My dad was in college at St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN, before Pearl Harbor. Afterwards, according to family myths, he went and had many long talks with his advisor- a monk from the college- about whether to enlist in the military.
Dad was a truly devout Catholic, a first generation American and an only son. He knew that killing was wrong and wished to become a conscientious objector should he be drafted. He felt that staying here to help his parents was truly important as his mom, my grandmother, was in frail health from her diabetes.
Brother Vincent had a different idea. Enlist in the Army and go to officer’s training school. That would give dad some choice in where the army would place him and what he would do while in it. Dad took months to make the decision but in the end, joined and went to officer’s training school and became a supply officer.
While stationed in England, dad led a platoon of mostly African Americans. While in North Africa, he led both African Americans and locals. He had a way of inspiring hard work and his guys appreciated the fairness he offered them. He always spoke with great pride of those with whom he served
My dad often bragged that his proudest achievement in WWII was that he never had to fire his gun at someone; that he never killed anyone. He was able to stay true to his belief that taking a life was immoral. Sadly, the truth was it didn’t matter.
My dad died 39 years ago this week. He was in a car accident, broke a bone in his neck, and lapsed into a coma. He never emerged and died in his hospital bed at the VA in Minneapolis. What killed him though was alcoholism and the memory of the horrors of what he saw in WWII. War ended his life just as surely as the bullet ended Price’s life in WWI.
I was thinking about Paul Gosar’s horrific anime’ stunt this week glorifying symbolically killing AOC and President Biden. It seems like we have elected a group of truly pathological nutcases who are trying, very hard, to lead us into civil war. What’s a conscientious objector to do? Good question.
As a disabled combat vet from RVN, Your story brought me to tears. No man or woman comes home from war unwounded. War is immoral and cruel. Those who make the most noise in the Republican Party RE civil war and violence have never seen their friends blown up nor known the incredibly devastating experience of killing another person. .
What to do? Read Timothy Snyder, ON Tyranny… the illustrated new version, and donate the book to your local school, church, Boys’ Club, Girls’ Club, library, give it away to your children’s friends, and talk up Snyder’s message.
My father was also a supply officer in the Navy in the Pacific. He never talked much about the war, but he finished college and became a CPA. Sadly, he was killed with a hunting rifle by a man who was trying to sell his business to one of my dad's clients. Apparently, my father had discovered problems with his killer's accounting. To this day, I am anti-gun.
Oh, my goodness. Every way of losing someone close is excruciating. But this kind of death, I think it has an element that those of us who have not lived it cannot understand. I'm so very sorry.
Thank you so much. I had just graduated from high school when it happened. It's something I rarely talk about, and you are right. I quickly realized that I had been in a bubble of immunity until then. I feel that it is always important to try to understand others and be kind. My mother helped all of us overcome any feelings of dispair and retribution.
Many thanks for this, Sheila. Says it all. "Casualty" defines so much more than mere physical injuries. The psychological damage is even deeper and can be more debilitating. Would that it were equally understood and dealt with by "the rest of us". Thank you.
Indeed, there’s comfort and magic in sharing, isn’t there. And maybe, with luck and time, even acceptance — as you’ve found. (Of course, acceptance doesn’t mean approval.)
- Bobbie O'Million lived above me in a three flat building. We became friends due to our proximity. A year later he moved to Highland Park, IL before it became fashionable to live there. I would spend weekends out there and we would explore the various areas that are built up now. Bobbie was older than I, graduated high school and enlisted in the Army.
It was less than a year later, we heard from his mother that he had been killed in a head-on accident when a drunk driver of a car hit their van. Six young men were in the van being driven by their Sergeant First Class (a father with 4 children). Bobbie was the only one I got to see (at his funeral) of the ones I knew from that era who died.
- Paul Placzek and I were in Boy Scouts together at the age of 13-14 years old. We spent the years together camping in various spots in the Midwest. Did other things together outside of Boy Scouts. It was just a fun time. We started to go our own ways when we were in the later years of high school I in an all boys high school in Chicago and he in a mixed high school. In 66 he graduated and I in January 67.
We both kicked around for a while working and then enlisting. He went into the Army before I did the Marines. After Boot Camp I was home for a bit before being reassigned. In the news one evening I saw Paul's father raging against the draft dodgers because Paul had died after stepping on a mine.
- Tim Gilson and I became quick friends in Boot Camp. We just kind of bonded. He taught me some things from when he was in ROTC which helped me get through it all. We both graduated and went on to ITR up in Pendleton. He was in an infantry company whose next stop was Vietnam. I went off to another type of company which consisted of the backers, cooks, and candle stick makers as they called us. I rained at an Army Base in Red Bank, NJ to become a Crypto - Tech. in 68.
I never knew what happened to Tim. He was not at his home in Moose Heart and neither was his family. I lost track of him and was afraid to look other places for him. My oldest went on a trip to Washington D.C. I asked Eric if he was at the Wall if he would sketch a few names for me of the people I knew. Tim came back with that bunch. He was head shot while with 7th Marines up north while trying to relive a platoon trapped by the NVA.
I got my row of ribbons. I was a deadly shot lobbing rounds 500 yards with few missing the target. The loss of my friends I could not stop with all of my abilities. I miss them. It is not a day I celebrate, it is not a day I take advantage of free food, I cringe at being thanked for my service. I do not like to be exalted in any manner. This is something I did to myself and learned from it.
I am older as you might have guessed and I wonder what it would be like if they were still around. Its 4 AM in AZ. My wife and I are moving into our new home in spite of the bungling builders. My children are grown and successful. My memories are fainter than when I was young. And I wonder what could have been. It is good to remember but it is far better to think of what could have been.
Dear Bill, you bring up such an important conundrum for us. Our incapacities in wanting to acknowledge this thing called "war" that you experienced for the love of your country rolled up into a tight little package once or twice a year. What you shared here, the results of war—your unending....quiet...grief, your heartrending example of our warrior's losses of buddies. And perhaps having to take away other people's lives....Nothing we give you, all the ribbons, stripes and medals can ever take those horrendous experiences away. Sharing your story of the people you have lost is so important. It helps us to remember the real tragedies being carried inside many of our veterans. It is good to release those stories kept inside,if not to help a wee bit by sharing your burden, but also to remind all of us that wars do not, in reality, really, ever end inside.
What you shared, Bill, is what all our fellow humans, in all countries, should feel on Armistice/Veterans Day. It should be our guiding principle to remember history, to stop evil and senselessness before guns or nukes are needed. We should become experts in the lost art of diplomacy rather than shallow, faceless memes. I know many other veterans who feel like you. Please know that a Day of Remembrance is our feeble attempt to want honor and share our love out of a complete despair in our inability to erase the pain of war from your lives. To say what you did for our country, or other countries was the deepest gift of love to protect others, the innocents. I do not see it as something you "did to yourself." You could never have known what learning to kill or having friends killed would be like. I don't know what it is like myself, but I have a horribly good imagination, and I have sat with many veterans who broke my heart wide open with their trapped stories of the tragic impacts of war still lingering inside.
You may have been called or enlisted, but it was most likely out of a sense of wanting to do something for the good of the whole. Perhaps that is your humanity. Perhaps that is your love for others, whom you do not even know. I honor what you have given of yourself, as well as what you have to walk with every day since that innocent Giving. That kind of selflessness is what underlies a true democracy. People willing to work for one another, because we have a sense of humanity, a sense of teamwork, and desire to protect one another by life's beauty and from its' brutality. By being kind and empathic. Yes, it appears that protection of that, sometimes, has to be deadly.
I am so sorry that any war veteran has to watch the insanity that has risen out of the darkness and into the light on our own soil by this republican/fascist infection that has spread across our land. They are led by fear of the other rather than love for others who may look different from themselves. They are so brainwashed with hatred they are willing to trample their own Constitution, Rule of Law and democracy. It is unfathomable that this insane history of humans just repeats and repeats itself. And what do we ever learn from killing one another or being superior over one another?
I am so full of gratitude for this forum of (mostly) deep-thinking people who dare to believe and care about humanity, democracy and doing the right thing for one another. We demonstrate what that love, you Bill, fought for and what underlies our democracy. We have more work to do on our Experiment. Pray that love will win over brutality and ignorance. We with some good tweaking, we could take this Great Experiment to new heights. Perhaps we will be given the chance. I guess that is what Hope feels like. I would like to do that, Together. All of The People, All of US, this time.
May we do better in this future we have, now before us, to not have to go to war, to not have to create memories more people full of pain.
Reading your comment led me to think, for the umpteenth time, how easy it is to send other parents’ children to war. When Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld—none of whom ever served in war—decided to invade Iraq for their own egos after 9/11, I was furious. First it was, again, for their own egos, and second, at the time my son was 20, not in college then, and I was afraid he’d get drafted. For a war that intended to show who was boss. And now, 20 years later, we have veterans whose lives have ruined or ended by their own hand.
The horror and evil of war lives on afterwards for way too many returning soldiers. My stepfather was on Iwo Jima, and never talked about it. My brother went to Vietnam as a 17yr old and suffers from the effects of Agent Orange...he has Parkinsons and remains deeply committed to the memory of his 5 buddies who were killed as their helicopter was shot down and he was the only survivor. My grandson spent one tour in Afghanistan and then left the military. Those of us and nearly all of us with a family member or friend somewhere in history of military combat suffer in their memory also. That history remains present and future.
Bill, There are no words that can heal the wounds and erase the pain and sorrow you feel to this day. I appreciate your candor and humility – they are a sign of strength and courage.
Your story is one that may answer the question so many family members of service men and women often wonder , “why won’t my Dad (or Sister Or Brother) talk about his time in the Service? Remembering can’t be easy but thinking about what could have been seems like it would be even more painful. War is heartbreaking.
My dad refused to talk about his two wars, no reason given. My son says: I had to live those two deployments , I do not want to re live them. After walking the trenches in Belleau Wood, and viewing the stereoscope images, my heart was changed. War is heart breaking . War is wrong. We must remember that as we engage in what sounds like “prewar chatter”. We must not be drawn into it by fear and contempt for the fear driven choices of the Former guy base. Peace requires someone to offer it and stop . Offer breathing space.
Good morning Bill H. I hope the honest writing and sharing of your experience reflects that back to you. I appreciate hearing of it. May I recommend another writer on Substack whose piece today on “soldiering and service” is also from a unique perspective that I am grateful I am able to learn from.
I have read his work before. We disagree on some points but that does not make mine more correct than his. I see things differently and from another perspective potentially adding to his.
One thing we never consider is that when a soldier is killed, their future generations, hundreds, thousands, never see the miracle of life. The vault of their bloodline is closed forever.
I often think that I, with roots in France, Germany, and Ireland, am the offspring of people that survived all of the wars that raged over Europe for the last couple thousand years, they had to have done it long enough to have children who then survived only to experience the same thing their forefathers did. Remember the “30 years war”, I couldn’t tell you much about it but I bet the people that lived through it could. Somehow our ancestors survived the carnage, each and every one of us represents a miracle.
Well that was an interesting read! Thanks for posting it. The King thing is a good illustration and probably why the British leave everything to their eldest son and only if they don’t have a son, eldest daughter. Churchill is a good example of that, his older brother Randolph inherited everything including Blenheim Palace and Winston had to make it on his own with no palace of his own to live in. Looking at the world of the 2 princes it’s easy to see why Harry left. You and I must be related Becky, that’s a thought that has never crossed my mind in a little over 75 years, go figure 🤷♂️😎🙏
Thank you for this post, and the life you've lived, and your sharing some of these thoughts with us. You might enjoy these two posts. TC's is a Substack post, Jim Wright's is on his blog page "Stonekettle Station"
Bill, thank you for reminding us of what war actually means to so many. I keep reading your line about being a deadly shot, thinking of how many kids, and men who in years are not kids anymore, but who idealize that kind of skill with no way of understanding what you describe here, no way of understanding that all the shooting ability in the world cannot save a person from the loss, grief, guilt, anger you have lived with for over 50 years.
