In early 2003 while visiting my friend Maurice in Amsterdam, I met his boyfriend Jim, an American soldier stationed in Europe, either in Cypress or Crete or Corsica–a Mediterranean island starting with a C. Lee had come with me; it was our first trip together! The four of us met up at The Ghetto, a quirky bar in a seedy neighborhood (also the home to my favorite cat in Amsterdam, a white Angora named Elvis), Jim gave Lee and me each a t-shirt with the word NAVY emblazoned across it. One was blue with yellow letters, the other was gray with black letters. They were great, albeit a bit butch for my day-to-day active-wear.
As the years passed, Maurice and Jim went their separate ways and the NAVY t-shirts found their way into the “Sleeping/Running Shirt” drawer. 
We all have that drawer, or something like it. T-shirts from tradeshows, marketing campaigns, misguided friends, silly purchases. Perfectly functional for certain purposes, but not something I could actually wear out of the house. Invariably the size is wrong too. For some reason, all t-shirts that I have from the US are mumus on me. They might say medium, but they ain’t no medium.
Making it into sleeping/running drawer is of course an obstacle in its own right. Shirts have to meet strict criteria: they must be 100% cotton, they must be soft to the touch, they need to be a comfortable weight and they above all need to be versatile enough to be worn either when sleeping or when running–hence the name of the drawer.
The Navy shirts now live in this drawer along with an assortment of others. A red one with a character from Southpark that some friend gave me years ago. It has holes under the armpits, and 0the character–whom I don’t know at all, is peeling off the front. It is bleach stained and tatty, but still is comfortable and consequently hasn’t been chucked out. There is the Bulk Tank Betters t-shirt from my brother Tom. It’s the perfect cross-training shirt. I sleep really well in it, and it’s the perfect weight for a six mile run. There are a couple of Manhunt t-shirts advertising a hookup site, an Ottertail Lake Beach Club shirt and the a couple of begrudgingly retired shirts–ones that I still really love, but they are too far gone to wear out in public. I could go on, but it’s probably familiar territory for each of us.
When lunch rolled round today, I decided to take a run. I grabbed the top t-shirt in the drawer, my gray Navy shirt. The thought of being mistaken for a navy man fleetingly crossed my mind. Short cropped
hair, generally fit, suppose I could be mistaken for a soldier. Of course if anyone stopped to ask me directions, they’d probably rule out the soldier bit and come to the logical conclusion I was just a guy with a Navy t-shirt. I stepped outside my door and was off.
I ran up Mitcham Lane, and at the pub, I turned left on Thrale Road. Up until a few weeks ago, the pub had been called the Samuel Johnson after the author of the first English dictionary. Apparently Dr. Johnson had spent a great deal of time at Streatham Park, the country estate which once graced the area. When looking at the endless Victorian sprawl, it’s hard to imagine it was once rolling fields of the English countryside.
Thrale Road marks a critical point in my run–it takes me from the developed streets onto Tooting Common, one of south London’s big open green spaces. When I reach the park, I’ve gone a full mile and have a good idea whether the day’s run is going to be smooth or not.
Today I was in THE zone. Great pace, perfect temperature and sunshine. I was just about to the Common when I came up behind two students ambling on the sidewalk enjoying the afternoon. As I moved to the right to pass them, they heard me approach, split down the middle to let me pass through. Their actions broke my concentration and jarred me a bit. I’m sort of like a beagle–can only do one thing at a time. As I ran between them, one of them asked, “Are you going? Are you going for it?” Thinking he meant was I really going for a great run in the park, I replied, “Yeah!” They cheered. I thought it was odd that two young guys would cheer a middle-aged runner, but then the second guy yelled, “Don’t kill any civilians!”
Wait. Don’t kill any civilians? Then it dawned on me: Navy t-shirt, running guy trying to stay in shape–logical conclusion: must be preparing to go to the Middle East. I was several paces ahead of them when I realized what they had actually said, and how misleading my initial response had been. The question at that moment was quite simple–how should I reply to “Don’t kill any civilians!”? Ignore the guys? They were friendly, so that wouldn’t do. Stop in my tracks, turn around and explain that actually I was opposed to the US-lead invasion of Iraq and was wearing a sleeping/ running t-shirt that the closeted ex-boyfriend of one of my friends had given me? That would just be too involved (and my heart rate would fall out of the fat-burning zone). Instead, I simply looked over my shoulder, smiled and gave them a thumbs up. They cheered and I continued on my path.
A lie. An omission of the truth, but a lie nontheless. OK, perhaps that is a bit harsh. It happened so quickly, they were two complete strangers asking me an unexpected question and I couldn’t be asked to really get to the truth of it all. Expedience was the key. When I got home and switched on the news, Lord Goldsmith was testifying at the Chilcot Iraq war inquiry. Goldsmith was the UK’s attorney general who is now famous for changing his mind on the legality of the Iraq invasion in the days leading up to the invasion.
Listening to Goldsmith’s testimony, I couldn’t help but wonder what his reaction would have been if two youths on the street had directed him not to kill any civilians. Would he have ignored them or would he have given them a thumbs up? The UK is undergoing tremendous effort to unveil the truth of the Iraq war. I fear, however, that the truth will never be known, outside a handful of people. The world’s only remaining superpower (at this point) and previous former sun-never-setting colonial power remain untouchable. Did the powers that be threaten Lord Goldsmith? Did they bribe him? We will never know. My Navy t-shirt ordeal is but a grain of sand.
