Tribes

Lately I have been thinking about a movie I saw years ago called “Tribes,” with Jan Michael Vincent as a flower child who is a Marine recruit. It is set at the San Diego Marine Corps Recruit Depot, and the premise is that the DI (Darren McGavin) and the flower child belong to different “tribes,” but are brought together by recruit training.

Well, I’m not exactly a flower child, and I’m definitely not a recruit, but I can identify with belonging to different tribes, or cultures. For most of my adult life, I’ve been in the Marine Corps and identified with that culture as “mine.” When asked who I was, I would say “I’m a Marine officer.” Being a Marine defined who I was in many respects. In the last few years, however, since finding UU, I have grown out of the Marine Corps culture; my identity is much richer, fuller, and diverse, and not so defined by what I do for a living. I now define myself by how I live my life – as a father, husband, and UU. My UU community (BRUU, UUCMP, and many others) is my “tribe.” I have taken to saying that the Marine Corps is just a job that puts food on the table.

But it’s really much more – I’ve been suddenly reminded that I’m still part of the Marine Corps tribe! During two years of graduate school and a year working behind a desk, it was easy to lose the cultural mindset of being a Marine 24/7. It was easy to think “I’m not going to be deployed.” Well, now I have been, and it’s taken a while to process what’s happening. Now more than ever, I have to reconcile my two tribes, these two aspects of my life, into one whole, healthy, integrated identity. In many ways this whole experience is valuable to me – rather than just plodding along, living day to day with internal conflict between whom I am and what I do, I am forced to become integrated as a person. It’s going to be an interesting journey.