Killer's Regret

by Dennis Green

I watch a dramatization of a story I feel as if I have heard before. An old man’s voice recounts the events of several days during the Battle of the Bulge. As an American soldier, this man shot and killed a young German soldier, not well but badly, and the other man took two days to die. There in the snow, under bombardment, the old man says, they were stranded only a few feet apart in separate cavities in the ground.

“I saw him when I shot him, a young man, fair, with blonde hair and calm blue eyes. I could hear him lying there dying. All night long. The next day, he was still muttering and coughing, and then, finally, he fell silent. I haven’t been able to forget him. All my life, ever since then, I wake up in the middle of the night thinking of him. I can’t get him out of my mind…”

The man who speaks these words, we are told, died at the age of 90 a few years ago, a short time after this recording was made. The visuals are uncertain, showing snow, and a snow bank, and a dark night sky. But we believe him.

And I wonder to myself, Did that German soldier who shot and killed my cousin Stanley in that same protracted battle survive the night? The war? Did he have such nightmares? Could he never get the image of Cousin Stanley out of his head? Did Stanley’s killer feel any regret?

For that’s what they are, all of them. Killers. Many of them are decorated with ribbons and precious metal. But they are still killers. They defy the Sixth Commandment, contorting logic and reason to justify what they do. Warriors like me know exactly what they do. They kill. They damn themselves to eternal fires, just from that one moment. Fire first.

I know that our species is conflicted. We hail the Ten Commandments until they get in the way of our natural instincts, to fuck, to cheat, to kill, to steal, to covet our neighbor’s ass, especially if she’s gorgeous. We are every bit as hypocritical as Muslims who kill Muslims in defiance of the Qu’ran.

The Commandment in the Old Testament is either serious, or it’s not. There is nothing in the Bible to justify the excuses and the ducking of its meaning…”Well, we didn’t really mean warfare or capital punishment or cops shooting a suspect who reaches for his waistband…” The shooting, in the back, of an unarmed man on a BART platform on New Year’s Eve last year has prompted outcries of injustice only from the Black Community of Oakland. How many white ministers joined those protests? Is religion color-blind, or not?

And now, the latest Pentagon documents released by Wikileaks details the 150,000 civilian deaths in Iraq caused by the U.S. invasion, occupation and war. Only a fraction of those are attributed to our enemy. And in those same documents, the callous and deliberate torture of prisoners is also described in cold-hearted, chilling detail.

The U.S. and its leaders are obviously guilty of war crimes, and if we ever lose our military power to wage war, some of the guilty may one day be brought to justice. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has given us, yet again, a reputation as bullies and killers all around the world.

So when I heard that old soldier’s lifelong regret for, as a young man, shooting and killing another young man, who lay moaning and dying, weeping and calling out to his mother, and how those sounds and images stayed with him the rest of his life, I can’t help but wonder how many thousands of our own boys come home with similar nightmarish memories. And on this Sunday morning, I pray for their eternal souls.

©2010 Dennis Green

Neanderthals

by Dennis Green

Matt Taibi, one of the finest political analysts at work in America today, has a new article in Rolling Stone about the Tea Party which is hilarious and insightful: “The Truth About the Tea Party.” Early on, he sums up his findings after spending many weeks among them: “They are full of shit.” I love the candidness of Journalism 2.0.

Taibi focuses on Rand Paul, M.D., the son of Libertarian Party candidate for President in 2008, Ron Paul, a very sincere, if whacko, Texas politico. Rand was rigorously opposed to big government and all government spending until a bill came up to limit funding to physicians by Medicare. Suddenly, this M.D. turned politician was all in favor of government spending. And that was just his first change of mind.

Tea Party candidates who have made it past the primaries are demonstrating their stunning lack of knowledge about even the things they swear are dear to them. Delaware U.S. Senate candidate Christine “I Am NOT A Witch” O’Donnell recently asked, “You mean the separation of church and state is really in the Constitution?” Duh. When asked, after saying she opposed Supreme Court activist decisions, which decisions she opposed, she couldn’t think of any. Three days later, she pleaded, “Well, I’m in complete agreement with this Court, because it’s so conservative.” Right, Christine.

Other Neanderthals endorsed by the Tea Party believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old, in keeping with Creationist theory. If America is behind the advanced world in science and math, these folks are not going to help us catch up!

The Colorado Neanderthal has claimed that “Being gay is a choice,” (as if there’s anything wrong with being gay…), and that people who choose to be gay will recruit others they come into contact with, (the “Gay Agenda”), and that therefore they should not be allowed to marry, adopt, teach or even run for office, as they might turn the entire Congress gay. (As if they’re not pretty happy already!)

In the many Tea Party rallies Taibi attended, he saw no black people at all, and almost no one under 50. Most of the people attending these rallies, in fact, were past retirement age, and when he asked them, most admitted they were collecting Social Security and on Medicare. Yet they railed against government spending and government programs of any kind.

A surprising number, Taibi writes, were in those little motorized wheelchairs, and all of them admitted they got Medicare to pay for them by gaming the system.

Personally, I was intrigued for awhile by the Libertarian philosophy, especially Ron Paul’s. He is opposed to war, to the criminalization of drugs, to any government interference in our lives. Including sexual orientations, and any ban on gay marriage. He still is. But I soon discovered just how contrary and contradictory his son and the other Tea Party Neanderthals really are.

Once he won the nomination of the Republican Party, Taibi writes, Rand soon abandoned most of his Libertarian views and positions, just as he did his opposition to government spending except when it comes to cashing those Medicare checks. I only hope the college graduates of America feel the same way I do, and get to the polls this year in larger numbers than ever.

America is at a crossroads. We can descend into the conservative abyss Great Britain did in the 1980s when its empire finally collapsed, or we can renew ourselves as other great powers exhausted by warfare have finally done. China’s renewal can be an inspiration, not just a threat. But if we let the Neanderthals take over, we will never know greatness again.

©2010 Dennis Green