I have never actually said, "Thank you for your service" to a veteran. Not because I think there's anything wrong with the sentiment, nor appreciating being thanked. But I cannot discern from the outside who would rather not hear those words. I may be in an "overthinking" minority. I don't know, but what does feel right to express in some way, which is sometimes silent, is the acknowledgement that the veteran has experienced things I will never understand.
Like others, I do not agree that "you did this to yourself." I do agree that you have learned things, of course. That knowledge has given you insight, and I believe compassion, that we civilians do not have.
I wish you well in your new home and that the builders will unbungle.
"Price became for the world a heartbreaking symbol of hatred’s sheer waste. But the shooter? He simply faded into anonymity, becoming the evil that men do."
This speaks to the reality of hatred and bigotry, even in the basal wars that emerge on our own streets today -- the senseless, heart-wrenching killings that end with the likes of Kyle Rittenhouse terminating two lives and disabling another for no other reason but sheer loathing and evil.
I’m disgusted with the judge and not moved by the defendant’s tears. Imagine if a 17 YR old black teen had shot and killed and injured white protesters. There wouldn’t be enough tears in the world to recess the trial for one minute. ❤️🤍💙
Disgusted with the judge doesn't begin to describe how I feel. He is not only partial to the defendant, which is clear to anyone following a bit of this trial, his racist joke about "Asian food" clearly reveals more about who he is. Color me unsurprised when Rittenhouse walks.
I know and you know Gus that kid went hunting that night. He was projecting being a Bad Ass. Not so much now sitting in the witness chair is he ? I saw an ad in the Rifleman Magazine when the AR-15 first came out. Front page. It read “ Now you have your Man Card “. He needs to “ Man up !”, Right .
I agree 100%. But also, I think he was a kid looking for acceptance and appreciation. It is a base emotion and hard to punish it away. What I wonder is will this experience change him and how? Too many kids out there growing up in cultures that are not giving them the tools they need. I think it's OK to tell him he was wrong and bad. But that also doesn't solve the heart of the matter. What do we do with these kids who are troubled? I have found it so interesting to see that when prisoners are given a college education or a job like growing vegetables to taking care of horses, they change. They gain self respect and a feeling of belonging and contributing that they never had. We are too focused on punishment, which assumes the person was 100% whole in the first place.
We all know he will get off. Why is no one saying he should be charged for being underage with an assault rifle? Yes, the buyer has been charged, but Rittenhouse used the gun illegally.
Quite amazing that the judge wouldn't allow those previous comments about shooting someone. isn't that pretty normal to allow examples of previous behaviors to show how the person thinks?
Actually that is standard. When you are charged with a crime and brought before the court to stand those charges Only that Crime , and the events relating to it can be discussed. But if there is Victims ,dead or alive no holds bared . They can dragged them thru the mud. My daughter was murdered 9/11/93. Been there, seen that. The dead have no voice.
You don’t. That idea of closure is nonexistent . You just learn to accept.When I die one of 2 things will happen. At best I will see her. At the least I will stop missing her. I’m okay.🦋
No. I dealt with that on 9/11/2001. I was all mad cuz that was Her day. How dare they do that on Her day. Out of no where I hear in my soul. “ Ya know Marcia it’s not always about you.” Let’s just say I got ‘a grip ‘ .To hate would be the burden and baggage. I forgave him. But not the act.He doesn’t get to take more. Ever.Not on earth anyway. And I’m not for the death penalty . Something has to separate us from them. Plus the Atty’s just make $ appealing. He got Life +25. There’s a saying. Pains inevitable. Suffering is optional. I try and keep it to a minimum.🦋
HCR, thank you for taking a break from the horrific and interminable conflicts we are experiencing today--which seem at the moment to be unresolvable--to search back to one crystalline moment that encapsulates all the mindless sadism and dehumanization that this world experiences because of the propensity for people in power to weaponize their citizenry. Humans are uniquely wired to find excitement in mindless acts of violence; whether in war or merely rubbernecking, our prurience when it comes to destruction and violence seems to be one of the defining components to being human. This makes me unutterably sad, because instead of questioning why humans love to engage in mindless violence and trying to learn how not to be this way, most people wallow in it. And glorify it. And encourage others to do the same.
Humanity's inhumanity is the singlemost motivator of everything evil in the world. It touches all of us. Although I honor my friends and family who engaged in armed conflicts--and died in them--I admit that I do not "thank them for their service." Because their service should have been unnecessary to begin with. The fault is ours. It continues to be ours.
A parable for you, one, I think, I have posted before and certainly one I have used with my students to get them to understand the toxic soup that mixes power, politics, religion, hatred, and fear of difference and turns people into mindless amoral killing machines as a result. During the so-called Albigensian Crusades of the 13th century, the political leaders--the kings of France and Castile--and the religious leaders--the church hierarchy--allied in order to wipe out perfectly innocuous Christians who happened to have a somewhat different view (their most heinous crimes were that they were vegetarians and believed in reincarnation) in southern France and northern Iberia (Spain didn't exist as a country). When soldiers entered the town of Béziers, they complained to their religious leader, the abbot of Citeaux, that they could not tell the "heretics" (whom they called Cathars) apart from the "orthodox." The abbot's response was "Kill them all! God will sort out his own." The soldiers burned Béziers down to the ground and slaughtered its inhabitants--about 20,000 people by some accounts.
And many were burnt alive in the Cathedral, no less. Indeed, we have learned nothing. Linda, I appreciate when you bring your knowledge to the table. Thank you.
Excuse the intrusion Daria, but I need to see if my reply posts show up.
Apparently they are not showing on the board:
CAN ANYONE SEE THIS POST
For 2 different letters I made a post and got NO Likes or Comments
HIGHLY UNUSUAL
I just scrolled Waaay down and found the one I made today and hit like. That has not shown up in my web mailer. IDK what is going on. Even the most lame posts get a like or two.
Yes, I found it is posted on the very last after several times hitting the "see more posts"
However I am receiving comments & likes from this reply. IDK if it's substack or my Yahoo Web mailer that ATT is too cheap to set up their own. (OAN gets too much of their money)
Hang on Rob, I've not been on very much today. I have had that happen to me as well, additionally, I'm unable to like or comment sometimes. I'll circle back!
"We have learned nothing in 800 years" says it all Linda. I might say we've learned nothing since the beginning of time. Violence is the evil that lurks in all hearts. Unfortunately too many give in to that evil using war as an excuse.
I thank you, as always, Linda for your knowledge . But deny that we have learned nothing. We are still learning, and we have clearly not learned enough.
Way back, at the dawn of time when homo sapiens emerged from apes, our ancestors were chimps, those adorable friends of Jane Woodall, who would tear apart their own species if from another clan or forest. Sometimes they would maim their own. Such DNA!
you few who post judgemental insults rather than anything substantive are revealing your true ignorance. grow up and become part of the solution rather than the idiotic "name-calling."
you presumptuous jerk - you have NO IDEA who I am, what I know or have been through. I KNOW, or rather knew, many on the DC POLICE force - their rhetoric is one thing, what their hats say when they are on their own time is quite the opposite. Keep you arrogant and inaccurate judgements to yourself - this space is for knowledgeable exchange of ideas.
there's nothing wrong with strong reactions as long as they are based in information, experience, intellectual acumen and respect. it's the juvenile "name- calling" which does nothing to serve any aspect of debate rather simply proves the name- callers' complete lack of credibility&/or integrity. Debate on!
"it's the juvenile "name- calling" which does nothing to serve any aspect of debate rather simply proves the name- callers' complete lack of credibility&/or integrity."
My husband’s Greek uncle Andrew, who fought in Bulgaria during WW I, died on the last day of the war, also shot by a sniper who must have known the killing was unnecessary. We have his photo. He was one of the most handsome men I’ve ever seen. A testament to the brutalization of war.
My father, who was born in 1917, was named after two young men from Kansas who also died in the war. His mother picked out the names of two dead soldiers from the local newspaper
as a way of honoring hometown victims. Dad was proud to carry the names of those young boys. But, what a terrible waste.
I have — like millions of soldiers before me, on both sides — entertained the futile wish that someday in the next war the vain politicians who callously send us to war send us to combat would instead have to fight the war that their disagreements caused. Wealthy politician gladiators putting their own lives in jeopardy. Thus saving countless families and innocent civilians from misery, death, and bereavement in a war they did not instigate....
And thank you Dr, Richardson, for making us think on this Veterans Day. I just stayed in the house, hiding. At least I don’t get smashed anymore. Agonized over whether to fly the flag that could once bring me to tears of devotion. After 1/6, it doesn’t seem the same anymore.
This is a sentiment often expressed by those enlisted to fight battles they didn’t start. Makes me love Muhammad Ali’s statements about refusing to fight in Viet Nam even more.
I will not let those seditionist <insert your favorite profanity here> take my flag. I have flown a flag on national holidays since buying my first house in 1984. Beginning on 9/11, I began flying it full time (properly illuminated at night, and replaced when it is tattered and worn). 11 months out of the year, I fly the "Fallen LEO" flag (a black field with a single, centered horizontal bar; I do NOT fly the "thin blue line" flag since about 2019 when a friend convinced me that regardless of my beliefs, that flag had been co-opted by anti BLM factions). In June I fly a Pride flag.
Gus I know how you’re feeling. But you know and I know that that those who gave some and those who gave all didn’t believe or do it for what’s been happening of late. I put mine up to honor you and them. And Thank you.
Gus Back in the Middle Ages on occasion the top guy on each side—king or other noble—would fight one another, while everyone else watched. Ditto with some jousting matches in Robin Hood’s times. In 2020 I would have enjoyed such a match between Fat Donald (“I can take him out with one blow”) and Healthy Joe (“I’ll take lard ass in a push ups competition”).
Sadly, today it is rare to have any member of Congress or the White House who have children who have served in the military—President Biden being an exception. There are a handful of members of Congress who have served in the military, but for the great majority war is a game they play with inanimate objects.
My dad served in WW I and II. My brother was in the Air Force. I was Air Force ROTC and then was in the thick-of-it-in the Congo with a Beretta, a M-16, and a .45. We were proud to fulfill our responsibility to serve our country. Who of Heather’s harem have relatives in government service?
My mother was a WWII Marine Corps veteran, which always surprised people because she was a woman and she was 5'2" and 110 pounds. I'm glad she's not alive to see what's going on in this country now.
In writing today's Letter, HCR may have come close to describing how she first felt when learning about the last soldier to die in WWI.
A life means more than words convey. It is through words, however, the images and sounds, the scene and through our physical responses that death is announced.
The story of soldier George Lawrence Price's death at the end of WWI stopped me from rushing ahead. The emptiness and sadness sunk in. Then gun violence in America, an example of our exceptionalism, was a natural place for me to go next.
There were '98,505 deaths and 195,286 injuries over the past 5 years' in America according to the ABC News series, 'Rethinking Gun Violence.
'What you don't hear about and what people don't assess is for every story of a mass shooting, there are, on average, 300 (other) stories, most of them suicide, that are never told.'
'Dr. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, told ABC News that gun violence goes beyond killings, and frankly, even crime. It has seeped into every aspect of American culture, from active shooter drills in schools and offices to the numbing feeling many people have that they could be shot at any moment, he said.' See link below
At the end of March, this year, David Leonhardt, writer for the NY Times', 'The Morning,' reviewed 'five key facts about gun violence — and the politics of the issue.'
'1. The toll approaches pancreatic cancer’s'
When gun violence is counted as a single category — spanning homicides, suicides and accidents — it kills about 40,000 Americans a year.'
'2. More guns mean more deaths'
'Republican members of Congress often claim otherwise. After the Boulder shootings, John Thune of South Dakota, the Senate’s second-ranking Republican, dismissed calls for restricting gun availability, saying, “There’s not a big appetite among our members to do things that would appear to be addressing it, but actually don’t do anything to fix the problem.”
