I thought I was doing the right thing.
I grew up knowing what was right and what was wrong after all. It was easy, right there in the Bible and represented by the flag. I went to church, memorized the new testament, and made my parents proud. I was a boy scout, an eagle scout, and I knew that what was good for my country was everything American - Big American Companies, Hamburgers, and Patriotism. America could never do anything wrong, she was the chaste woman and Uncle Sam was the chivalrous suitor. Life was good.
I thought I was doing the right thing.
America spread democracy and fought communism. Unions might encroach with their socialistic agendas of laziness and wealth redistibution, but they would be kept in check by the government, my father assured me. We had conquered the west, after all, one hard-working man after another. Now it was my turn - - - And I went off to sacrifice in my part for Liberty.
I thought I was doing the right thing.
Highly decorated and fast-burning throught the military, I was a source of pride for my family and my country. I might not have made it through P.J. school, but I gave it all I had and that’s what’s really important in America - - - sacrifice. To this day my ankles still fail at unfortunate times because of that sacrifice. But, for my country anything is worth it.
I thought I was doing the right thing.
I met a man once on a trail in South Dakota. He was rough and wrinkled and half his dark-skinned face sagged. He shared some food with me and told me a story about a savage crackdown of his people, an uprising of the young and weak and the hopeless. He told me of dead FBI agents and a really weak frame-up job. This man told me that he knew who had really killed those men and the story was long and by the end of it I believed him. As we parted I gave him my watch and a pair of sunglasses and I called him friend. He was a murderer, or a warrior, or a scared man with a lot of guilt for a friend sentenced wrongly.
I thought I was doing the right thing.
A 500 pound bomb can level an office building or decimate a city block. It makes a deep crater and isn’t selective with its death delivery. I saw flight data recordings of the strikes and knew that women and children were dying alongside the true targets. Or were the true targets everyone who died? I didn’t know. There was a village flattened because it had the gall of being within a pipeline corridor . . . it had only been there for 2,000 years before the pipeline construction.
I thought I was doing the right thing.
I saw a man wailing at the razor wire. He wailed and wailed and wailed. “What is he saying?” I asked. “He’s an idiot peacemongering coward,” my C.O. said. He was the coward, screaming at the top of his lungs for peace at the razor wire of a secure compound defended with rifles and artillary. If he was the coward, I wondered crouched behind sandbags, what were we?
I thought I was doing the right thing.
To promote the common defense. I never defended Americans from anything. Defense isn’t the duty of the invaders or the occupiers.
All that time, I was wrong.
Comments