeding men. A relentless red hand of a timer swept through the seconds toward zero. Twenty-five infantrymen and the crews of thirteen helicopters awaited my directions.

Chapter 2 - Formed as a Follower

1946, Age 3

Mom said he was coming soon but didn’t know when. We lived with grandmother in a wood-framed cottage on Cusseta Road. Columbus. Georgia. Mom insisted I remember the address. If I got lost, I could tell an adult.

That day, she planted flowers in front. I zoomed my firetruck along the unpainted porch planks to the next burning building.

“John, John. Why didn’t—?” She shrieked with joy while he spun her around like a dance. She’d never expressed such happiness to see me after a weekend trip.

The new man dragged her up the creaky steps.

“Steve… oh goodness…. This is your dad.”

She held the arm of a slender man in a tan uniform. The upside-down-envelope cap had a blue patch with a white eagle and a parachute. His pants tucked into big brown boots. They could squash bare toes. He had a thin moustache, like the villains in cartoons.

“I don’t need a dad.”

I flung the truck, ran through the narrow hall to my room, and shut the door.

I asked my mother, “You said John. Is that his name?”

“John Norman Davis. Only adults say John, or Lieutenant Colonel Davis if they work for him.”

My dad insisted I call him “sir.” At meals, we used to scoop from serving bowls. Now, he put food on the plates, as a mess sergeant did in a movie. The first time he cooked breakfast, I poked the yolk of an almost raw egg with a fork. Yellow blood oozed out.

“This makes me sick.”

He barked, “It’s fried the right way. Eat it.”

I sat stunned and silent, thinking about what to do and bracing for what might happen. He had no patience when something angered him.

He pushed back from the table and stood up. “Go to your room and kneel by the bed and pull down your pants.”

Only bare flesh satisfied him. He yanked my underwear to my knees. I peeked behind to see him whipping his belt through the loops. Whack. The sting and burn grew with each blow. I buried my face in the mattress and clenched the covers.

Sometimes, he’d warn, “The Army can’t make you do anything, but they can make you wish you had.”

When he made me wish, mom had a worried look but didn’t speak up. I might have appealed, but she seemed as terrified as I was.

As I grew up, imagination and visiting other kids’ homes helped escape the gloom in my family. Gary Stacy’s room smelled of lighter fluid, oil, and glue. He had a table covered with tools, wooden parts, decals, and tiny glass jars of paint. Balsa models hung from the ceiling as if in flight: the yellow Piper Cub, the camouflage Spitfire, and the silver P-51 Mustang with the bright red nose. He took one outside and let me control it at the end of a tether. The plane climbed and dived at the flick of my wrist. He taught me another way to pretend piloting: designing paper planes to achieve maximum time aloft.

His dad was different. He partnered with Gary to build the winged machines. At a sleepover, Mr. Stacy told us jokes and taught me pig Latin. I watched him hold his son in his lap to say prayers.

During junior high school in Arlington, Virginia, dad transitioned to just criticizing, because he feared physical pushback from a strong adolescent.

“You ought to get a job. The newspaper boy’s your age.”

He referred to Doug Wells, whose mom persuaded an acquaintance to hire him. Without referrals or connections, I tried investigating classified ads. Bus rides and long walks led to prompt rejections: “Too young,” “No experience,” and “No car.”

Dad added implicitly, not good enough.

1958, Age 15

In the summer after ninth grade, my dad notified us, “Got orders for the Third Army staff at Fort McPherson, Georgia. We’ll move September first.”

“Where’ll I go to school?”

“I don’t know. Kids on a base use the same one.”

The next afternoon, I researched the school by phone, risking ramifications if he noticed the long distance charge.

I appealed after he settled on the sofa with a pipe in his mouth.

“School starts August 11. Can we go before then? At least the rest of us?”

“No, it’s all settled.”

Three weeks after classes started at Sylvan High in Atlanta, the central entryway invited me into the mouth of a giant insect. Above on both sides, room-high, multi-pane windows glowered like compound eyes. Behind them, judgmental students watched my mother escort her little boy. We continued through a dim, empty hallway to the office.

The counselor concluded, “Here’s your schedule with classroom numbers. Stop by each one to get a textbook. Your mom can wait here.”