But there is overwhelming evidence that this country has a unique problem with gun violence, mostly because it has unique gun availability.'
'It’s not just that every other high-income country in the world has many fewer guns and many fewer gun deaths. It’s also that U.S. states with fewer guns — like California, Illinois, Iowa and much of the Northeast — have fewer gun deaths. And when state or local governments have restricted gun access, deaths have often declined, Michael Siegel of Boston University’s School of Public Health says'.
“The main lesson that comes out of this research is that we know which laws work,” Siegel says. (Nicholas Kristof, the Times columnist, has written a good overview, called “How to Reduce Shootings.”
'3. Mass shootings aren’t the main problem'
'They receive huge attention, for obvious reasons: They are horrific. But they are also not the primary source of gun violence. In 2019, for example, only about one out of every 400 gun deaths was the result of a mass shooting (defined as any attack with at least four deaths). More than half of gun deaths are from suicides, as Margot Sanger-Katz of The Times has noted.'
'Still, many of the policies that experts say would reduce gun deaths — like requiring gun licenses and background checks — would likely affect both mass shootings and the larger problem.'
'4. Public opinion is complicated'
'Yes, an overwhelming majority of Americans support many gun-regulation proposals — like background checks — that congressional Republicans have blocked. And, yes, the campaign donations of the National Rifle Association influence the debate.
But the main reason that members of Congress feel comfortable blocking gun control is that most Americans don’t feel strongly enough about the issue to change their votes because of it. If Americans stopped voting for opponents of gun control, gun-control laws would pass very quickly. This country’s level of gun violence is as high as it is because many Americans have decided that they are OK with it.'
'5. The filibuster is pro-gun'
'Gun control is yet another issue in which the filibuster helps Republican policy priorities and hurts Democratic priorities. On guns (as on climate change, taxes, Medicare access, the minimum wage, immigration and other issues), Republicans are happier with the status quo than Democrats. The filibuster — which requires 60 Senate votes to pass most bills, rather than a straight majority of 51 — protects the status quo.'
'If Democrats were to change the filibuster, as many favor, it isn’t hard to imagine how a gun-control bill could become law this year. With the filibuster, it is almost impossible to imagine.' See link below.
What more is there to say? Is gun violence a never ending part of Death in America?
Thank you for posting this. The trauma created by gun violence is immeasurable. Please post this on PACEsConnection.com. Please join (it is free) and post! We are about preventing and healing trauma, helping PACEs (positive and childhood experiences) science communities create resilience building opportunities for children, families and communities.
Please join us, too, for our Historical Trauma in America series. The next installment is November 18 at 1 p.m. EST. It, too, is free. We’ve invited Dr. Richardson to be with us. Don’t know if she will or not but she would be the ideal expert to join as this webinar is on Historical Trauma in America: The Northeast Region. We will explore colonization, Native American history and slaughter, enslavement, the Civil War, the Jim Crow Era, racism, inequity, the Great Migration, and of course reference HRC’s book, How the North Won the Civil War. The multi-generational trauma from these atrocities has had a horrific impact on Native American, African American health. The collective trauma and public health implications were laid bare by the pandemic.
Carey, I did not forget our date. The day is crowded and repair work must be done on my computer this afternoon. I hope that we can make contact this evening EST at around 5 PM or tomorrow at about 11 AM Just post what would be convenient for you. It's Sunday, and I am finding it difficult to tell one day from another Cheers!
Tomorrow (Monday) at 11 works well. Just please email me at csipp@pacesconnection.com and I will send you my phone number or we can zoom? I am so looking forward to our connecting. Thank you!
Yikes. How The South Won the Civil War! Finished it months ago. Such a great book. Would love to have HRC comment on the historical and collective trauma caused by colonization, mass genocide of Native Americans, kidnapping of Africans and the brutal enslavement of African Americans, our nation’s violent and romanticized history that needs to be learned by all, so perhaps we can increase understanding and empathy, be more
I completely agree with your statements and add only that I prefer using terms such as advancing gun safety measures or reducing gun violence to the phrase gun control. I believe using the phrase gun control tends to play into the hands of those who claim it is “all just an attack on the second amendment rights” of law abiding citizens. We have to get beyond that discussion to make progress. Messaging is important to achieve change.
I am working with several local and state Democratic candidates at present to help with their messaging. My main point to them is to frame “values-based” messages that form emotional connection with voters and avoid messaging that focuses on “multi-point plans or policy prescriptions.” Frankly most vote for and support candidates because they “feel the candidates share their values.” My message to candidates is campaign on values shared by your voters and govern after you are elected in accordance with and delivering to those values. Most voters do not have the facts or background to make sound judgements about which policies or plans are best, but they know how they “feel” about particular values and what values are most important to them.
I love Elizabeth Warren for a lot of reasons related to her ability to form policy thoughts and get things done, but her “I have a plan for that” campaign was an example of why my point is important. No primary wins in 2020 campaign although she was popular with many in the progressive base and people loved having a selfie taken with her.
I knew you weren’t done ranting, Bruce. You could not have done better though than bringing Elizabeth Warren with you. Don’t forget her smile. With all her strengths, being
an exceeding smart WOMAN in the USA continues to be another mountain to climb.
I did and still do love and respect Elizabeth Warrren, Nancy Pelosi and so many other Democratic women leaders. One thing Warren did do a better job at was listening to and interacting with voters. A message I always gave to my sales and marketing teams in my businesses was people want to buy from people they know and like. Listening to people builds better relationships than talking to them. Those relationships are essential in sales. People will tell you about how they feel and what is important to them. That lets you build your message to address that. I always told my sales team the most effective phrase they could use in talking to a prospect or customer was, “So what I hear you saying is … is important to you.” And, to use the prospects words, don’t try to reframe what they said differently. If you restate it differently they are more likely to feel you did not understand or agree with what they said. I think this same advice is applicable to campaigning and speaking with (speaking with not just to) voters.
In my opinion the United States Supreme Court has mis interpreted the Second Amendment. How can we possibly put the genie back in the lamp? I wish I knew.
Christy, You have brought a very pointed and knowing piece to the forum with the Washington Post Perspective by Ruth Ben-Ghiat. I have copied a few excerpts from it with the hope that subscribers read it in full by opening the link. I, too, have provided a link as our messages may become separated from one another. Thank you, Christy.
'A September 2020 policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics on the effects of active shooter drills in schools summed up the dangers that can paradoxically arise from our attempts to buffer against danger: “High-intensity crisis preparedness efforts may contribute to a distorted sense of risk in children and perspective that adults and peers need to be viewed as potential killers.” Gun culture arises in part from collective distrust, but it also engenders that very distrust, a process that threatens to become a self-reinforcing loop.'
'The terror-filled psychological climate created by mass death only encourages the embrace of fundamentalist and cult ideologies that promise to bring order to chaos by providing an explanation for everything that happens. A healthy democracy requires a strong civic culture and a public sphere conducive to social trust and altruism. Instead, we have generations raised with fear, suspicion of others and uncertainty — states of being perfect for authoritarian politics, which play on conspiracy theories and seek to rob populations of optimism and hope.'
'Addressing gun violence means considering solutions other than policing'
'Exploit the hurt, make others feel as debased as possible, then rouse them to anger: This is the strongman formula. Such leaders know that it can be easier to try to control the world through violence than to stay still and grieve, and easier to find a scapegoat than look within. That’s what happened a century ago, when fascism arose among veterans in Italy and Germany who had been ravaged by World War I and formed far-right militias rather than transition to civilian society.'
'We have no recent comparable conflagration. Yet our ongoing experience of mass death primes us for a political order backed up by extrajudicial violence. Gun control is thus not only a public health, economic and social issue but an urgent matter of democracy protection. When violence is accorded a patriotic value; when mass death of your fellow citizens is considered an acceptable price to pay for possession of lethal weapons; when a leader has convinced people to follow his dogma even if it jeopardizes their own well-being; when the very thing that frightens is the thing primed to save you from your fear; when the value of life itself has been cheapened … then the conditions are right for authoritarian rule.' (Washington Post) Link below.
I’m very grateful for an appreciation of Ruth Ben-Ghiats’s critical expertise in this area and thrilled to be part of sharing it with others. 🙏 Thank you Fern!
Thanks for quoting Nick Kristof, Fern. Perhaps you haven't heard that on October 28th he posted a message explaining why, after 37 years, he was leaving The New York Times to run for governor of Oregon.
Haphazard human sacrifice -- as acceptable to Americans as orderly sacrifice was to the Aztecs?
Just try to imagine how weird, how savage, this custom looks when seen from a distance...
Viewed from the standpoint of countries that have seen far too much real warfare, horrors that drove generations of Americans to escape across the Atlantic and the Pacific to... the Land of the Free.
Earlier today, I heard a NPR interview with a U.S. career military officer who served a number of deployments in Afghanistan, but had, in retirement, turned against the U.S. effort. He said: "Though I participated in it, I now think the U.S. war in Afghanistan was wrong. All such colonial wars are wrong! I am not the first to say this. General and then President Dwight Eisenhower was among the first to articulate this warning. To paraphrase the anonymous interview, "As long as we have so many businesses in the U.S. who make huge profits off of our war industries, we will continue to have brutal and unending wars."
Thank you, Gus. Born in 1950, I feel like the frog in military waters brought slowly to a boil. I'm steaming over the %'s and $$ of our economy that depends on military funding. And, the police of now are not the police of my youth - at all.
IF the Biden administration fails to put a sharp final end to the ongoing 24/24, 7/7 putsch initiated and driven by the man who made it to become the 45th President of the United States;
IF he and his co-conspirators continue to walk free and behave as though they were engaging in legitimate politics-as-usual, while issuing mobsters’ threats against opponents;
IF the Russian Party—or rather, the Putin Party—is allowed to continue until the next congressional elections and enabled to take advantage of America’s “normal” sleepwalkers’ democracy to regain majorities in either or both Houses;
AMERICA will become a full-blown Mafia State, like Russia.
As in Russia today…
There will be no citizens, only subjects—and those “subjects” will be farmed by uniformed criminals and treated as objects, such freedoms as they may enjoy being granted them at the Boss’s pleasure, revocable at a moment’s notice by said Boss, by any hierarch, by any police chief;
Like Sergei Magnitsky, like too many in the Russian Federation today, anyone whom the “police” wish to punish for interfering with their free (criminal) activities, anyone whom they want to bear witness against anyone else, can and will be imprisoned, subjected to torture physical and psychological and literally hounded to death UNLESS or UNTIL they give way and denounce the innocents whom said “police” mean to accuse;
The Judiciary will become a mere arm of the Executive.
If the Biden administration fails, if couch potatoes don’t rise from their mattress-graves and walk…
The coming months could be America’s last as a free country.
As for the rest of the world, it just doesn’t bear thinking of…
Both the shooter and victim were uniformed soldiers. It's hard (for me, at least) to get nostalgic about Pvt. Price's death when every week an innocent child gets shot and killed by drive-by shooters, road-rage shooters, or law enforcement shooters. And if juries fail to convict the murderous, 100% guilty defendants in Georgia and Wisconsin ... and if Jan 6 participants and masterminds continue to escape consequences ... and if the US Department of Justice and the vast nationwide web of racist local judges continue to behave like closeted KKK members and get away with it ... it will be a long, long, long time until the final shooting death in the Republican Civil War against American Democracy.
I don't think the German soldier deserves quite the immorality he is painted with. Consider, "As the moment of the armistice approached, a few soldiers continued to skirmish, and Price's company set out to take control of the small town of Havre. ... the Canadian patrol began to look for the German soldier who had harassed them. They found no one but civilians in the first two homes they searched. And then, as they stepped back into the street, a single shot hit Price in the chest." Here was a squad of soldiers on one side "look[ing] for the German soldier". He didn't know if their watches were synchronized to the countdown clock, if there was one. And he probably was justified in feeling hunted. You have been haunted by the unknown story of the German sniper who was being hunted.
