Random Ramblings

"It may seem stupid to write so much about Iraq in this space.

Most of you agree with me that this is an unwarranted, illegal, bordering-on-genocidal war that needs to end ASAP.

Those who don't won't be convinced by anything I write.

So why bang on?

I've just read a book called At Hell's Gate: A Soldier's Journey from War to Peace. It's a memoir by Claude Anshin Thomas. At 17, he enlisted in the Amy and volunteered for service in Vietnam. His commanders told him he was bringing peace, but what he mostly did is kill:

...nearly every day that I was in Vietnam I was in combat. One of the many decorations I received was the Air Medal. To get an air medal, you must fly 25 combat missions and 25 combat hours. By the end of my tour, I had been awarded more than 25 air medals. That amounts to somewhere in the neighborhood of 625 combat hours and combat missions. All of those combat missions killed people....by the time I was first injured in combat (two or three months into my tour), I had already been responsible for the deaths of several hundred people.

When he came home, Thomas was still driven by rage. He joined the anti-war movement. He took drugs. He drank. He wanted to die. Then he cleaned up. But he was still tormented. Fortunately, he was invited to a retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh. Odd, he thought--my countrymen reject me, and yet this Vietnamese accepts me.

When Thich Nhat Hanh entered the room, Claude Thomas began to cry. 'I realized for the first time that I didn't know the Vietnamese in any way than as my enemy, and this man wasn't my enemy.'

The first great lesson of this book is something Thich Nhat Hanh tells the veterans: 'You are the light at the tip of the candle. You burn hot and bright. You understand deeply the nature of suffering.'

And then--and this is the part that has had me reeling for weeks--Thich Nhat Hanh goes on:

He told us that the nonveterans were more responsible for the war than the veterans. That because of the interconnectedness of all things, there is no escape from responsibility. That those who think they aren't responsible are the most responsible.

Consider that: 'Those who think they aren't responsible are the MOST responsible.'

That's every minister who presides over a service without mentioning Iraq. Every shopper who's 'in the holiday spirit' and doesn't want to be brought down by death and dying. Every parent who fails to talk about Iraq with the kids.

That's you. And you. And you. And, sometimes, me. And that is why--even if I'm just touching base with the choir--I need to talk about this stinking war until, finally, we get it to stop."

Jesse Kornbluth just echoed what I posted yesterday regarding taking responsibility for our actions/inactions/reactions as consumers. We are all participating in this global community. What we do and don't do affect another situation/person somewhere else. Once we lose that connectivity, we lose our personhood or humanness. No (wo)man is it's own island. (via FmH)

---