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Mr. Melvin Lars is a native of Bossier City/Shreveport, Louisiana; he received several undergraduate and graduate academic degrees from various universities; La. Tech. (BS) Univ. & Centenary (Admin. Cert.) College) in Louisiana, Texas (Tx. Southern (MA) Univ), Michigan (Eastern, Mi Univ, & Saginaw Valley St. Univ.) and has done extensive educational studies in Ohio (Youngstown (Supt., cert.)St Univ) and California (Los Angeles, (CA. cert) City College).
Lars is a certified Violence Prevention/Intervention Specialist, receiving his certification and training through the prestigious Harvard University, with Dr. Renee Prothro-Stith.
He is a licensed/ordained Elder/Minister in both the C.O.G.I.C. & C.M.E. Churches. He is the CEO/founder of Brighter Futures Inc; a Family Wellness, Violence Prevention/Intervention and Academic Enhancement and entertainment Company; an affiliate representative for the NFL ALLPRODADS Initiative. Former interim; Executive Director of Urban League of Greater Muskegon, Former NAACP President of Muskegon County; 2007–2012, employed as a consultant to the Michigan Department of Education as a Compliance Monitor for the (NCLB Highly Qualified) initiative for Highly Qualified Teachers and works collaboratively with Hall of Famer Jim Brown and his Amer-I-Can Program and is a ten-time published author of various books, and self-help and academic articles. He is married to Ann Lars and is the father of one adult son, Ernest. Here we talk about theology and health in an uncensored and educational series, which continues from the article on faith and masculinity.
As we continued to talk about the issues of theology, we went into more on the idea of pseudocrap and the health concerns for Lars.
This session opened on the idea of men’s health and then men talking publicly about their own issues with health: psychological, emotional, and physical. In a public interview – audiovisual, Lars talked a major health issue with the potential to be fatal. Men do not talk about their health issues in American culture. The issue is too taboo. However, he talked about it, in a public forum broadcast and stored in YouTube.
He stated, “The reason for going public was because of our male pseudo crap [Laughing]. I, like most males, ignored symptoms. They were severe. I had a rash. It did not cure itself. I talked to a friend who is a physician. He thought it might be a food allergy. They found this to be leukemia. It was the white blood cells and lack of red blood cells. The rest was history. I wanted to talk about it. I wanted to inspire others. It had nothing to do with how masculine or tough I was. I could bench press 500 pounds or more, I could squat 600 pounds or more and I was the picture of health.”
He was able to do these incredible physical feats and work as a successful coach each and every day. But then he began to see red while driving at night. He thought that the vehicle in front of him was turning their brake lights on, but this was not the case. In fact, it was quite far from the reality, where he was seeing the red not because of the brakes but because of the blood leaking into the interior of his eyeballs. The red was his own blood.
Lars has an open goal of making men more conscious of their bodies and to get assistance in the light or potential health concerns for them. This brought to mind the idea of pseuocrap brought forward by him in earlier conversations. When I specified pseudocrap, I wanted to target this avenue of it. The avenue related to the men in our societies who do not want to admit weakness including health concerns.
“Scott, with the whole process as men, we do not whine, complain. We do not talk about uncomfortable things. Those ‘unmanly’ things. That, in and of itself, is a detriment to men and young boys getting in touch with their realities and they have a tendency to develop this sense of invincibility,” He continued, “Because we do not control what happens in the atmosphere, we do not control what happens to our bodies. Acute promyelocytic leukemia is a very rare form of leukemia and there is no known treatment for it. As the oncologist and I discussed this ailment and its causes, the oncologist stated; ‘We do not know what causes it, we theorize that it may be caused by stress.'”
Lars was left to deal with experimental procedures or simply go home and die. It was a bleak diagnosis and set of options for him. He began to get chemotherapy for about 2 years. The chemotherapy did not work on his cancer and leukemia appeared after a remission of only very brief periods of time. He attributes the survival of leukemia to the faith or religious belief and the adherence to a higher power in his life.
Lars stated, “None of the experiments worked. I was told. I would not see my 40th birthday. Evidently, they did not consult with God. I am 65. I turned 65 yesterday. From a male’s perspective, we cause more physical and mental damage to young boys and young men with all of this false machismo.”
This extended the conversation into the areas of veterans and young men who suffer from depression, suicidal tendencies, and so on. The idea of mental health and mental illness became one forefront of the dialogue with Mr. Lars.
He explained, “That is an interesting issue. We see mental health as a weakness. We see it as a flaw. Unfortunately, in a world of both men and women who perceive themselves to be this strong, invincible human specimen any form of perceived weakness is viewed as being flawed. They see mental health as a negative “human trait” in the individual. With PTSD sufferers who are veterans, no one ever discusses the fact, that, these problems were pre-war.”
This then leads to issues around the individuals who are going into the military. In further consideration of the individuals going into the military, Lars noted that the people who would be allowed to go in based on extensive psychological studies; they would probably be seen as unfit for duty. The damage done to the individual and others can be quite great.
He spoke on the staying alive in combat with bullets and mortars flying at you. It causes trauma. Those individuals who have some form of mental disability can be unfit. Think about if someone kills another human being; that will stick with them for the rest of their lives.
