Deafness can be hazardous to life

I love to read action/adventure comic books and graphic novels, especially war and Old Western ones.  These reading pleasures have given me a lot of imagination, especially when I go daydreaming.

I could participate in certain adventures such as scuba diving,¹ but I could never participate in any battle.  It’s not because I’m afraid, but it’s because my deafness would put not just myself but my fellow soldiers, participants or whomever in extreme danger.  Enemies could sneak behind my back, and hell could easily freeze over for my fellows.

When I turned 18, I was required by law to sign up for the Selective Service System – when an action is required by the federal government, it will call registered people at 18-25 years at age for military duty.  I even asked my mother if I could be drafted by the U.S. military, and she replied, “No.”

There are several countries that call up its citizens, even those with disabilities, to serve in the military.  It does not necessarily mean they will go into battle, but they can serve in certain ways that will help their abled fellows in potentially life-threatening situations.  A fine example is Israel.²  Even several Americans with hearing loss have fought for the right or privilege to serve in the military.³  There is a history of people with hearing loss who participated in war, starting with the Civil War.^4-6

Nevertheless, it was easy for my hearing loss to put myself in danger, not once, but several times.  One time, my deaf friend Paul and I drove my new 1987 Volkswagen Jetta.  Its exterior color was maroon, reminiscent of my undergraduate days, and it was my first car purchase ever.  In any event, we were concurrently driving and communicating in American Sign Language, which is often not a good idea because it can distract you while driving.  All of a sudden, there was heavy traffic on the highway.  I fortunately wasn’t speeding and was able to stop -just barely- on time, but unfortunately the young driver behind me did not stop on time, rear-ending my new (sniff, sniff) car.  The damage wasn’t bad, and was easily repaired, but it took a lot of time on my part with respect to police, accident reports, insurance and body repair.  Even Paul (with more residual hearing than I) could hear the screeching behind my car before rear-ending.  Oh well, what could I do?

The next two times were a real danger.  Both occurred when I was a graduate student at UPenn.  I will save the second time for a future blog, but I will discuss here about my first time.  This occurred in the fall of my second year at UPenn (FYI, I graduated with a Ph.D. in five years).  I just moved into a house with two 4^th-year medical students (Doug and Bart), a pharmacy student (Doug’s girlfriend [and wife a few years later], Susie), and a laboratory technician (Dawn-she eventually went to medical school) in West Philadelphia.  One night, I was ready to meet a group of my graduate friends for a party.  As I left the house, I saw a gang of young teenagers harassing three young ladies.  Once I got out of the house, the teenagers were distracted, and the ladies got into an apartment building across from my house.  I thought to myself, “Good, they’re safe there,” and walked across the street towards my VW Jetta.  As I walked there, I could not hear one of the teenagers running after me behind my back.  He punched my face from behind, and everyone else followed.  I looked around, watching if any of them was carrying a weapon.  There was none (well, one of them was carrying a radio).  I relaxed a bit, but I couldn’t use my Tae Kwon Do skills (I have a blue belt, but I haven’t practiced martial arts since my graduate days).  All I could do was protect myself as well as I could.  There was one point during the attack when I was able to kick the back of one of the attackers.  Really, it was more of a push than a kick, but it infuriated the ‘wounded’ attacker enough that he put his radio down and punched my face once or twice.

In any event, I did not fall on the ground, out of fear that if I was on the ground, they could kick me and aggravate my injuries.  The assault lasted quite a bit long, and people whom I didn’t know came to stop the attack.  One of them even told the gangsters that I was deaf.  They didn’t understand it, and they couldn’t care less.  They were happy, because they got something out of their night and they were able to escape before the police could arrive.

The police offered me a ride in hope to recognize any of the attackers, and I agreed.  Of course, we couldn’t find any after some 15 minutes – these bastards must’ve known their area very well.  Then, the police offered to drive me to a nearby hospital.  I declined because I rightly guessed Doug and Bart would take care of me.  I guess I was their first unsupervised patient (that is, no licensed medical professional was supervising my roommates when they checked my injuries).

My physical injuries were limited to my face.  They were two beautifully black eyes and one swollen jaw on my right side.  But Carol, the top administrative assistant in the Neuroscience Graduate Group, insisted that I be taken to the hospital and have X-rays taken of my head.  I reluctantly went there, and the X-rays showed nothing but a normal skull.  Also, I asked one of my roommates (Bart?) to take a picture of me acting like a boxer in my blue bathrobe on the day after the attack.  The picture seen below was made into an announcement sheet advertising a weekly Science Happy Hour on the medical campus with the words, “BE THERE or BE SORRY!” 

Sometimes, I wish I had written “ROCKY WANTS YOU!” on the advertisement sheet. It’s because my beaten-up face continues to remind me of one of my all-time favorite movies (just the first film, not the other sequels).

I have gained a perspective from my attack.  It deals with skin color.  The attackers were black, the ladies were white, and I, of course, am white.  This attack could make me hate, distrust, and/or be mad at blacks, but I refused (and still refuse) to let it dictate how I feel about people of any color.  They are human beings like me – they were in an unfortunate situation as was I, because they had nothing to do but act like wolves, looking for action.  If they were more educated, they would have done something more useful and more worthwhile.  In short, I had developed (and am grateful for) a greater sense of empathy for people that happen to be different from each other, based on skin color, disability, and whatnots.

I also gained several different perspectives from my friends who had seen me after the attack.  One time, I came to pick up some class notes from Amy, one of my graduate friends.  I came to her mentor’s laboratory and I was wearing a pair of dark glasses.  When she saw me, she was puzzled why I continued to wear my glasses inside the building.  I waited for her to say something, but she didn’t say anything.  After a few minutes, I took my glasses off.  She was shocked and speechless.  Another time, I had lunch with Sue, a black classmate from Harvard and a business student at Wharton School at UPenn.  She saw my face, and asked me what happened.  I replied, “A group of teenagers attacked me.”  Her next question was, “Were they black?”  She knew before I could answer it.  Also, I had dinner with Caron, a Ph.D. candidate in psychology at Penn.  She saw my face, and expressed her concern that the assault could have blinded me.  Now that was (and still is) a scary thought, especially since I’m deaf and value my sight more than anyone could ever know.  Finally, the group of friends who expected me for the party on the night of my attack saw me and immediately understood why I couldn’t come to their party.

Ever since then, I have wondered what has happened to the attackers.  Hopefully, it’s better now than it was more than 30 years ago, but nowadays, things are tense across the nation, when it comes to people of color and their relationship with whites, especially white people who think they have more power over and/or who are full of hatred towards people of color, whether it be black, brown, yellow, red or whatnot.  That’s why I’m saving my second event at UPenn for a future blog – it is a story on its own.

I thought I had recovered fully since then, but when I wrote this blog, I was overcome with emotion, because it could have been a different story if I wasn’t lucky.  It’s still raw and fresh in my mind after more than 30 years!

References

¹SCUBA Diving – Welcome (the-eagle-ear.com)

²Israel’s military inclusion program inspires US Corps of Honor – ISRAEL21c

³Can you Join the Military if You’re Deaf? | US Military

⁴Deaf Soldiers of the Civil War by Juan Schimke (prezi.com)

⁵The untold stories of deaf people in WW1 | Online community for disabled – social network for disabled (ablehere.com)

⁶North America – Deaf People & World War II (deafww2.com)