I am not disagreeing with the heartbreak most of us have with wars' sheer waste. Indeed, like many other readers and commenters, my father lost his most loved slightly older brother on July 4th, 1944 when his submarine went down in what was most likely an accident off the coast of Honolulu. And, I did my time as a conscientious objector rather than accept my fate as a draft dodger. But, having been born on a base and grown up as a military brat, I realize that war is no more fair than life more generally.
But this one lone German should not be made to wear the ignominy of that war. He is entitled to his his post-war civilian life and to blend into take part in postwar society and heal his wounds, as are all other regular warriors. On Guam, after the US forces had well and truly taken "control" of the island in 1945, there were pockets of soldiers who just could not accept defeat. One of the Japanese stayed in the hills and valleys of this little island until finally giving up in 1972.
There is almost never a finishing line to cross over at war's end, and the revenge for loss can drag on for years and centuries, as our own Civil(?) War illustrates. It is the ones who have fought, lost, and not quit fighting an ancient dispute who are more becoming of the evil that men do.
There are so many good and powerful comments already, I hesitate to write. But comment I must as I recognize myself in the German soldier. I tried to answer Heather's question of why in those last few seconds of the war he pulled the trigger. What was the point? So I asked myself have there been any moments in my life when I really wanted someone to die? I don't believe in wishing such on anyone. I don't believe in the death penalty. But the honest answer is absolutely, yes.
I am ashamed that I could reach such a level of anger - no, outrage - that I would want someone to die. In defiance of one of my most powerful and strongly held beliefs, I have over the last few years had that emotion. I think we all harbor the potential for killing. After a long series of abuses all it would take is the right triggering event at the right moment.
We have been watching a Netflix series called "Rebellion" about the "Troubles" in Ireland during WWI. The complexities of the times is revealing. It's hard to know who to sympathize with. But the show provides ample examples of why someone could rise to extreme violence. Who knows what motivated that German soldier? But it is not hard to imagine it happening.
As a species we have not found the antidote for the worst of our impulses. Maybe if there were a lot less of us fighting over limited resources? Would that allow us to emphasize our compassion over our aggressive tendencies? I don't know.
I’m a Quaker and a pacifist and I, too, have had hateful thoughts of ‘can’t someone just take him out?’ Like you, I didn’t know I had that in me, but there it was. Thank you for sharing.
I'm as non-violent as they come, loved Albert Schweitzer's love of all creatures. but the venom arises in me in my old age as I am surrounded by proud stupidity as never before.
“I think we all harbor the potential for killing. After a long series of abuses all it would take is the right triggering event at the right moment.” This is the key. I am reminded of the old parable about which wolf inside of you wins, the evil one or the good one. The reply being it depends on which one you feed. People voting for the likes of Trump, Gosar, Cruz, etc. etc are feeding the evil wolf within themselves. De-escalation is essential. If we all start feeding the evil one we will be left with pure chaos. Where is the love? It’s labor. Discipline needs to be taught to come from within us and not depend on physical punishment or constraint, the easy way out, that encourages more of the same. Repeated guidance to make the right choice for the right reason. Right now it appears there are numerous of us not on a path towards the light or truth. It’s a bit ugly out there.
I am feeding my good wolf. But the bad one still hungrily growls in the background. The more we all talk about the good one, the more we buoy each other up. Thank you.
I'm going to have to watch that series. My Mother's Father's family were Irish Catholics who fled Ireland in the late 1870's. My Mom was staunchly Irish, and refused to wear "England's cruel red". My Father's Mother's line is traced back to Alfred the Great, although they emigrated in the 1780's.
I can imagine that some frightened and exhausted soldier, sick at heart for holding close friends and maybe siblings as they died in his arms, had vengeance on his mind when he fired that last deadly shot. Who he was and what he went on to achieve in his life remains a mystery. But how do we put into perspective the likes of a 17-year old racist who takes a deadly weapon to a First-Amendment protected rally to protest the mistreatment of Black lives that mean nothing to the armed teenager? How do we compare the murder of two of those protesters by a teenager who was not ordered to be there to fight anyone's battle to some probably forlorn soldier who was sent to destroy an enemy he could not define? What of the white judge who is so obviously bending over backwards to protect the right of that teenager to volunteer to do his own justice against fellow Americans? What becomes of the fight in this country, right now, for our democracy when that vigilante teenager is not only freed, but praised and made a martyr for a right-wing America that entertains book-burning as an agenda item on a local school board meeting? We have gone way beyond a definable war to the likes of what led to WWII - in the hands of a despicable, murderous dictator that the right-wing of this country would like to lift to power. The evil that men (and women) do is upon us.
Stories like this make me tip my hat to you even more professor. The ugly side of history, needs to be remembered and retold and reconsidered, and INVESTIGATED (versus, "not looking back") so that indeed, the arc of justice will bend toward light rather than darkness.
There is a saying among military servicemembers that nobody wants to be the last soldier that died in a war. Coming through war was largely a matter of luck. Probabilistically, except when episodically, most people get through the experience with time spent in boredom and routine. Sometimes those routines are dangerous; some of the jobs are definitely more dangerous than others. Many people volunteer for dangerous duty assignments, where there is a certain cachet and glamour to whatever they are doing; many people feel themselves more alive and in tune with the person they want to be seen as by inviting dangerous duty assignments. Not infrequently, those dangerous assignments require skill levels that are far beyond the requirements of ordinary soldiering. It's not surprising that many of those 'hot' assignments are sought after by young people who are out to prove themselves, by parachuting out of airplanes or equivalent forms a risk taking. Soldiering nowadays is certainly less dangerous than it was a generation ago. There are fewer instances of mass casualties, life-saving measures are certainly a lot more in practice than they were during the World War II era.
But all military service leaves a mark on the human psyche. I was reading yesterday that actor James Stewart, who commanded a squadron of heavy bombers during the war, returned to Hollywood to resume his career; but in the years immediately following the end of the war he suffered from intense PTSD symptoms, and his anguish became visible in his acting performances, in particular, in the movie 'It's A Wonderful Life', where his character faced economic ruin. Audiences today usually view the film on television during the Christmas holiday season, and focus on the happy ending. But by and large, the movie is a downer, and it was not well received when it debuted in 1947.
It is almost axiomatic that in the first decade after the end of World War II, war vets would only talk about their most soul-searing experiences with other veterans. In the 75 years since the end of World War II, with multiple, inconclusive wars being fought, or threatened, we as a people became a lot more sensitized to the destructive effects of war on our national personality. We lost our balance, we lost our optimism about the future, and a good number is lost our humanity.
In some respects, those who lost their lives in war may have been the lucky ones. Many of those who survived the horrors of war lost their ability to adjust and adapt, drifting into extremist politics and bad decision-making. Surviving the war of mass casualties does not necessarily make us better citizens afterwards. The experience hardens people, as I noticed when I was living in Germany in 1963 and 1964. The most difficult part is that nobody really wants to talk about it, and when they do, they don't want to have to do it with some rah-rah flag-waving booster around. People are reluctant to form close friendships with comrades in arms who are liable to end up in the hospital, or in a body bag at the end of the day. That psychic scar tissue makes it difficult to connect with other people once the fighting is over. It's as if everybody dies a little bit, some more than others.
"It's as if everybody dies a little bit, some more than others." Profound. In the GWOT, we had a far lower percentage of individuals fighting for a longer time than we have in other conflicts. Better medical responses and better equipment have led to what were formally fatal injuries becoming survivable. What is far, far worse is the psychological toll that combat in today's world takes. Multiple tours, TBI, Moral Injury, and losing your squad mates compound in their impact. Factor in that this is an all volunteer military force, and there are few families playing the price of combat compared to the draft military of Viet Nam; this means there are far fewer families there to protest the costs of war which we should not have to be paying.
Arthur, good point about Jimmy Stewart. "It's A Wonderful Life" has always been one of my two favorite movies. I was always so moved by his acting--but in particular, the anguish he shows when on the bridge, I found to be so incredibly moving and seemed so genuine! I used to think that if I did that acting, I would be physically sick afterwards. Like you, I have since learned that it WAS genuine emotion he brought forth.
BTW, very powerful comment you posted, and the last paragraph, esp the last two sentences.............
Even as we honor those who sacrificed through their service whether they came home or not we need to quit making of war a glorious endeavour. That we as a society continue to send our young men and women off to fight the wars of old men says that through the centuries we have learned nothing. I honor those who have been willing to make that sacrifice but it does not mean that I stop working for peace.
Pamela, I think most of us grunts — ground pounders — would agree with you completely! We never found any glory. But, we did find out the meaning of brotherhood and patriotism. The glory comes from politicians, Hollywood, and the very rare command level officers who were in it for the medals they never earned, and promotions. Rank comes quickly during wartime. Let me add that all of the intra-services bar fighting comes from Hollywood as well. I never found anything but the greatest respect for each other, no matter what uniform each wore. But we really had a good time giving and getting good-natured ribbing. If there was any glory to be had, it was what we extended to, and felt for, each other.
One final point: I find that the vast majority of today’s service members truly believe that they are working for peace, Right beside you and for you. And I KNOW that we veterans are. Keep up your good work!
Glad to have you as a peace partner and thanks for some insight about real vs reality tv junk when it comes to the services. May you carry peace in your heart all your life.
Here is what I wrote on Facebook yesterday about the anniversary of the end of World War I:
Today marks the 103rd anniversary of the end of World War I, arguably the most pointless war in human history (which is saying something). Over 16,000,000 people died and tens of millions more were wounded. The historical repercussions of that conflict are still being felt today. All of the European empires with the exception of the British and the French ceased to exist (Ottoman, Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian), and in the cases of all but Germany, the countries ceased to exist as well (though Russia was reconstituted in the 1990s). Festering resentment was left on the part of the Germans, who felt with some justification that they had never been truly defeated on the battlefield, and this led directly the rise of Nazism, the most evil state ideology the world has yet seen. In Russia, the Romanov Dynasty fell and was replaced by the Bolsheviks, and seven-plus decades of occasionally hot but more often "cold" conflict involving or instigated by the Soviets then occurred. Marxism spread around the globe. The British and French Empires were so drained by the war that although they lasted another few decades, their exhaustion was complete and their dissolution equally inevitable. Indeed, France was so scarred by the war that it presented only token resistance when the Germans came calling again in 1940. Poland hadn't existed in hundreds of years, yet it was reborn in 1918, with part of its territory consisting of what had formerly been East and West Prussia. Italy, though among the "victorious" nations, was so angry at what it felt had been a complete dismissing of its interests after the war, it went fascist in 1922. A horrific civil war in Spain caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people; a conflict that was militarily supported by the new fascist powers, Germany and Italy. In the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire was wiped away with the French and British picking up the pieces, but the Zionist and Arab Nationalist movements had been accelerated and would not be denied. Thirty years later, the French and British were gone from the Middle East as well, but the national boundary lines they wrote after World War I continue to be written (and rewritten). In Southern Europe, several small countries (Slovenia, Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia) were merged into one fractious country, Yugoslavia. That artificial entity last a little over seven decades before its various member nationalities fell to fighting and gave the world the term "ethnic cleansing". The Czechs and Slovaks were carved out of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire and formed an uneasy nation for another seven decades, though their eventual "divorce" was peaceful. As well, an exhausted world was then ill-prepared for a massive influenza epidemic that would kill millions more in the year that followed the end of the war. Further, twenty years after the war ended, the entire world would become embroiled in another armed conflict in which tens of millions more people would die, one in which the word “genocide” entered our vocabulary and a sleepy Polish town, Oswiecim, was renamed Auschwitz and became synonymous with mass murder and death.
All of this occurred because a Serbian nationalist by the name of Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, an obscure Austrian prince of whom 99.999% of the world had never heard.
