Mark's Pages

April 26, 2003:

As a child my neighbor was a Navy pilot who bombed North Vietnam. I asked him once what did he enjoy most about his work. After some thought he answered, "Bombing bridges." There was something special about seeing bodies blown hundreds of feet skyward atop roiling balls of flame. He especially loved the ones on bicycles. It reminded him of the cyclone scene in The Wizard of Oz.

Many years later we had another neighbor who was an elite Navy Seal. We talked about his missions and he offered to show me some personal snapshots of his work in Central America. They showed Americans in camouflage with blackened faces moving among a village of thatched huts. The Americans were grinning, flashing thumbs-up signs for the camera. Many of the thatched huts were burning. The Americans were burning them. We came to some closer photos of my neighbor setting fire to one hut. There was something, some object, protruding through a window; he was lighting that object on fire. "What's that?", I wondered to myself. I'm glad I said nothing, for when I realized what it was I was disgusted. It was a finger. There were people, hopefully dead, inside the homes being burnt. He was using the extended finger of one of these corpses as a candle wick. Just another day at the office.

When we rally we're careful to demonstrate our patriotic support for our troops. "Support our troops: bring them home now!" This has been the watchword of antiwar activism since the '60s. I strongly support the slogan, and when I use it I mean it in good faith.

Yet there are times when I think back to these soldiers I knew in childhood, with their stories of the carnage they knowingly and gladly inflicted on civilians, and at those times I wonder what we're supporting, exactly, when we support those of our troops who support the policies we abhor.

I have no agenda in pointing this out, aside from stressing the complexity of real people. Something which slogans capture poorly.