The Guardian

One of my favorite pastimes is sharing time with my son, often during which we used to watch action movies. The Lethal Weapon series was a favorite, as well as some of the Clint Eastwood with a gun blowing criminals away movies. I’ll admit that I don’t watch many of this genre anymore because my son grew up and moved away. However, the other day I rented an action flick, The Guardian, with Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher. I liked it, I really liked it, even though I watched it all by my lonesome.

I enjoyed the story, which centers on the Coast Guard, most specifically the rescue swimmers. Although movies that feature a raging, pounding, angry, stormy sea don’t often engage my interest because I don’t swim and don’t much like water, this one is good. I hated the George Clooney film, the one with the boat battling the inevitable sinking in the storm of the century, and actually wished it had just sunk about 45 minutes into the film and saved me an hour of my time not because I wanted the men aboard the ship to perish at sea, but because the movie was tedious.

The three qualities of The Guardian that make it stand out from others are the commitment to excellence in the training program; the demand that high standards are both met and maintained; and the concept that teamwork is the solid foundation for success.

As a teacher, I know how important excellence in training is and how important it is to maintain high standards, but society does not support that philosophy for “my child.” We can all talk about how important excellence is for all students, but it never applies to “my child,” often because “my child” is special, a conversation that ends all effective discussion about all children. In the film, the recruits for the rescue swimmer program go in on day one knowing that half of them will not make the final cut because only the best can be certified as rescue swimmers. On day one, Kevin Costner’s character puts the recruits into the pool and tells them to tread water for an hour; anyone who cannot meet that standard for any reason is finished. When one man climbs out of the pool, he is dropped immediately; when he complains that he has a cramp in his leg, he’s directed to the door. If this were a public school classroom, we’d let him retake the challenge—and continue to enable him to retake it until the rest of the class grasps the concept of “it he doesn’t have to do it, I don’t have to do it.” The program would be changed to accommodate the one person who cannot meet the requirements, rather than moving that person on to something (s)he may be better able to do.

The other concept that is a core value in the film is teamwork. Not the phony “let’s all do the same thing at the same time and in the same way,” but the real concept of teamwork: we can only accomplish this goal if we all work together. It relies on each individual meeting the expectations of the task, rather than each person doing his/her own thing and shrugging off failure with a “whatever.” The three musketeers used the slogan, “One for all and all for one,” but we’ve replaced that concept with “it’s all about me.” For a rescue swimmer, the job includes not just jumping into the situation and doing one’s best, but it also includes deciding in a split second who lives and who dies. In a team, it is often possible that one person may have to die to save the lives of others, but we no longer honor that concept: think Cindy Sheehan, who dishonors her son’s death in combat by her refusal to accept it.

The certified rescue swimmer knows that it doesn’t matter who comprises the rest of the team because they all have the same training, they all meet the same standards of excellence, they all know what the job is and how to do it, and that’s what they do. They work together, complementing each other’s part in the rescue, and the reputation of the rescue swimmer is without blemish.

I’d show this film in a classroom, rather than directing the students to read another meaningless piece of lit bound in a bland textbook of appropriate pieces selected by a politically correct committee. We’d discuss the key ideas and write about them and probably learn something about ourselves, as well as about the other individuals in the classroom. The film is good PR for the Coast Guard, but it is also good commentary on demanding individual excellence to maintain program excellence. There is no download from the internet to earn a passing grade: each person has to jump into the pool and demonstrate that (s)he can tread water for an hour or go find something else to do because their ability is not compatible with this program.