The poet's dead ask those that remain to "Take up our quarrel with the foe" but really, they had no quarrel with any foe. Only the politicians did, and they didn't die. Years later, Peter, Paul and Mary asked "Oh, When will you ever learn?" in singing "Where have all the flowers gone?"
My dad was in college at St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN, before Pearl Harbor. Afterwards, according to family myths, he went and had many long talks with his advisor- a monk from the college- about whether to enlist in the military.
Dad was a truly devout Catholic, a first generation American and an only son. He knew that killing was wrong and wished to become a conscientious objector should he be drafted. He felt that staying here to help his parents was truly important as his mom, my grandmother, was in frail health from her diabetes.
Brother Vincent had a different idea. Enlist in the Army and go to officer’s training school. That would give dad some choice in where the army would place him and what he would do while in it. Dad took months to make the decision but in the end, joined and went to officer’s training school and became a supply officer.
While stationed in England, dad led a platoon of mostly African Americans. While in North Africa, he led both African Americans and locals. He had a way of inspiring hard work and his guys appreciated the fairness he offered them. He always spoke with great pride of those with whom he served
My dad often bragged that his proudest achievement in WWII was that he never had to fire his gun at someone; that he never killed anyone. He was able to stay true to his belief that taking a life was immoral. Sadly, the truth was it didn’t matter.
My dad died 39 years ago this week. He was in a car accident, broke a bone in his neck, and lapsed into a coma. He never emerged and died in his hospital bed at the VA in Minneapolis. What killed him though was alcoholism and the memory of the horrors of what he saw in WWII. War ended his life just as surely as the bullet ended Price’s life in WWI.
I was thinking about Paul Gosar’s horrific anime’ stunt this week glorifying symbolically killing AOC and President Biden. It seems like we have elected a group of truly pathological nutcases who are trying, very hard, to lead us into civil war. What’s a conscientious objector to do? Good question.
As a disabled combat vet from RVN, Your story brought me to tears. No man or woman comes home from war unwounded. War is immoral and cruel. Those who make the most noise in the Republican Party RE civil war and violence have never seen their friends blown up nor known the incredibly devastating experience of killing another person. .
Welcome home brother. War has never solved any problem. It only leaves a legacy of sorrow and fear.
Grateful to outwardly acknowledge the wounds of war- especially those less obvious. Hugs to you, Tim.
What to do? Read Timothy Snyder, ON Tyranny… the illustrated new version, and donate the book to your local school, church, Boys’ Club, Girls’ Club, library, give it away to your children’s friends, and talk up Snyder’s message.
Sheila, what a wonderful and personal post about your dad. Thank you for sharing it with us.
My father was also a supply officer in the Navy in the Pacific. He never talked much about the war, but he finished college and became a CPA. Sadly, he was killed with a hunting rifle by a man who was trying to sell his business to one of my dad's clients. Apparently, my father had discovered problems with his killer's accounting. To this day, I am anti-gun.
Oh, my goodness. Every way of losing someone close is excruciating. But this kind of death, I think it has an element that those of us who have not lived it cannot understand. I'm so very sorry.
Thank you so much. I had just graduated from high school when it happened. It's something I rarely talk about, and you are right. I quickly realized that I had been in a bubble of immunity until then. I feel that it is always important to try to understand others and be kind. My mother helped all of us overcome any feelings of dispair and retribution.
Your mother must be an amazing woman.
Indeed, Nomi. I wish I’d been raised by Maureen’s mother.
Many thanks for this, Sheila. Says it all. "Casualty" defines so much more than mere physical injuries. The psychological damage is even deeper and can be more debilitating. Would that it were equally understood and dealt with by "the rest of us". Thank you.
Wow, Sheila, a simple thank you.
Thanks SL. Its a tough story but easier when shared.
Indeed, there’s comfort and magic in sharing, isn’t there. And maybe, with luck and time, even acceptance — as you’ve found. (Of course, acceptance doesn’t mean approval.)
Oh, Sheila. This hits hard. There is everything in this story, everything.
Thank you for your story and may your Father rest in peace.
Thank you Sheila.
Wow, Sheila. This is beautifully written and haunting. Thank you for sharing it with us.
- Bobbie O'Million lived above me in a three flat building. We became friends due to our proximity. A year later he moved to Highland Park, IL before it became fashionable to live there. I would spend weekends out there and we would explore the various areas that are built up now. Bobbie was older than I, graduated high school and enlisted in the Army.
It was less than a year later, we heard from his mother that he had been killed in a head-on accident when a drunk driver of a car hit their van. Six young men were in the van being driven by their Sergeant First Class (a father with 4 children). Bobbie was the only one I got to see (at his funeral) of the ones I knew from that era who died.
- Paul Placzek and I were in Boy Scouts together at the age of 13-14 years old. We spent the years together camping in various spots in the Midwest. Did other things together outside of Boy Scouts. It was just a fun time. We started to go our own ways when we were in the later years of high school I in an all boys high school in Chicago and he in a mixed high school. In 66 he graduated and I in January 67.
We both kicked around for a while working and then enlisting. He went into the Army before I did the Marines. After Boot Camp I was home for a bit before being reassigned. In the news one evening I saw Paul's father raging against the draft dodgers because Paul had died after stepping on a mine.
- Tim Gilson and I became quick friends in Boot Camp. We just kind of bonded. He taught me some things from when he was in ROTC which helped me get through it all. We both graduated and went on to ITR up in Pendleton. He was in an infantry company whose next stop was Vietnam. I went off to another type of company which consisted of the backers, cooks, and candle stick makers as they called us. I rained at an Army Base in Red Bank, NJ to become a Crypto - Tech. in 68.
I never knew what happened to Tim. He was not at his home in Moose Heart and neither was his family. I lost track of him and was afraid to look other places for him. My oldest went on a trip to Washington D.C. I asked Eric if he was at the Wall if he would sketch a few names for me of the people I knew. Tim came back with that bunch. He was head shot while with 7th Marines up north while trying to relive a platoon trapped by the NVA.
I got my row of ribbons. I was a deadly shot lobbing rounds 500 yards with few missing the target. The loss of my friends I could not stop with all of my abilities. I miss them. It is not a day I celebrate, it is not a day I take advantage of free food, I cringe at being thanked for my service. I do not like to be exalted in any manner. This is something I did to myself and learned from it.
I am older as you might have guessed and I wonder what it would be like if they were still around. Its 4 AM in AZ. My wife and I are moving into our new home in spite of the bungling builders. My children are grown and successful. My memories are fainter than when I was young. And I wonder what could have been. It is good to remember but it is far better to think of what could have been.
"I cringe at being thanked for my service."
I will not thank you for your service, then, sir. I will thank you for your stories instead. They are beautiful.
Dear Bill, you bring up such an important conundrum for us. Our incapacities in wanting to acknowledge this thing called "war" that you experienced for the love of your country rolled up into a tight little package once or twice a year. What you shared here, the results of war—your unending....quiet...grief, your heartrending example of our warrior's losses of buddies. And perhaps having to take away other people's lives....Nothing we give you, all the ribbons, stripes and medals can ever take those horrendous experiences away. Sharing your story of the people you have lost is so important. It helps us to remember the real tragedies being carried inside many of our veterans. It is good to release those stories kept inside,if not to help a wee bit by sharing your burden, but also to remind all of us that wars do not, in reality, really, ever end inside.
What you shared, Bill, is what all our fellow humans, in all countries, should feel on Armistice/Veterans Day. It should be our guiding principle to remember history, to stop evil and senselessness before guns or nukes are needed. We should become experts in the lost art of diplomacy rather than shallow, faceless memes. I know many other veterans who feel like you. Please know that a Day of Remembrance is our feeble attempt to want honor and share our love out of a complete despair in our inability to erase the pain of war from your lives. To say what you did for our country, or other countries was the deepest gift of love to protect others, the innocents. I do not see it as something you "did to yourself." You could never have known what learning to kill or having friends killed would be like. I don't know what it is like myself, but I have a horribly good imagination, and I have sat with many veterans who broke my heart wide open with their trapped stories of the tragic impacts of war still lingering inside.
You may have been called or enlisted, but it was most likely out of a sense of wanting to do something for the good of the whole. Perhaps that is your humanity. Perhaps that is your love for others, whom you do not even know. I honor what you have given of yourself, as well as what you have to walk with every day since that innocent Giving. That kind of selflessness is what underlies a true democracy. People willing to work for one another, because we have a sense of humanity, a sense of teamwork, and desire to protect one another by life's beauty and from its' brutality. By being kind and empathic. Yes, it appears that protection of that, sometimes, has to be deadly.
I am so sorry that any war veteran has to watch the insanity that has risen out of the darkness and into the light on our own soil by this republican/fascist infection that has spread across our land. They are led by fear of the other rather than love for others who may look different from themselves. They are so brainwashed with hatred they are willing to trample their own Constitution, Rule of Law and democracy. It is unfathomable that this insane history of humans just repeats and repeats itself. And what do we ever learn from killing one another or being superior over one another?
I am so full of gratitude for this forum of (mostly) deep-thinking people who dare to believe and care about humanity, democracy and doing the right thing for one another. We demonstrate what that love, you Bill, fought for and what underlies our democracy. We have more work to do on our Experiment. Pray that love will win over brutality and ignorance. We with some good tweaking, we could take this Great Experiment to new heights. Perhaps we will be given the chance. I guess that is what Hope feels like. I would like to do that, Together. All of The People, All of US, this time.
May we do better in this future we have, now before us, to not have to go to war, to not have to create memories more people full of pain.
Reading your comment led me to think, for the umpteenth time, how easy it is to send other parents’ children to war. When Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld—none of whom ever served in war—decided to invade Iraq for their own egos after 9/11, I was furious. First it was, again, for their own egos, and second, at the time my son was 20, not in college then, and I was afraid he’d get drafted. For a war that intended to show who was boss. And now, 20 years later, we have veterans whose lives have ruined or ended by their own hand.
The horror and evil of war lives on afterwards for way too many returning soldiers. My stepfather was on Iwo Jima, and never talked about it. My brother went to Vietnam as a 17yr old and suffers from the effects of Agent Orange...he has Parkinsons and remains deeply committed to the memory of his 5 buddies who were killed as their helicopter was shot down and he was the only survivor. My grandson spent one tour in Afghanistan and then left the military. Those of us and nearly all of us with a family member or friend somewhere in history of military combat suffer in their memory also. That history remains present and future.
https://www.militarytimes.com/opinion/commentary/2021/01/08/honoring-the-legacy-of-maj-beau-biden/
Bill, There are no words that can heal the wounds and erase the pain and sorrow you feel to this day. I appreciate your candor and humility – they are a sign of strength and courage.
Your story is one that may answer the question so many family members of service men and women often wonder , “why won’t my Dad (or Sister Or Brother) talk about his time in the Service? Remembering can’t be easy but thinking about what could have been seems like it would be even more painful. War is heartbreaking.
My dad refused to talk about his two wars, no reason given. My son says: I had to live those two deployments , I do not want to re live them. After walking the trenches in Belleau Wood, and viewing the stereoscope images, my heart was changed. War is heart breaking . War is wrong. We must remember that as we engage in what sounds like “prewar chatter”. We must not be drawn into it by fear and contempt for the fear driven choices of the Former guy base. Peace requires someone to offer it and stop . Offer breathing space.
Good morning Bill H. I hope the honest writing and sharing of your experience reflects that back to you. I appreciate hearing of it. May I recommend another writer on Substack whose piece today on “soldiering and service” is also from a unique perspective that I am grateful I am able to learn from.
Here is a link.
https://tcinla757.substack.com/
Thank you for this, make no mistake, the cost of doing nothing is high
Yes to TC
Christine
I have read his work before. We disagree on some points but that does not make mine more correct than his. I see things differently and from another perspective potentially adding to his.
I appreciate your reminding me of his words.
Thank you for this link. Tough clear piece of writing, as I’ve come to expect from the author. IMO. I hope it was ok for me to share on FB?
I share his writings frequently.