I’d rather undergo an old-fashioned American Indian test of pain threshold. Cut me in a dozen places and hang me from a rope. My pulse raced when I stepped inside a classroom, drawing stares from the teacher and twenty-five students. Fluorescent lights missing bulbs dimmed dirty white walls. Linoleum floors had lost their sheen long ago. The one-piece wooden desks had graffiti visible twenty feet away. “I’m new.” I paused to breathe. “Here to get a textbook.”

Kids giggled and whispered about the awkward alien. A guy in the back row showed me his middle finger. The teacher took an eternity to rifle through cabinet shelves.

She handed me a scuffed physics text. “Chapter two. See you tomorrow.”

I exited sideways like a crab to hide the buckle in the back of my slacks. A fad five years ago, this style had since migrated to thrift stores.

Somewhere over the rainbow…. Humming this escapist song helped distance me from the unbearable and slog through humiliations at four more classrooms. At the counselor's office, clutching a stack of textbooks, I collapsed into a chair like a roly-poly bug shutting out a worrisome world.

On Monday of my second week, the guy beside me in English tapped on my desk. “It’s hard to break into a crowd that’s been together since elementary school. Sports is one way. I’m on B Team basketball. An open tryout’s on Friday.”

For years I had dreamed of playing on a school team, for the fun of the sport, care of a coach, the uniforms, wearing a jacket with a big letter, and associating with cheerleaders. Belonging to a supported group might ease the discomfort of being in the public eye. I tamped down my concerns about my lack of experience and skill and showed up for the audition, where the coach said, “We’ll tell you on Monday if you’ve been selected.” I never heard from him again.

My tenth grade year drug on, mercifully letting me fade from funny-looking new kid an easily ignored one.

1959, Age 16

The school district reassigned students from military families to newly constructed Walter F. George High—for my eleventh grade.

I volunteered as an aide to the principal for an otherwise free period. In my second week, the tallest man I had ever seen walked into the office. His broad shoulders stuck straight out from his neck like a scarecrow’s, making his arms reach higher than normal—perfect for basketball. He asked for copies. When I returned the copies he requested, he said, “I’m Pat Stephens, the basketball coach. If you’re interested, come to the gym tomorrow afternoon.”

He must have been desperate for players to consider a skinny six footer.

I was alone practicing free throws on the glossy polyurethane-covered floor when Coach Stephens entered from the adjacent office.

“I’ll cover fundamentals you can practice on your own to get ready for official tryouts. Whether you’re dribbling or shooting, spread your fingers, and let only the tips touch the ball, like this.” His giant hand wrapped the ball like a spider grasping prey. He continued with dribbling, jump shots, and layups.

Despite his big frame and long arms, he moved fluidly, effortlessly.

The prospect of a caring mentor with a stake in my future motivated me even more than my love of this sport.

I practiced techniques in his basketball bible every afternoon at an outdoor court. The coach put me on the team. I took part solo per my contrived justification to parents. “Your attending the games would make me nervous.” They didn’t protest my absolving them from guilt for their inevitable neglect of my new pursuit.

1960, Age 17

Midway through eleventh grade, we sat at the antique mahogany dining table of our elegant two-story house on Staff Row at Fort McPherson, Georgia. The artisan-crafted window trim reflected rays of the setting sun. Our home rubbed shoulders with residences of generals and colonels on the tree-lined street alongside the vast, verdant parade ground.

“The Army sent orders for Korea. You can all live near relatives in Lincoln for support.” My dad’s offhand proclamation knocked me into a funk.

“But I’ll be a basketball starter next year. And close friends are here.”

“Nebraska has teams. You ought to drop it, anyway. Jerking around isn’t good for joints. Family’ll make up for leaving your buddies.”

When I approached my mother in her sewing room, she paused stitching a quilt. “Don’t bother explaining. I’m with you on this one.”

She debated his plan every evening for a week. “John, Steve’s in his third school since ninth grade. Now you want to displace him again, for his senior year?”

She had stepped out of her mousy character. My father outdid her on a Friday night by deviating from his unrelenting demeanor. “You’re making a mistake, but I’m tired of arguing. You’ll all have to move off-base. I’ve arranged one of the places under military contract.”

