The Importance of G.I. Joe

I grew up in a farmhouse in the 1980s. It was on a gravel road, surrounded for miles on every side by corn or soybean fields. We lived two miles from the school, where I had 17 classmates, and 10 miles from the town of Fort Dodge, Iowa. Water was supplied to the house from a shallow well, and if it didn’t rain for a few months, we would run out. My parents, brother, sister and I raised various animals and tended a large garden. I loathed all chores other than burning the trash in a rusty old oil drum, but chores were not optional. Fortunately, during the school year, I only did chores before school and on weekends.

After school, I ran from the school bus down the driveway and through the house to my parents’ bedroom, where I could watch G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero on a 13” black and white television. Maybe because it was a UHF and not a VHF channel, this was the only of our two televisions that picked up FOX, even though it only had a stick antennae protruding out of the back while the other one was attached to a huge antennae on the roof. The only thing in the world better than the G.I. Joe cartoon was the Hasbro G.I. Joe toyline.

The first G.I Joe figure I got was the COBRA ninja known as Stormshadow. I was a shy kid, but I was so excited about this toy that I decided to participate in “show-and-tell” at school for the first time, to explain things such as: All of the G.I. Joe characters had code-names sort of like super heroes, and they all came with a file card description of their rank, abilities, personalities and real name… unless it was “Classified” or “Unknown.” The cool thing about the G.I. Joe action figures themselves was that the elbows and knees bent, the torso swiveled and you could attach a backpack onto them, making them far superior to Star Wars toys. The unimpressed reaction of my classmates to this incredible toy made me acutely aware that I had just voluntarily embarrassed myself; thus ending my public speaking career. It was 1984 and I was in second grade.

I received an allowance for chores (one to two dollars per week) and saved my money and also the “flag points” on the back of every box in order to buy more G.I. Joe action figures and vehicles. After getting Stormshadow, I spent what felt like forever saving up enough money to buy the “Dragonfly” helicopter that came with a Texas rancher code-named Wild Bill. It was $15.99.

Before I discovered G.I. Joe, I played “cowboys & Indians,” and had always understood that it was about Native Americans protecting their land from invaders unabashedly destroying it, so I didn’t trust Wild Bill. I pretended that he was a double agent. As my toy collection increased, I would continue to rearrange which figures were considered good guys; after all, this was my universe to manipulate as I pleased. For the most part, the actual good guys were drab and suspiciously homogenous, whereas the bad guys were a random hodge-podge of interesting characters that didn’t get along. One notable exception to this was Spirit, although now I realize it is sort of weird they gave the Native American a red loin cloth instead of military issue garb. (The G.I. Joe comic story arc would reveal that Stormshadow was in fact a good guy acting as a spy within the COBRA organization, and Hasbro re-released him with an outfit and gear that I liked even more than the original one.)

I had a bunch of Star Wars toys, but I never played Star Wars. They were mostly used as cannon fodder and substitutes for Joes I didn’t have. I used Luke Skywalker in Duke’s role and put Princess Leia on the bad side to be The Baroness. It was already 1985 before I purchased my next Joes: Tomax and Xamot. They were bankers, so they were obviously evil. The leader of COBRA was supposedly the egomaniac Emperor Serpentor, but I just couldn’t take an adult who dressed up in a snake suit and drove a hovercraft chariot very seriously. As a clone long before Jurassic Park, Serpentor was ahead of his time. (Remember, these were the days before there were clones in Star Wars- there was only a throw-away, non-descript mention of “the Clone Wars.”) It did not escape me that this made Serpentor expendable, because if he was killed, he could just be re-cloned. I also owned Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine, but to me, Tomax and Xamot were the ones running COBRA from behind the scenes, funding and pulling the strings of the terrorists.

Speaking of ahead of its time, according to the cartoon’s theme song, “G.I. Joe is the codename for America's daring, highly-trained special mission force. Its purpose: to defend human freedom against COBRA- a ruthless, terrorist organization determined to rule the world.” Outside of G.I. Joe, there was literally no mention of terrorists in America in the ‘80s; the bad guys were generally considered to be the U.S.S.R.

I did not like playing indoor recess or P.E. with the other kids, so I frequently spent that time hiding alone under the bleachers in the gymnasium playing with the Star Wars and G.I. Joe toys I had smuggled in my pockets. I got caught once, in Kindergarten, by the P.E. teacher who spanked me in front of the class after I refused to answer his absurd question, “What are you doing under the bleachers?” After that, I mostly stuck to only hiding behind the bleachers when they were folded closed. Nobody looked for me there, because no adult could fathom that I could actually fit behind them. Eventually I did outgrow that spot, but then I figured out if I volunteered to fetch the rubber balls and then didn’t shut the door to the supply closet all the way, I could sneak back in there after delivering the balls. I did this for years until one day a P.E. instructor (not the same one who spanked me) walked in on me in there during recess. When the teacher that was supposed to be in charge of supervising the kids at recess couldn’t explain how I had gotten out of her sight, I knew I wasn’t getting in trouble.

