From New York City 15 April 2020

Letter to Parents

If you’ve ever been to New York City, you know how much of the joy here is found in the energy, the constant moving, the stalwart buildings and the creativity coming out of storefronts.  Now it’s almost a ghost town.  David Remnick in the New Yorker wrote that he half expects to see tumbleweeds blow across the avenues.

I came off work visiting troops around the city at 1:00 AM.  I was with a young corporal who hadn’t been to NYC since a quick trip as a 10^th grader.  Coming back into Manhattan we made a small detour to Times Square.  We parked, well, anywhere we wanted in front of any theater you wish on 44^th.  We walked over and there were 4 guys from Con Edison working on something, one police car, four or five other people and us and that’s it.  Times Square completely empty.  It was all lit up.  M&M store with bright colors, Forever21 showing its video on loop for an audience of nobody.  So weird.  That’s all I could say.  So weird.

Before that I was visiting the Queens morgue and a site on the Brooklyn waterfront that will be processing thousands of bodies.  My job is to be a constant presence so that the soldiers and airmen begin to trust me and come talk to me.  We are the tip of the spear in a process that will end in a dignified funeral with attention paid and prayers said.  But before that final honor can happen, we have to enter small apartments of mostly poor or working people, sometimes nursing homes, and recover the bodies. 

The NOICs (higher ranking sergeants) and officers trust my position (and slowly me) so they send troops my way.  No one I meet carries that macho sense of the soldier immune to emotional stress.  They just don’t think it applies to them.  When they see what happens when hospital morgues are overwhelmed, when recoveries in homes don’t happen as fast as they should, our troops are doing okay but they are stressed.  They understand that they are doing good things, important things, holy work.  It’s just that they need to talk about it.  That’s where I come in along with a behavioral health officer.

There is another time they come and talk to me.  What happens when you’re on orders and your mother gets a serious diagnosis and she’s just 17 miles away but you can’t go to her?  The Army will let you.  That’s not the issue.  You can’t go because you worry that you might have been exposed to the virus and don’t want to pass it on.  It’s heartbreaking.

Some days are a little slower.  Some days are a little busier.  We have more help here so the troops aren’t running as hard as they had.  A slower pace is a healthier pace.  And a slower pace may just mean we are entering the other side of the curve.  We are all hopeful.

Just a little bit of what it’s like here.  Today it’s a sparkly blue sky day and my view of the Empire State Building is really cool.  And the streets are still empty and the work still continues.

I’m so grateful to the whole J-JEP community for letting me leave you for a month so I can help my soldiers and airmen and the city and state of New York.