He relayed personal experience, “One of my cousins, who is now a police officer did not pass the psychological aspect of the exam, However; he got a second chance to take the exam. This time [Laughing], he passes the exam. I think, “’f he is psychologically disqualified the first time, then he will be psychologically disqualified the second time.’ He will remember the questions and know not to answer the questions honestly. That is an atrocity and endangers provides a “war-zone” giving a green light to people that may ultimately hurt themselves and others. The psychological problem was already there.”
The head in the sands phenomena of the society is a huge issue. And then we do not even care enough about these people, where the veterans get unnoticed, ignored, and uncared for.
“One of the most irresponsible things people continually do is to ignore the signs of mental illness, disregard those that cannot help themselves, your congress and senate persons refuses to pass legislation to assist veteran homelessness, veterans health care, veteran joblessness not to mention; veteran suicides (22 suicides per day is being committed by veterans) rates, and then have the audacity to insult their intelligence was some empty self-serving statement as if they are paying homage to the military, by stating, ‘Thank you for the service,'” Lars explained.
He considers it an empty and then wasted statement. Because people are placing their lives on the lineup for a gamble with the crypt each and every day for our own sakes, and then on the Senate floor in the United States and with Congress bills are being proposed for military assistance but then not passed on the Senate floor. It shows a disjunction between the rhetoric in the public sphere and then actual work in contradistinction to said work in the legal and political arena.
Lars opined, “You have the audacity to tell people, ‘Thank you for your service.’ Then we do not want to pay them any money. This is a huge problem, as we talk about people being vulnerable with PTSD and mental illness. They commit suicide. Society has caused in individuals through constant bullying. We have damaged people with the constant bullying. They feel, ‘I cannot live up to the expectations. I might as well take my own life.'”
I noted that the men in the military will often be the poor of the country, the poor men of the nation, and the poor men often are the minority men, which then exacerbates the problems of the communities even more than before.
Lars explained, “Yes, as you shared the question, Scott, the warmongers in the office. People try to get angry with the messenger. If you have ever noticed, Scott, 99% of the people talking about being pro-war. They are never in the military. You cannot get them to go to war. There is something to be said about it. This patriotism and dying for the country. If I make the statement and am not willing to do it, what does this say about me? This is why you have so many men confused, who take their own lives.”
The lack of knowledge about how they will stack. Lars states that people should be careful about who they listen to and that the current president of the US has been an individual who dodged the military service all his life and then talks about “being tough.” It is another disjunction between the powerful and their public statements and then the actuality on the ground based on their personal and professional history of negligence in service of their fellow countrymen and countrywomen.
“That is where people need to be careful. They need to be careful when they vilify and talk about these young men being weak and not being good patriots. All that foolishness. When the person doing all the talking, they were the quintessential coward,” Lars said.
In reflection on the conversation, I saw two streams with the idea of historical inertia or men needing to fill the military. Men feeling as if they need to be part of the military. It is almost like an unconscious historical inertia.
Then I saw another one.
“Those who find a political benefit to themselves to make appropriate statements, for themselves, about national pride, military pride, saving the world, and so on. Usually, they or their children will not go into the military. They have the option, or the finances, to not have to go into the military. It is not an individual and familial risk for them. It may not be for them an aggressive thing. It may be them not reflecting on what they’re saying, something reflective,” I said, “If someone talks about patriot love and having national pride, what are the symbols? The military, the police, the administration — Republican or Democratic, these become markers of someone who is a true American, a real American. Those who may be conscientious objectors become anti-Americans. Someone saying this. It comes with certain benefits — in many cases, it seems. If they keep saying them, they become like the Lord’s Prayer or the Nicene Creed.”
I noted that someone may not know what to pray about on a particular day but will simply begin to pray the Lord’s Prayer as a sort of habit rather than out of a genuine and heartfelt concern for the spiritual well-being of themselves or another. Similar with the slogans of the ‘true patriot’ politician and others.
“You have stated very well, exactly what I am talking about. It is why I call it pseudo-crap. Because it is a conditioned response. Again, I am not a psychiatrist, psychotherapist, or psychologist, it is like the experiment of Pavlov with the dog. The bell rings, the dog thinks it’s dinner time and begins to salivates,” Lars stated, “It is a conditioned response. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Scott, it is like the bully on the playground. The bully on the playground knows who to pick a fight with. The bully looks for the attention of other people.”
Thus, the individual may pretend to be touch in order for the crowd to applaud and cheer for them while they are watching; however, the same individual would not fight but , rather, would talk about having other people fight for them. It is a double-standard of, in essence, sending poor men – often minority men – off to die and be maimed and traumatized in war and then come back as veterans and be ignored when they speak out about their personal metnal illnesses and mental health issues.
Lars said, “All of these people doing this big-bad, tough talking are just talk and no action. I will be very frank with you, man. My family is filled with military individuals. Two nephews retired, recently, my son was in the military. (I was not in the military). Several uncles and aunts, were also in the military; I see and hear over and over about the devastating mental and physical affects that they continue to endure as a direct result of having served in the military.”
He reflected on the ways people talk about themselves as true patriots but have never themselves been in the military or taken the chances. Rather, as Lars said, “They let someone else take the chance. So, they can continue to enjoy their lifestyles, wave their flags and fool themselves into believing that they are the epitome of patriotism. That is the biggest hypocrisy in the world, as I see it.”
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Image Credits: Pixabay