This is why, when Zandar was introduced in 1986, he immediately became my second favorite character. He lived in the swamp and his specialty was hiding. He had a twin sister who was basically a method actress assassin and a creepy older brother, a “master of disguise,” who was also the leader of a biker gang and looked like a member of K.I.S.S. when he wasn’t wearing his mask. (The siblings’ skin turned blue when left in the sun.) In my recreation, the older brother remained a bad guy while the twins were good guys.

I drew topographic maps transforming my bedroom into G.I. Joe terrain, conceived original plots and wrote scripts for the figures. I sent in for the Steel Brigade character that came with a personalized bio card. I completed the two “Live the Adventure” code-breaking assignments and sent them in to get certificates and patches. I read several of the G.I. Joe comics, but they conflicted with my G.I. Joe universe, so I preferred reading Marvel comics. Two movies from 1985 that informed my G.I. Joe playing were Rambo: First Blood Part II and Witness, but mostly I just used my imagination.

My favorite figures- Stormshadow, Zandar, Zarana, Snake Eyes, Beach Head and Mainframe- became a splinter group headquartered at the Dagobah tree fort. G.I. Joe would contact them with special missions and they would consult with Yoda and Obi Wan Kenobi and decide whether the mission was aligned with their code of striving for equality and justice. So they would carry out assignments like retrieving hostages and using money from Tomax and Xamot’s bank to feed starving children in Africa while the main regiment of G.I. Joes would have to do stuff like assassinate Serpentor or bomb the COBRA Hoth base themselves. This splinter group did not work alongside the other G.I. Joes, but they would often be assisted by the Ewoks. The official military’s stance on the Ewoks was that they didn’t exist. They also denied that there was a group of mutant bounty hunters led by Jabba the Hut living on an island used for nuclear testing.

Adults tentatively tolerated but frowned upon G.I. Joe. It was too violent. Sure, yeah, okay, whatever. The fact is, these toys were allowing me to manipulate, explore and ponder the world of adults with the pace, creativity and naïveté of the child I was. G.I. Joe taught me the importance of well-coordinated and communicated teamwork, but also that sometimes you have to go it alone. It allowed me to play through all kinds of ethical dilemmas and ponder the balance of justice through violence and justice through peace. As I got older, I began to understand the probability of surviving one dangerous, top-secret mission, let alone several per week. When you enact battle scenarios on a daily basis for years on end, you begin to ponder: If the bad guys were the ones who wanted to take over the world and the good guys were the ones in charge, how could the good guys have come to power without having first been the bad guys? Didn’t the bad guys simply want what the good guys had? As a kid, the terrorists I controlled never attacked without reason; that would have been a waste of time and resources. If G.I. Joe wanted to defeat COBRA, they had to learn to think like COBRA without underestimating them. Alternatively, instead of defeating them, they could learn to work together by finding common goals.

Because of G.I. Joe, I had things figured out by sixth grade that few adults seem to understand even to this day… and knowing is half the battle.

The Importance of Regret

I don’t understand why people are frequently insisting, “I don’t have any regrets.” Maybe others intend it as a polite social convention, like saying, “I’m fine. Everything’s perfect!” Maybe it’s a prudent way of avoiding the inevitable follow-up questions to admitting regrets. But I’m a literally-minded person who doesn’t get the point of saying things that are untrue.

Personally, not a day goes by where I don’t say or do something I regret. I’m constantly wishing I had given a better explanation, been more patient or empathetic, demonstrated more concentration, thought things through before acting or put forth more effort. I have big regrets too: ties with friends that I caused to be severed, work that I failed at, skills I should’ve acquired, relationships that I imprudently pursued, relationships that I ruined and places I shouldn’t have gone. I feel like I could list a thousand regrets before pausing to think. At the same time, I am also very grateful to have never made a truly idiotic move that got someone injured or arrested or whatnot. I am able to keep the perspective that the things I regret are relatively minor. Perhaps the most important aspect of making mistakes is minimizing the gravity of the consequences.

I dwell on regrets, too. Just yesterday I was thinking about the time I threw a vacuum cleaner part into the street and forgot to pick it up. That happened at least five years ago.

Often we say we regret doing something but then behave the same way the next time a similar situation arises. Sometimes we don’t regret what we did but regret getting caught. True regret involves understanding the direct consequences of your actions and wishing they had been different than what they were. I think they have to be specific actions, but maybe not. People will say things like, “That’s five years of my life I regret,” and that seems terrible to me. I realize that a regrettable decision on one day can lead to five years (or more) of turmoil, but if you regret the actions of one day and then the next day you regret those actions as well to a degree that you now have two days full of regret, it seems to me you really need to examine the choices you are making in life. Not everything is a mistake; forgetting the brilliant ideas and wonderful times just because there were lousy parts seems an unjust and unnecessary punishment to inflict on ones self.