One thing we never consider is that when a soldier is killed, their future generations, hundreds, thousands, never see the miracle of life. The vault of their bloodline is closed forever.
I often think that I, with roots in France, Germany, and Ireland, am the offspring of people that survived all of the wars that raged over Europe for the last couple thousand years, they had to have done it long enough to have children who then survived only to experience the same thing their forefathers did. Remember the “30 years war”, I couldn’t tell you much about it but I bet the people that lived through it could. Somehow our ancestors survived the carnage, each and every one of us represents a miracle.
Just read this to my husband and we talked about being the offspring of survivors for all the way back to the beginning of life. Awesome thought. Miracles indeed! Here is some light perspective: https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/01/your-family-past-present-and-future.html
Well that was an interesting read! Thanks for posting it. The King thing is a good illustration and probably why the British leave everything to their eldest son and only if they don’t have a son, eldest daughter. Churchill is a good example of that, his older brother Randolph inherited everything including Blenheim Palace and Winston had to make it on his own with no palace of his own to live in. Looking at the world of the 2 princes it’s easy to see why Harry left. You and I must be related Becky, that’s a thought that has never crossed my mind in a little over 75 years, go figure 🤷♂️😎🙏
Ah! I'm glad you liked it. Pretty cool, eh Cuz?
Thank you for this post, and the life you've lived, and your sharing some of these thoughts with us. You might enjoy these two posts. TC's is a Substack post, Jim Wright's is on his blog page "Stonekettle Station"
TC in LA on ANOTHER FINE MESS
"Please Don't Thank Me for My Service"
Jim Wright has written another:
"How the Heroes Die"
https://www.stonekettle.com/
Many thanks for the links.
Jim Wright is a national treasure, IMO.
Thank you, Bill, for naming them.
Bill, thank you for reminding us of what war actually means to so many. I keep reading your line about being a deadly shot, thinking of how many kids, and men who in years are not kids anymore, but who idealize that kind of skill with no way of understanding what you describe here, no way of understanding that all the shooting ability in the world cannot save a person from the loss, grief, guilt, anger you have lived with for over 50 years.
I have never actually said, "Thank you for your service" to a veteran. Not because I think there's anything wrong with the sentiment, nor appreciating being thanked. But I cannot discern from the outside who would rather not hear those words. I may be in an "overthinking" minority. I don't know, but what does feel right to express in some way, which is sometimes silent, is the acknowledgement that the veteran has experienced things I will never understand.
Like others, I do not agree that "you did this to yourself." I do agree that you have learned things, of course. That knowledge has given you insight, and I believe compassion, that we civilians do not have.
I wish you well in your new home and that the builders will unbungle.
Exactly, Bill. Thank you for saying so. I'm very sorry for your losses.
Thank you for writing this Bill.
Thank you, Bill fr AZ
Thank you for this. I just read it aloud to my husband. We are thinking of you and of all the others who could not tell their stories.
Thank you for sharing.
"Price became for the world a heartbreaking symbol of hatred’s sheer waste. But the shooter? He simply faded into anonymity, becoming the evil that men do."
This speaks to the reality of hatred and bigotry, even in the basal wars that emerge on our own streets today -- the senseless, heart-wrenching killings that end with the likes of Kyle Rittenhouse terminating two lives and disabling another for no other reason but sheer loathing and evil.
I’m disgusted with the judge and not moved by the defendant’s tears. Imagine if a 17 YR old black teen had shot and killed and injured white protesters. There wouldn’t be enough tears in the world to recess the trial for one minute. ❤️🤍💙
Disgusted with the judge doesn't begin to describe how I feel. He is not only partial to the defendant, which is clear to anyone following a bit of this trial, his racist joke about "Asian food" clearly reveals more about who he is. Color me unsurprised when Rittenhouse walks.
Me, too - a dense shade of "unsurprised."
His punishment, if he even receives one, will be too light.
I know and you know Gus that kid went hunting that night. He was projecting being a Bad Ass. Not so much now sitting in the witness chair is he ? I saw an ad in the Rifleman Magazine when the AR-15 first came out. Front page. It read “ Now you have your Man Card “. He needs to “ Man up !”, Right .
I agree 100%. But also, I think he was a kid looking for acceptance and appreciation. It is a base emotion and hard to punish it away. What I wonder is will this experience change him and how? Too many kids out there growing up in cultures that are not giving them the tools they need. I think it's OK to tell him he was wrong and bad. But that also doesn't solve the heart of the matter. What do we do with these kids who are troubled? I have found it so interesting to see that when prisoners are given a college education or a job like growing vegetables to taking care of horses, they change. They gain self respect and a feeling of belonging and contributing that they never had. We are too focused on punishment, which assumes the person was 100% whole in the first place.
He and his Mama need to spend some jail time.
Have you seen the picture of him in a bar with a "Free as f**k" t-shirt? That should answer your question of if this experience will change him.
Absolutely.
We all know he will get off. Why is no one saying he should be charged for being underage with an assault rifle? Yes, the buyer has been charged, but Rittenhouse used the gun illegally.
He is charged. It’s a misdemeanor . That would just get him fines and maybe probation.
Quite amazing that the judge wouldn't allow those previous comments about shooting someone. isn't that pretty normal to allow examples of previous behaviors to show how the person thinks?
Actually that is standard. When you are charged with a crime and brought before the court to stand those charges Only that Crime , and the events relating to it can be discussed. But if there is Victims ,dead or alive no holds bared . They can dragged them thru the mud. My daughter was murdered 9/11/93. Been there, seen that. The dead have no voice.
So, so sorry, Marcia! I cannot imagine ever recovering. 💙
You don’t. That idea of closure is nonexistent . You just learn to accept.When I die one of 2 things will happen. At best I will see her. At the least I will stop missing her. I’m okay.🦋
You will see her. She may be around you regularly.
🦋
Oh my goodness, Marcia, thank you for letting us know you better. What an incredible burden.
No. I dealt with that on 9/11/2001. I was all mad cuz that was Her day. How dare they do that on Her day. Out of no where I hear in my soul. “ Ya know Marcia it’s not always about you.” Let’s just say I got ‘a grip ‘ .To hate would be the burden and baggage. I forgave him. But not the act.He doesn’t get to take more. Ever.Not on earth anyway. And I’m not for the death penalty . Something has to separate us from them. Plus the Atty’s just make $ appealing. He got Life +25. There’s a saying. Pains inevitable. Suffering is optional. I try and keep it to a minimum.🦋
Oh, I am so sorry! My heart aches for you, Marcia!💔💔💔
Horrors for the families, always
I am so very sorry to hear about your daughter. Thank you for sharing a bit of yourself with us.
🦋
😔
No words, Marcia. 🦋💙
The judge was not impartial, not in the least. A sham trial if ever there was one
There’s that but why are so many black Ppl killing each other ? How do all these underage kids get guns ? So many lives wasted and/or ruined.
His Mama
Jeri, his mother bought him the gun ? I’m not following this Trial.
and she drove him to the protest. I cannot watch, the judge is no judge, a partisan hack.
I won’t even be a runner up for the Mother of The Year. But she could not have thought very long about doing that.
HCR, thank you for taking a break from the horrific and interminable conflicts we are experiencing today--which seem at the moment to be unresolvable--to search back to one crystalline moment that encapsulates all the mindless sadism and dehumanization that this world experiences because of the propensity for people in power to weaponize their citizenry. Humans are uniquely wired to find excitement in mindless acts of violence; whether in war or merely rubbernecking, our prurience when it comes to destruction and violence seems to be one of the defining components to being human. This makes me unutterably sad, because instead of questioning why humans love to engage in mindless violence and trying to learn how not to be this way, most people wallow in it. And glorify it. And encourage others to do the same.
Humanity's inhumanity is the singlemost motivator of everything evil in the world. It touches all of us. Although I honor my friends and family who engaged in armed conflicts--and died in them--I admit that I do not "thank them for their service." Because their service should have been unnecessary to begin with. The fault is ours. It continues to be ours.
A parable for you, one, I think, I have posted before and certainly one I have used with my students to get them to understand the toxic soup that mixes power, politics, religion, hatred, and fear of difference and turns people into mindless amoral killing machines as a result. During the so-called Albigensian Crusades of the 13th century, the political leaders--the kings of France and Castile--and the religious leaders--the church hierarchy--allied in order to wipe out perfectly innocuous Christians who happened to have a somewhat different view (their most heinous crimes were that they were vegetarians and believed in reincarnation) in southern France and northern Iberia (Spain didn't exist as a country). When soldiers entered the town of Béziers, they complained to their religious leader, the abbot of Citeaux, that they could not tell the "heretics" (whom they called Cathars) apart from the "orthodox." The abbot's response was "Kill them all! God will sort out his own." The soldiers burned Béziers down to the ground and slaughtered its inhabitants--about 20,000 people by some accounts.
We have learned nothing in 800 years.
And many were burnt alive in the Cathedral, no less. Indeed, we have learned nothing. Linda, I appreciate when you bring your knowledge to the table. Thank you.
Excuse the intrusion Daria, but I need to see if my reply posts show up.
Apparently they are not showing on the board:
CAN ANYONE SEE THIS POST
For 2 different letters I made a post and got NO Likes or Comments
HIGHLY UNUSUAL
I just scrolled Waaay down and found the one I made today and hit like. That has not shown up in my web mailer. IDK what is going on. Even the most lame posts get a like or two.
Rob, I scrolled to the end & did not see your 1st comment.
Yes, I found it is posted on the very last after several times hitting the "see more posts"
However I am receiving comments & likes from this reply. IDK if it's substack or my Yahoo Web mailer that ATT is too cheap to set up their own. (OAN gets too much of their money)
Hang on Rob, I've not been on very much today. I have had that happen to me as well, additionally, I'm unable to like or comment sometimes. I'll circle back!
"We have learned nothing in 800 years" says it all Linda. I might say we've learned nothing since the beginning of time. Violence is the evil that lurks in all hearts. Unfortunately too many give in to that evil using war as an excuse.
I thank you, as always, Linda for your knowledge . But deny that we have learned nothing. We are still learning, and we have clearly not learned enough.
Cathy, as a nation, we refuse to practice the lessons we've been taught.
Way back, at the dawn of time when homo sapiens emerged from apes, our ancestors were chimps, those adorable friends of Jane Woodall, who would tear apart their own species if from another clan or forest. Sometimes they would maim their own. Such DNA!
"Kill them all let God sort them out" is the MOTTO of the DC POLICE DEPARTMENT. They wear hats with that printed on them.
And I’m guessing your hat says MAGA.
Good one, DWood!
you few who post judgemental insults rather than anything substantive are revealing your true ignorance. grow up and become part of the solution rather than the idiotic "name-calling."
you presumptuous jerk - you have NO IDEA who I am, what I know or have been through. I KNOW, or rather knew, many on the DC POLICE force - their rhetoric is one thing, what their hats say when they are on their own time is quite the opposite. Keep you arrogant and inaccurate judgements to yourself - this space is for knowledgeable exchange of ideas.
Just admit you’re wrong and I won’t have to waste my time demonstrating it. I don’t know or care who you are, I care that you’re a liar.
Please remember that all caps is considered yelling. Also. If you post inflammatory comments you will receive strong reactions.
there's nothing wrong with strong reactions as long as they are based in information, experience, intellectual acumen and respect. it's the juvenile "name- calling" which does nothing to serve any aspect of debate rather simply proves the name- callers' complete lack of credibility&/or integrity. Debate on!
"you presumptuous jerk"
"it's the juvenile "name- calling" which does nothing to serve any aspect of debate rather simply proves the name- callers' complete lack of credibility&/or integrity."
These are what you have said. Confused?
What? Is that really true?
regarding the DC police motto; unfortunately too TRUE. Rhetoric is their political/public "face" while reality is entirely different.
No, it’s not…see below. KS should apologize, but surely won’t.
Hey there, KS, maybe do your homework before writing malicious falsehoods The motto of the DC police force is “We’re here to help.”
