Friday, March 27, 2009

Where are you, Sgt. Dutto?

I suppose he’d be about sixty now, gray headed if he has any hair left. He was a big Italian from San Francisco, cut from the Joe DiMaggio mold with a prior history as one of the better baseball players in the youth leagues of that area. He wanted to go into police work when he got out of the Air Force and in fact became a lieutenant on the San Francisco police force, retiring recently with thirty years to his credit on some of the meanest streets in the country. If anyone could do that, it would be Joe. He taught me something about work ethic at a time when eating and dribbling a basketball were all I knew.


We were assigned to the base gym in Minot, North Dakota. A place few people can remember because their minds just won’t allow it. Look for it on a map or ask Fred and Barbara Pirkle, they can tell you all about it. Minot was so isolated we actually looked forward to the Inspector General coming by for an occasional inspection. I remember one year, after spending weeks getting the gym in pristine condition, standing outside at attention in the freezing parking lot and watching him drive through with a nod that said, “Well done, but I left my galoshes in the VOQ and just can't make it in.” Mattered not because the latrines were so shiny it looked like two people using one urinal and we’d have probably been “gigged” for improper usage of military property any way.

Sometimes all that does matter is the work and some pride and that’s what Dutto taught. We learned a great deal watching him work. He turned an ordinary job into something quite special for us as the gym became more than just a government job or an occupation created by the government. It goes to that saying, “If you’re going to do a job, do it well.” Something I may not always do but, because of what I learned at the hands of Dutto, feel at least a twinge of guilt when I don’t.


We were actually disappointed when the I.G. didn’t come into the gym. We had scraped, painted, waxed, and shined in a more intense way than was normal. Dutto insisted we always keep the gym “ready” as it were and we were really always prepared for an I.G., but when he simply passed by I began to look for a snowball to throw at the car with the flag on the antennae, his car. I think it had a couple of stars on it. I looked at Dutto and he was without expression. Then we walked back into our gym, the one we had taken care of and prepared for his visit and I realized that whether or not the General had come in made no difference. In the words of Bill Murray, “Meatballs”, “it just doesn’t matter, it just doesn’t matter.” And it didn’t. We had grown to the point where we had done the job for us, not someone else. The gym, the job, the responsibility, the latrines had all become ours and we were ready. Today we have a fancy word for it, “ownership”. It’s the kind of thing that makes you feel like turning off the lights or lowering the thermostat when you leave work. Unfortunately, few employers know how to give “ownership” to employees; for if they did, they would see benefits beyond their ambitions. “Ownership” requires no reward, no honors; no recognition, for it comes from within. Sgt. Dutto gave us “ownership” of the gym and from that day forward we passed this creed along to each person who replaced us at Minot. I made a return visit years later and found the place much as we had left it. A little older, showing the signs of wear but a legacy of work ethic begun by a young Sergeant who was just doing his job. Wherever you are Sargeant Dutto, I hope you're doing well.

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