He declined to waste his upper-tier Army income on his family’s lodging. We moved into a two-bedroom among a high-density cluster of look-likes, mostly duplexes. It had scuffed linoleum floors in rooms befitting a ten-foot-wide trailer—good enough for us while he was gone.

My mom’s brother Richard visited. “Glad you’re on a varsity team. Doesn’t surprise me, but your dad told me when you were little that he got frustrated trying to show you how to hit a baseball. He said, ‘The kid’s so awkward that I gave up.’”

That awkward kid got better. In our second season, we surprised big-name schools, including the best performance of anyone in our league against the state champions from Sylvan, where I had started tenth grade. The Atlanta sports coalition selected me for the All-City team. Intense motivation and effort rather than talent explained my success.

This journey from wobbly fawn to rubbing shoulders with deer hinted at the possibility of overcoming handicaps in other contexts like leading—if I had to.

Chapter 3 - Escaping

1961, Age 18

Days after coming back from overseas, Dad carried a manila mailer to the rusty chrome-trimmed, Formica kitchen table with cigarette burns on top. He unwrapped a brochure picturing a parade of cadets on a green field in front of a stonewalled citadel.

He peered over bifocals resting low on his nose. “I requested this material. You should apply to West Point.”

His proposal astonished me as if he had recommended training to milk snakes. He hadn’t changed at all since the day he’d returned home from the War. Just as he’d barged rudely into my life then, he was still seizing control, this time trying to dictate my future.

“But it’s for people who want a career as military leader,”

“You could do something else after the four-year commitment.”

The smug sage hoped I’d reinforce his favorite aphorism: “As kids get older, they notice parents became smarter.” I was too young for this awakening.

Under the table, my fingers searched for a loose fingernail fragment to pick. Did my dad think I measured up to Academy standards, or was he shirking the expense of my education?

To humor this wild idea required gaining admission on my own merits, a harmless endeavor given my unsuitability for such a selective institution. I wrote an application and completed the associated physical and academic tests. Former participation in basketball, tennis, and cross country prepared me fitness-wise. I scored above average on the SAT but didn’t rival elite scholars.

Desultory months went by.

The Army envelope marked with an imposing symbol of war and strength felt like twenty pounds and put my hopes in conflict. A general congratulated me on qualifying for either a congressional or presidential appointment, an acceptance that “comes only to a select few.”

It had to be a mistake.

But the name and address were mine. What was I supposed to do now? This break in my tradition of rejections compelled deliberation on alternatives more complex than choosing obedience or wrath.

People might brand me as dad’s devotee if I pursued his career. Even my resemblance to him embarrassed me, especially my inherited hook nose. Students at a civilian school enjoyed a lenient lifestyle but had to arrange lodging, medical care, financing, and other necessities of life—formidable responsibilities for a kid taught to squelch initiative and to obey. West Point resolved these messy details and led to employment, though the kind that filled me with trepidation. I’ll worry later about what follows graduation. I can’t turn down a chance to end dad’s dominance by going where I won’t depend on him for anything.

I put my acknowledgment in an envelope and sealed it—and my fate.

My two brothers took me to the airport. I watched them drive off. They’d be okay. In law school, Neil was beyond dad’s grasp. He’d make concessions to “Little Norman,” the last in his nest.

Air conditioning cooled my sunshine-soaked suit as I stepped under a towering, glass-walled arch onto the golden marble floors of the new “Jet Age” Atlanta terminal. My mood morphed the bright ambiance into the glare of surgical lights in a clinic for a painful treatment.

The Delta Air Lines clerk, a heavyset, black, middle-aged man, rested his forearms on the counter and arched his eyebrows as if expecting me to speak.

I couldn’t reciprocate his pleasant expression while imagining he offered me a ride to the hangman’s platform. “New York, Idlewild.”

“Round trip?”

“One-way.”

The words took me off a treadmill and put me on an entirely new life track, though how I’d be received and how I’d manage once arriving at West Point was still in doubt.

Pulling out my wallet intensified pain from nails chewed to the quick. I handed the agent sixty of my ninety dollars saved from bagging groceries at the commissary. I vowed never to accept handouts from home.

“All passengers, board at gate three.”

The agent’s call marked a fortunate finality—putting a dreary family behind me forever.