2001-12-06 - 10:23 a.m.
died for our flag. that was the headline in this morning's NYPost. they died for our flag.
and we can at least give them more dignity than that.
died for our flag.
i hung a flag. i hung a flag and i wasn't asking anyone to die for me. who said that? who wrote that piece of insane propaganda? died for our flag. i hung a flag because i was crying and i needed a bandaid. because i felt torn apart in some deep place that you feel when you realize someone tried to kill you for the crime of going to work in the morning. i hung a flag and now the nypost is telling me that our guys died for a flag.
which is insane. like so much of all of this.
they died. i mean. let's get real. they died because they signed up for a military machine that promised them an education or a way out and they told themselves or were told or wrapped that "way out" package up in a nice flag and pieces of propaganda and marketing to make themselves feel better about signing over their lives to a machine.
this. i mean this is the stuff that's driving me batty. the rampant propaganda. calling things what they are not. it's not "keep america rolling." it's, "buy a chevy truck." it's not "died for a flag." it's "this working class kid wanted the military's educational money and got sucked up into the machine."
let's at least be honest about everything. let's at least name things for what they are.
how stupid they all must imagine us to be.
dying for a cause. is it worth it or not worth it. i don't know. i looked at that long, dark wall in d.c. and all i could see were names like mine. well. not names like mine. different gender. but. like mine. country names. kentucky names. my class of names. names of guys who didn't have other ways out. guys who maybe thought that was their way out. i don't know. bobbie ann mason explains it better in her book "in country" than i can. but those names. worth it. not worth it. i don't know.
i saw those "portraits of grief" in the NYTimes of people killed at the world trade center. and all i could see again. were names like mine. faces like mine. people who just wanted to go to work. and get a paycheck. and go home.
dying for a cause. dying for going to work in the morning. worth it. not worth it.
I watched this thing on 48 Hours last night about forgiveness. And. I don't know at what point it was that 48 Hours began constructing their program as to be directed at me personally. But I think it started last night.
and there was this one segment. with this slightly overbearing white guy from texas... who had served in vietnam. who hated his enemy. and who killed. a lot. and who found a diary that one guy "on the enemy's side" had kept.
the texas guy. i dunno why. had the diary translated. and it turned out to be poetry. a lot of things to the effect of seeing the beauty of life. and the texas guy realized. you know. something like... this enemy. was just like him.
just a guy. living.
it went on from there. a visit to vietnam. meeting the guy who wrote the journal. and you know. forgiveness. which i guess sort of proves an earlier theory of mine that if you write something well enough, you can get anything you want.
but. i couldn't get the thought out of my head. I couldn't stop thinking. I couldn't stop wondering.
why it is.
you know.
that we seem to have to keep reminding ourselves. that people are human. and everyone. even our enemies. at the core of it.
just wants to live.