Many things happen due to misfortune that no decision could have avoided. For example, someone might say, “I regret going to work that day because that’s the day I got into an accident.” That demonstrates a lack of perspective because there’s absolutely no correlation between the action and the consequence. This is the type of regret that there’s no point in having or pondering. Once self-pity is eliminated as an option, there is often nothing left but to accept your fate. It doesn’t make any sense to regret being born, because you weren’t given an alternative option.

I am of the opinion that criticism provides information to learn from while praise is essentially vapid. My main method for learning is by messing up. I’ve never been able or willing to take anyone’s word for anything. Anything everyone else says always seems nonsense to me until I discover for myself that they were right. I am a slow but thorough learner. I sometimes regret being stubborn, but I more often regret taking another’s advice instead of doing the research myself.

When we make a mistake affecting another, the first thing we are taught as children to do is apologize. As adults, we find apologizing excruciatingly difficult. We don’t want others to accurately accuse us of doing things we shouldn’t have done. We would much rather eschew responsibility, shift blame and make excuses. We do these things even when all another wants is an apology, because, ironically, we demand apologies all the time. We think that our shortcomings are justified: we boast of our phobias, using them to relinquish ourselves of duty, instead of using the opportunity to strive to overcome them. At the same time, we find the shortcomings of others ridiculous and inexcusable. We wonder why others are so inept at doing things we would never do ourselves. This is because we live in a society where we are wired to find opponents to destroy instead of relationships to build.

Some people are afraid of making mistakes. I really only have that problem when it concerns social interaction. Because of this, I have been forced (unless I wanted to become a crazy person) to ignore and overcome fear most days of my life. I suppose that is why I consider being afraid something to embrace instead of avoid. I’d rather regret doing something that I thought was the right thing to do than not doing something for fear of failure. Most of the time, I am over-confident and when I blow it am startled by the result, even when it should have been expected.

There’s a quote attributed to Theodore Roosevelt that goes something like, “The only man who makes no mistakes is the man who never does anything.” People will mull over decisions even when there is literally no way of anticipating the outcome. I’ve witnessed others become completely overwhelmed by something as benign as choosing from a menu even though the only guaranteed way of knowing whether you like a dish or not is by eating it. One can either fight through this fear of the unknown or remain in a small, familiar world. For many, expanding knowledge and experience is less important than avoiding regrets, complications, embarrassment or disrespect.

Life can quickly become unbearable without maintaining our senses of humor and beauty. Your existence might be the most important thing there is, but you just can’t take it too seriously. Playing the “Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda” game gets tedious really fast. It’s prudent to remember that perceiving past mistakes is due to having gained an improved perspective- and improvement is a good thing. Hindsight is a bit like knowing the answer after it is given to you; it’s a lot easier than knowing the answer before it’s revealed but feels like you should have known it all along. It also gives the false impression that we know what the outcome would have been had we altered the past. The fact is we don’t actually know what might have happened had we done things differently.

I played football in seventh and eighth grades. Our team was terrible; we never won a game. There were twelve kids on the team, so another kid and I only had to participate in every other play. My job on offense was to go in from the sideline, relay the next play the coach had given me to the quarterback and then fill in as the weak-side tight-end. For two years, every single play was a running play. The other teams figured this out and would simply rush the quarterback at the snap, bowling over me in the process. Over at the sideline, I mentioned to the coach that the quarterback should throw me a quick screen pass. He decided that wasn’t a good idea. One time, just one time, I wish I had gone into the huddle and told the quarterback to throw me a screen pass, ignoring whichever running play the coach had given me.

Even this example begs the unanswerable question: is it more beneficial to have lived a life having called an audible or to have determined (without concrete evidence) that an audible should have been called? That’s the beauty of regret; it can be a powerful motivator and catalyst for change. If I were to go back and fix a mistake from early in life, when would I have learned to not make that mistake on a subsequent occasion? Another way of addressing the issue is realizing the incalculable influence of our assumptions on our behaviors. Would my distrust of authoritarian demands be as strong today had I opposed them back then, or has the assumption that I should have acted to change the situation been necessary for building my character? (Perhaps I’d watched enough Twilight Zone that it wouldn’t have made a difference either way.)

“Time and tide wait for no man.” There is nothing more calming than watching the ocean, I think in part because it conveys the realization that there is nothing you can do but watch it. In its presence, we are but another grain of sand. The waves are relentlessly unconcerned with where they will land, and both build and destroy with impartiality and impunity. We are not the ocean, but neither are we the sand, for the sand does not care what becomes of itself. Insurmountable obstacles and regrets notwithstanding, we must persevere through life or it loses all meaning. For many, being better off than others is good enough, but basing your successes on the relative suffering of others is demented.

Trying to change the past begs questions; working to change the future finds answers. Nobody likes to make mistakes, but too many people refuse to admit them. When we don’t acknowledge when we’ve goofed and then work towards improving our future behaviors, we remain stuck making the same mistakes over again and wondering why bad things keep happening to us. The only two ways of not having any regrets are by lacking self-awareness or being perfect. Admitting regrets demands humility and courage; qualities underrepresented and undervalued in our society.