It seems to be stuck in my mind....
One facet of the gem was this: I was a coward then -- young
and cowardly where my lookalike twenty-somethings had hit the streets to
protest the war in Vietnam.
It was a great, messy, compelling, sometimes glorious eruption in which I
played little or no part. A coward who paid his taxes that funded the deaths
and maimings of my twenty-something lookalikes.
Watching the recent 10-part documentary, "The VietnamWar," a part of me was in search of absolution. I watched every segment of
the Public Broadcast System's much-ballyhooed serial. I am 77 now, but I was
twenty-something then ... and a coward.
If I were a Christian, watching the TV might have been
called an act of penance. But as I came away from each TV segment -- and I watched each as some sort of penalty -- I knew there
was no forgiveness, no forgiver and no forgivee. All the squishy ramblings
changed nothing. If I hear one more person utter the words "healing" or "closure," I will gladly shoot him or her in the head. The tears within would simply have to fall. The responsibility
was mine. All those young men and young women ravaged and savaged and chiseled
into a black granite wall and in the middle of it, searing bits of light like the
soldier's mother who, in another context, told reporter Seymour Hersch, "I gave them a good boy, and they sent me back a murderer."
And of course they were not murderers. And
yet they were too.
They were all good boys. And not, too.
They were all good boys. And not, too.
How I wanted to blame someone. How I wanted
to hand off the responsibility. How I wanted to find some "other" on
whom to pin the acid that bubbled up in the back of my throat. How I wanted to
pin the tail on a political donkey like Nixon or Kissinger. How I wanted to
excoriate the flag-waving patriots who honestly believed that when the
commander in chief said we should fight, we fought. How I wanted to brand this
target or that with a label marked "murderer" or scoff at the
"heros" who came home, phalanx by phalanx, in flag-draped coffins.
Night after night, I watched the documentary.
Night after night I came away riven by my own complicity, wondering why I too
had not hit the streets or waved a banner or issued catcalls of dismay. I had
done what was then my obligatory three-year stint in the army in full
recognition that I would rather have the experience than proclaim the virtue.
So for three years I pushed a pencil, a wimpy, desk-bound spy. And looking back
... ah, looking back. I was twenty-something then, but I am 77 now.
What I wouldn't give to have it back -- the
times when the times were ripe, when war and racism and women's rights were all
on the front burner and not just grist for the documentary mill. When the
issues were red meat and not just pre-packaged Spam. What I would not give. And
yet cannot.
Partly, I suppose, a lifelong aversion to
crowd-proofed issues has frightened me. Get enough people together -- people
who agree with each other -- and "the truth" is revealed. I don't
believe that. It may be the best of the compromises available, but I simply
don't believe it. I may wish I did, but I don't. And so, perhaps, I am and was
a coward.
Night after night after night -- looking for
the perfect penance. All those young, haunted, enraged, fearful faces.
Someone's son or daughter. Someone's husband or wife. Someone's father or
mother. Someone's ... everyone is someone to someone and my gut says that
living may be the hardest price, but it is the only price worth paying.
Should a single one of those soot-streaked
faces, those hands placed over one sucking chest wound or another, those
tear-tracks down the narrowed cheeks ... should any of them or their enemies
like them be forced or convinced to ... to ... to sacrifice their innermost
prayer for hug or a kiss or a bit of laughter somewhere down the line?
I don't care who's right. I don't care who's
wrong. I don't care what ideology holds sway in the skies above the farmer who
tills his field or sips lemonade after a hard day's work. Does a tractor or
water buffalo know or care about "communism" or "democracy?"
Is there a time to fight? I think there is.
But likewise, if there is a time to fight, there is a time to refrain from
fighting -- to stand tall and say "no" to the imaginative and
self-serving whose next step foresees only the next election.
I was a coward and that is part of my
make-up. If I could do credible penance, I certainly would. But there is no
penance for the past. The past is gone, just like the documentary entitled
"The Vietnam War." Will the documentary open up a "dialogue"
the optimists claim it may? My answer is, no it won't.
I'm very sorry, but it won't. Ersatz healing
is still ersatz.
May we all live as peaceably as possible with
the lies we cannot escape.