Jerk.
I could not find proof of this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Police_Department_of_the_District_of_Columbia
Interesting to know that that phrase is that old. I thought it came about during the Viet Nam conflict.
We had it written on a sign at the entrance to my Ranger Company base in Viet Nam. I had no idea it was that old, I thought it had originated with us.
Nope, Barbara, a sentiment straight from religionists.
Ouch!
My husband’s Greek uncle Andrew, who fought in Bulgaria during WW I, died on the last day of the war, also shot by a sniper who must have known the killing was unnecessary. We have his photo. He was one of the most handsome men I’ve ever seen. A testament to the brutalization of war.
My father, who was born in 1917, was named after two young men from Kansas who also died in the war. His mother picked out the names of two dead soldiers from the local newspaper
as a way of honoring hometown victims. Dad was proud to carry the names of those young boys. But, what a terrible waste.
I have — like millions of soldiers before me, on both sides — entertained the futile wish that someday in the next war the vain politicians who callously send us to war send us to combat would instead have to fight the war that their disagreements caused. Wealthy politician gladiators putting their own lives in jeopardy. Thus saving countless families and innocent civilians from misery, death, and bereavement in a war they did not instigate....
And thank you Dr, Richardson, for making us think on this Veterans Day. I just stayed in the house, hiding. At least I don’t get smashed anymore. Agonized over whether to fly the flag that could once bring me to tears of devotion. After 1/6, it doesn’t seem the same anymore.
This is a sentiment often expressed by those enlisted to fight battles they didn’t start. Makes me love Muhammad Ali’s statements about refusing to fight in Viet Nam even more.
With our current volunteer army, will be hard to stop our military industrial complex
I will not let those seditionist <insert your favorite profanity here> take my flag. I have flown a flag on national holidays since buying my first house in 1984. Beginning on 9/11, I began flying it full time (properly illuminated at night, and replaced when it is tattered and worn). 11 months out of the year, I fly the "Fallen LEO" flag (a black field with a single, centered horizontal bar; I do NOT fly the "thin blue line" flag since about 2019 when a friend convinced me that regardless of my beliefs, that flag had been co-opted by anti BLM factions). In June I fly a Pride flag.
Lions for lambs. Thank you for your service Gus.
Understood, Lynn. Thank you.
Gus I know how you’re feeling. But you know and I know that that those who gave some and those who gave all didn’t believe or do it for what’s been happening of late. I put mine up to honor you and them. And Thank you.
Gus Back in the Middle Ages on occasion the top guy on each side—king or other noble—would fight one another, while everyone else watched. Ditto with some jousting matches in Robin Hood’s times. In 2020 I would have enjoyed such a match between Fat Donald (“I can take him out with one blow”) and Healthy Joe (“I’ll take lard ass in a push ups competition”).
Sadly, today it is rare to have any member of Congress or the White House who have children who have served in the military—President Biden being an exception. There are a handful of members of Congress who have served in the military, but for the great majority war is a game they play with inanimate objects.
My dad served in WW I and II. My brother was in the Air Force. I was Air Force ROTC and then was in the thick-of-it-in the Congo with a Beretta, a M-16, and a .45. We were proud to fulfill our responsibility to serve our country. Who of Heather’s harem have relatives in government service?
My mother was a WWII Marine Corps veteran, which always surprised people because she was a woman and she was 5'2" and 110 pounds. I'm glad she's not alive to see what's going on in this country now.
I, for one. Lots of relatives in the military, and some are women. Are you aware of how sexist your last comment is? I find it quite offensive.
Iris My apologies. I have a great niece in the Navy.
In writing today's Letter, HCR may have come close to describing how she first felt when learning about the last soldier to die in WWI.
A life means more than words convey. It is through words, however, the images and sounds, the scene and through our physical responses that death is announced.
The story of soldier George Lawrence Price's death at the end of WWI stopped me from rushing ahead. The emptiness and sadness sunk in. Then gun violence in America, an example of our exceptionalism, was a natural place for me to go next.
There were '98,505 deaths and 195,286 injuries over the past 5 years' in America according to the ABC News series, 'Rethinking Gun Violence.
'What you don't hear about and what people don't assess is for every story of a mass shooting, there are, on average, 300 (other) stories, most of them suicide, that are never told.'
'Dr. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, told ABC News that gun violence goes beyond killings, and frankly, even crime. It has seeped into every aspect of American culture, from active shooter drills in schools and offices to the numbing feeling many people have that they could be shot at any moment, he said.' See link below
At the end of March, this year, David Leonhardt, writer for the NY Times', 'The Morning,' reviewed 'five key facts about gun violence — and the politics of the issue.'
'1. The toll approaches pancreatic cancer’s'
When gun violence is counted as a single category — spanning homicides, suicides and accidents — it kills about 40,000 Americans a year.'
'2. More guns mean more deaths'
'Republican members of Congress often claim otherwise. After the Boulder shootings, John Thune of South Dakota, the Senate’s second-ranking Republican, dismissed calls for restricting gun availability, saying, “There’s not a big appetite among our members to do things that would appear to be addressing it, but actually don’t do anything to fix the problem.”
But there is overwhelming evidence that this country has a unique problem with gun violence, mostly because it has unique gun availability.'
'It’s not just that every other high-income country in the world has many fewer guns and many fewer gun deaths. It’s also that U.S. states with fewer guns — like California, Illinois, Iowa and much of the Northeast — have fewer gun deaths. And when state or local governments have restricted gun access, deaths have often declined, Michael Siegel of Boston University’s School of Public Health says'.
“The main lesson that comes out of this research is that we know which laws work,” Siegel says. (Nicholas Kristof, the Times columnist, has written a good overview, called “How to Reduce Shootings.”
'3. Mass shootings aren’t the main problem'
'They receive huge attention, for obvious reasons: They are horrific. But they are also not the primary source of gun violence. In 2019, for example, only about one out of every 400 gun deaths was the result of a mass shooting (defined as any attack with at least four deaths). More than half of gun deaths are from suicides, as Margot Sanger-Katz of The Times has noted.'
'Still, many of the policies that experts say would reduce gun deaths — like requiring gun licenses and background checks — would likely affect both mass shootings and the larger problem.'
'4. Public opinion is complicated'
'Yes, an overwhelming majority of Americans support many gun-regulation proposals — like background checks — that congressional Republicans have blocked. And, yes, the campaign donations of the National Rifle Association influence the debate.
But the main reason that members of Congress feel comfortable blocking gun control is that most Americans don’t feel strongly enough about the issue to change their votes because of it. If Americans stopped voting for opponents of gun control, gun-control laws would pass very quickly. This country’s level of gun violence is as high as it is because many Americans have decided that they are OK with it.'
'5. The filibuster is pro-gun'
'Gun control is yet another issue in which the filibuster helps Republican policy priorities and hurts Democratic priorities. On guns (as on climate change, taxes, Medicare access, the minimum wage, immigration and other issues), Republicans are happier with the status quo than Democrats. The filibuster — which requires 60 Senate votes to pass most bills, rather than a straight majority of 51 — protects the status quo.'
'If Democrats were to change the filibuster, as many favor, it isn’t hard to imagine how a gun-control bill could become law this year. With the filibuster, it is almost impossible to imagine.' See link below.
What more is there to say? Is gun violence a never ending part of Death in America?
https://abcnews.go.com/US/america-gun-violence-problem/story?id=79222948
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/briefing/gun-control-suez-canal-ship-vaccine-astrazeneca.html
Thank you for posting this. The trauma created by gun violence is immeasurable. Please post this on PACEsConnection.com. Please join (it is free) and post! We are about preventing and healing trauma, helping PACEs (positive and childhood experiences) science communities create resilience building opportunities for children, families and communities.
Please join us, too, for our Historical Trauma in America series. The next installment is November 18 at 1 p.m. EST. It, too, is free. We’ve invited Dr. Richardson to be with us. Don’t know if she will or not but she would be the ideal expert to join as this webinar is on Historical Trauma in America: The Northeast Region. We will explore colonization, Native American history and slaughter, enslavement, the Civil War, the Jim Crow Era, racism, inequity, the Great Migration, and of course reference HRC’s book, How the North Won the Civil War. The multi-generational trauma from these atrocities has had a horrific impact on Native American, African American health. The collective trauma and public health implications were laid bare by the pandemic.
We are so hoping HRC will join us! https://www.pacesconnection.com/blog/paces-connection-presents-the-historical-trauma-in-america-series
For more info and to register click on the link above or email me at csipp@pacesconnection.com.
Thank you, Carey. I will follow up later in the day or tomorrow. I hope that you continue to post on here, so that subscribers can be informed.
Terrific, Fern! I have enjoyed your posts so much over the last year!
Carey, I did not forget our date. The day is crowded and repair work must be done on my computer this afternoon. I hope that we can make contact this evening EST at around 5 PM or tomorrow at about 11 AM Just post what would be convenient for you. It's Sunday, and I am finding it difficult to tell one day from another Cheers!
Tomorrow (Monday) at 11 works well. Just please email me at csipp@pacesconnection.com and I will send you my phone number or we can zoom? I am so looking forward to our connecting. Thank you!
Will do Carey. I prefer not to zoom, but, otherwise, we're a GO!
Positive and Adverse Childhood Experienced.
Experiences
Cary, I’m wondering if you might be familiar with Sherri Mitchell’s work in this area. She is an awesome partner for your organization also. ❤️
https://sacredinstructions.life/
Yikes. How The South Won the Civil War! Finished it months ago. Such a great book. Would love to have HRC comment on the historical and collective trauma caused by colonization, mass genocide of Native Americans, kidnapping of Africans and the brutal enslavement of African Americans, our nation’s violent and romanticized history that needs to be learned by all, so perhaps we can increase understanding and empathy, be more
compelled to prevent repetition of history; change our future. I’m listening to How the South Won the Civil War by Heather Cox Richardson, narrated by Heather Cox Richardson on my Audible app. Try Audible and get it here: https://www.audible.com/pd?asin=1543689019&source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=player_overflow
I completely agree with your statements and add only that I prefer using terms such as advancing gun safety measures or reducing gun violence to the phrase gun control. I believe using the phrase gun control tends to play into the hands of those who claim it is “all just an attack on the second amendment rights” of law abiding citizens. We have to get beyond that discussion to make progress. Messaging is important to achieve change.
I hope you are lobbying on behalf of a change of name. Unfortunately, the options you provided do not hit the target. Wish I had one to try on you.
I am working with several local and state Democratic candidates at present to help with their messaging. My main point to them is to frame “values-based” messages that form emotional connection with voters and avoid messaging that focuses on “multi-point plans or policy prescriptions.” Frankly most vote for and support candidates because they “feel the candidates share their values.” My message to candidates is campaign on values shared by your voters and govern after you are elected in accordance with and delivering to those values. Most voters do not have the facts or background to make sound judgements about which policies or plans are best, but they know how they “feel” about particular values and what values are most important to them.
Anyway, that is my rant for the day, LoL.
I love Elizabeth Warren for a lot of reasons related to her ability to form policy thoughts and get things done, but her “I have a plan for that” campaign was an example of why my point is important. No primary wins in 2020 campaign although she was popular with many in the progressive base and people loved having a selfie taken with her.
I knew you weren’t done ranting, Bruce. You could not have done better though than bringing Elizabeth Warren with you. Don’t forget her smile. With all her strengths, being
an exceeding smart WOMAN in the USA continues to be another mountain to climb.
I did and still do love and respect Elizabeth Warrren, Nancy Pelosi and so many other Democratic women leaders. One thing Warren did do a better job at was listening to and interacting with voters. A message I always gave to my sales and marketing teams in my businesses was people want to buy from people they know and like. Listening to people builds better relationships than talking to them. Those relationships are essential in sales. People will tell you about how they feel and what is important to them. That lets you build your message to address that. I always told my sales team the most effective phrase they could use in talking to a prospect or customer was, “So what I hear you saying is … is important to you.” And, to use the prospects words, don’t try to reframe what they said differently. If you restate it differently they are more likely to feel you did not understand or agree with what they said. I think this same advice is applicable to campaigning and speaking with (speaking with not just to) voters.
