On the Origin of Species

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts…”

– William Shakespeare

It is the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, a day which always resonates with and deeply saddens me, as it is one of the first historical events I remember learning about as a child. My late father was a 14-year-old kid on December 7th, 1941, attending a professional football game at old Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. He told me so many times about the public address announcer calling out different admirals and generals — a sure sign something was terribly wrong in an era long before cell phones and 24-hour news — that I swear I can hear the echoes of those announcements too.

Soldiers at Pearl Harbor were still learning how to use a new device called radar when Private Joseph McDonald detected a large number of planes heading toward the base. He called his commanding officer, First Lieutenant Kermit Tyler, who had been provided virtually no training, supervision or staff on this new technology and presumed it was the scheduled arrival of six U.S. B-17 bombers. The rest, as they say, is tragic history, and 2,403 Americans died from the attack. The American involvement in World War II had begun. He would later be cleared of any wrongdoing by a Naval Board of Inquiry, but he had to live with his indecision for the rest of his long life. Imagine how different history would be if he had had just a little more time with this new technology. It got me thinking about the power of perspective.

About 35 years ago, when my grandmother was 91, I got a call from the nursing home that she had been injured and, with my parents being out of town and unreachable, I had to immediately take full responsibility, including joining first responders and weighing in on the question of heroic measures. The answer at that point was no, which felt terribly adult and precipitate for someone not yet 30. Who was I to make this life and death decision for my grandmother?

As part of the experience in the emergency room, they had to quickly cut off much of her clothing and there I was, answering questions from the emergency room doctors and…