Respectfully Submitted

"I don't expect you to respect me," the senior drill instructor said to his recruits. His heavy Hispanic accent made the X, C's and S's hiss. The recruits looked up from the squad bay's quarter deck as the compact American-Salvadorian Marine prowled, his long-sleeved service uniform with campaign cover crisp, flawless. "I don't respect you," he said. The words hang in the air over the recruits. His eyes locked on a large recruit, a football player or wrestler who he suspected wouldn't last two weeks. "Respect means to adore, regard with honor. Today is the first day of your life, there is nothing about any of you to adore. You don't know anything about me, but you will learn." His eyes moved to a small scared recruit who looked like he'd never shaved. Next was one with fire, defiance on his face. "You came here to become Marines, so you respect the idea of the Corps, its traditions. You respect this uniform, what it means; you will give myself and my drill instructors all due courtesies and deference. In return, we do all we can to make you into Marines. Then, we might be able to respect each other. That is my promise to you." Though not the most eloquent of speeches, there is a lot of truth to those words, even now twenty years on. The idea that respect is a relationship is strange to most people. In America, the word is thrown around so much that it has lost a lot of currency, especially when it is given away for free. Yet, when pointedly denied something that is free, there is a resentment. It's because respect is often confused with its little brother, a lesson that took a while to sink in. Those first twenty-four hours as a recruit in a training platoon were chaotic. There wasn't room for introspection and reflection. That came later, almost a year to the day. But on that first night, the world as it was known had ended. There was no certainty except for uncertainty. The epiphany came from a movie, A Few Good Men. Most people recall Jack Nicolson's famous: "You can't handle the truth," speech (As poignant and salient as ever). However, there's a tense exchange earlier in the film between Tom Cruz and Nicolson's characters in Cuba. Nicolson played a hard-bitten infantry colonel who cut his teeth in hell of Vietnam, Cruz a navy lieutenant, a lawyer just nine months into his service. In the exchange, Nicolson demanded that Cruz extend him "courtesy," not respect. Nicolson's character was himself a dangerous man by any measure, never mind that Cruz was on a remote base surrounded four-hundred Marines that saw him as a god in all but name and would have done anything--anything Nicolson's character said. Yet, it was courtesy he wanted. This was because Cruz's respect had no cachet, no value; he was a Harvard educated punk who had never held a rifle, let alone seen combat. Nicolson knew that Cruz's personal values did not align with his own and that because of this, respect, real respect, could not exist between them. This was the lesson from that Friday morning. That in that moment, there were no shared values aside for esteem for the Marine Corps. In spite of this imbalance anyone and everyone rates courtesy, which is simply polite behavior. It is the least that should be expected and extended between people. Respect exists on another level from courtesy. Depending on the dictionary respect can include adoration/love, esteem, honor and deference. This is why there is an emotional weight, a value assigned to the word and the act of giving, receiving, and being overtly refused it. An open demonstration that respect is being withheld out of contempt can lead to violence. Just as genuine respect is a bond between two people. That being the case, respect should be coveted, and suspect when freely given. At the same time, courtesy carries almost none of this weight, it is simply following the accepted cultural protocols. There is no exchange of esteem or deference, no loses face when a person is not polite, no value is lost, and no one need become angry when someone has a momentary lapse. What's more, when someone is being courteous, they are often being respectful. This is because there is the appearance of respect. Again, it comes back to the idea that courtesy is minimum, an inexpensive veneer anyone can apply even with strangers on a sidewalk, bus or elevator without the need for deep emotional investment that can lead to undo problems.