Your values-based approach is key to our success in prepping candidates and influencing 'others.'
I call it guns and violence, Fern, in lieu of gun violence, and there, too, is where my mind went
We meet the pain, Rowshan. It is, nevertheless, good to be with you - to be joined.
In my opinion the United States Supreme Court has mis interpreted the Second Amendment. How can we possibly put the genie back in the lamp? I wish I knew.
Guns are a step forward, towards the GOP path to authoritarian rule. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/10/26/gun-violence-authoritarianism-normalization/
Christy, You have brought a very pointed and knowing piece to the forum with the Washington Post Perspective by Ruth Ben-Ghiat. I have copied a few excerpts from it with the hope that subscribers read it in full by opening the link. I, too, have provided a link as our messages may become separated from one another. Thank you, Christy.
'A September 2020 policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics on the effects of active shooter drills in schools summed up the dangers that can paradoxically arise from our attempts to buffer against danger: “High-intensity crisis preparedness efforts may contribute to a distorted sense of risk in children and perspective that adults and peers need to be viewed as potential killers.” Gun culture arises in part from collective distrust, but it also engenders that very distrust, a process that threatens to become a self-reinforcing loop.'
'The terror-filled psychological climate created by mass death only encourages the embrace of fundamentalist and cult ideologies that promise to bring order to chaos by providing an explanation for everything that happens. A healthy democracy requires a strong civic culture and a public sphere conducive to social trust and altruism. Instead, we have generations raised with fear, suspicion of others and uncertainty — states of being perfect for authoritarian politics, which play on conspiracy theories and seek to rob populations of optimism and hope.'
'Addressing gun violence means considering solutions other than policing'
'Exploit the hurt, make others feel as debased as possible, then rouse them to anger: This is the strongman formula. Such leaders know that it can be easier to try to control the world through violence than to stay still and grieve, and easier to find a scapegoat than look within. That’s what happened a century ago, when fascism arose among veterans in Italy and Germany who had been ravaged by World War I and formed far-right militias rather than transition to civilian society.'
'We have no recent comparable conflagration. Yet our ongoing experience of mass death primes us for a political order backed up by extrajudicial violence. Gun control is thus not only a public health, economic and social issue but an urgent matter of democracy protection. When violence is accorded a patriotic value; when mass death of your fellow citizens is considered an acceptable price to pay for possession of lethal weapons; when a leader has convinced people to follow his dogma even if it jeopardizes their own well-being; when the very thing that frightens is the thing primed to save you from your fear; when the value of life itself has been cheapened … then the conditions are right for authoritarian rule.' (Washington Post) Link below.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/10/26/gun-violence-authoritarianism-normalization/
I’m very grateful for an appreciation of Ruth Ben-Ghiats’s critical expertise in this area and thrilled to be part of sharing it with others. 🙏 Thank you Fern!
Thanks for quoting Nick Kristof, Fern. Perhaps you haven't heard that on October 28th he posted a message explaining why, after 37 years, he was leaving The New York Times to run for governor of Oregon.
https://messaging-custom-newsletters.nytimes.com/template/oakv2?campaign_id=45&emc=edit_nk_20211028&instance_id=44010&nl=nicholas-kristof&productCode=NK®i_id=1298553&segment_id=72897&te=1&uri=nyt%3A%2F%2Fnewsletter%2Fdfd46823-0890-5cbe-b205-5584aa2b58e6&user_id=e912b1d291edb93259a521f9da21135c
Thanks, Mim. I did know.
Haphazard human sacrifice -- as acceptable to Americans as orderly sacrifice was to the Aztecs?
Just try to imagine how weird, how savage, this custom looks when seen from a distance...
Viewed from the standpoint of countries that have seen far too much real warfare, horrors that drove generations of Americans to escape across the Atlantic and the Pacific to... the Land of the Free.
Thank You Fern. It is here in black and white, and red.
Excellent comment. Thanks for links. ❤️🤍💙
Without memes, you truly have my heart, gildedtwig. And your name, it absolutely charms me.
Stark beauty!
Earlier today, I heard a NPR interview with a U.S. career military officer who served a number of deployments in Afghanistan, but had, in retirement, turned against the U.S. effort. He said: "Though I participated in it, I now think the U.S. war in Afghanistan was wrong. All such colonial wars are wrong! I am not the first to say this. General and then President Dwight Eisenhower was among the first to articulate this warning. To paraphrase the anonymous interview, "As long as we have so many businesses in the U.S. who make huge profits off of our war industries, we will continue to have brutal and unending wars."
“Beware the military industrial complex”
Yes! It’s a war economy. And, now, we have a militarized police force. ❤️🤍💙
Yes! Just, YES.
Thank you, Gus. Born in 1950, I feel like the frog in military waters brought slowly to a boil. I'm steaming over the %'s and $$ of our economy that depends on military funding. And, the police of now are not the police of my youth - at all.
IF THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FAILS
IF the Biden administration fails to put a sharp final end to the ongoing 24/24, 7/7 putsch initiated and driven by the man who made it to become the 45th President of the United States;
IF he and his co-conspirators continue to walk free and behave as though they were engaging in legitimate politics-as-usual, while issuing mobsters’ threats against opponents;
IF the Russian Party—or rather, the Putin Party—is allowed to continue until the next congressional elections and enabled to take advantage of America’s “normal” sleepwalkers’ democracy to regain majorities in either or both Houses;
AMERICA will become a full-blown Mafia State, like Russia.
As in Russia today…
There will be no citizens, only subjects—and those “subjects” will be farmed by uniformed criminals and treated as objects, such freedoms as they may enjoy being granted them at the Boss’s pleasure, revocable at a moment’s notice by said Boss, by any hierarch, by any police chief;
Like Sergei Magnitsky, like too many in the Russian Federation today, anyone whom the “police” wish to punish for interfering with their free (criminal) activities, anyone whom they want to bear witness against anyone else, can and will be imprisoned, subjected to torture physical and psychological and literally hounded to death UNLESS or UNTIL they give way and denounce the innocents whom said “police” mean to accuse;
The Judiciary will become a mere arm of the Executive.
If the Biden administration fails, if couch potatoes don’t rise from their mattress-graves and walk…
The coming months could be America’s last as a free country.
As for the rest of the world, it just doesn’t bear thinking of…
Both the shooter and victim were uniformed soldiers. It's hard (for me, at least) to get nostalgic about Pvt. Price's death when every week an innocent child gets shot and killed by drive-by shooters, road-rage shooters, or law enforcement shooters. And if juries fail to convict the murderous, 100% guilty defendants in Georgia and Wisconsin ... and if Jan 6 participants and masterminds continue to escape consequences ... and if the US Department of Justice and the vast nationwide web of racist local judges continue to behave like closeted KKK members and get away with it ... it will be a long, long, long time until the final shooting death in the Republican Civil War against American Democracy.
Too bad there isn't a down arrow to vote.
I don't think the German soldier deserves quite the immorality he is painted with. Consider, "As the moment of the armistice approached, a few soldiers continued to skirmish, and Price's company set out to take control of the small town of Havre. ... the Canadian patrol began to look for the German soldier who had harassed them. They found no one but civilians in the first two homes they searched. And then, as they stepped back into the street, a single shot hit Price in the chest." Here was a squad of soldiers on one side "look[ing] for the German soldier". He didn't know if their watches were synchronized to the countdown clock, if there was one. And he probably was justified in feeling hunted. You have been haunted by the unknown story of the German sniper who was being hunted.
I am not disagreeing with the heartbreak most of us have with wars' sheer waste. Indeed, like many other readers and commenters, my father lost his most loved slightly older brother on July 4th, 1944 when his submarine went down in what was most likely an accident off the coast of Honolulu. And, I did my time as a conscientious objector rather than accept my fate as a draft dodger. But, having been born on a base and grown up as a military brat, I realize that war is no more fair than life more generally.
But this one lone German should not be made to wear the ignominy of that war. He is entitled to his his post-war civilian life and to blend into take part in postwar society and heal his wounds, as are all other regular warriors. On Guam, after the US forces had well and truly taken "control" of the island in 1945, there were pockets of soldiers who just could not accept defeat. One of the Japanese stayed in the hills and valleys of this little island until finally giving up in 1972.
There is almost never a finishing line to cross over at war's end, and the revenge for loss can drag on for years and centuries, as our own Civil(?) War illustrates. It is the ones who have fought, lost, and not quit fighting an ancient dispute who are more becoming of the evil that men do.
So much of WW2 was the direct result of lingering grievances and unjust settlements after WW1.
Europe's second Thirty Years' War.
There are so many good and powerful comments already, I hesitate to write. But comment I must as I recognize myself in the German soldier. I tried to answer Heather's question of why in those last few seconds of the war he pulled the trigger. What was the point? So I asked myself have there been any moments in my life when I really wanted someone to die? I don't believe in wishing such on anyone. I don't believe in the death penalty. But the honest answer is absolutely, yes.
I am ashamed that I could reach such a level of anger - no, outrage - that I would want someone to die. In defiance of one of my most powerful and strongly held beliefs, I have over the last few years had that emotion. I think we all harbor the potential for killing. After a long series of abuses all it would take is the right triggering event at the right moment.
We have been watching a Netflix series called "Rebellion" about the "Troubles" in Ireland during WWI. The complexities of the times is revealing. It's hard to know who to sympathize with. But the show provides ample examples of why someone could rise to extreme violence. Who knows what motivated that German soldier? But it is not hard to imagine it happening.
As a species we have not found the antidote for the worst of our impulses. Maybe if there were a lot less of us fighting over limited resources? Would that allow us to emphasize our compassion over our aggressive tendencies? I don't know.
I’m a Quaker and a pacifist and I, too, have had hateful thoughts of ‘can’t someone just take him out?’ Like you, I didn’t know I had that in me, but there it was. Thank you for sharing.
I'm as non-violent as they come, loved Albert Schweitzer's love of all creatures. but the venom arises in me in my old age as I am surrounded by proud stupidity as never before.
I have secretly been wishing the whole lot would dissolve.
“I think we all harbor the potential for killing. After a long series of abuses all it would take is the right triggering event at the right moment.” This is the key. I am reminded of the old parable about which wolf inside of you wins, the evil one or the good one. The reply being it depends on which one you feed. People voting for the likes of Trump, Gosar, Cruz, etc. etc are feeding the evil wolf within themselves. De-escalation is essential. If we all start feeding the evil one we will be left with pure chaos. Where is the love? It’s labor. Discipline needs to be taught to come from within us and not depend on physical punishment or constraint, the easy way out, that encourages more of the same. Repeated guidance to make the right choice for the right reason. Right now it appears there are numerous of us not on a path towards the light or truth. It’s a bit ugly out there.
I am feeding my good wolf. But the bad one still hungrily growls in the background. The more we all talk about the good one, the more we buoy each other up. Thank you.
❤️❤️❤️❤️💯
"Evil lives in the hearts of men . . ." From Scripture.
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil...
Still try to be a golden rule gal
With you on that. If I go to a protest and I think I might need to take an AK-15. I’m pretty sure I’d be thinking then I better stay home.
Your vulnerability in telling this story shows me you are no longer that person who could be harnessed by hate. Thank you for telling .
I'm going to have to watch that series. My Mother's Father's family were Irish Catholics who fled Ireland in the late 1870's. My Mom was staunchly Irish, and refused to wear "England's cruel red". My Father's Mother's line is traced back to Alfred the Great, although they emigrated in the 1780's.
I can imagine that some frightened and exhausted soldier, sick at heart for holding close friends and maybe siblings as they died in his arms, had vengeance on his mind when he fired that last deadly shot. Who he was and what he went on to achieve in his life remains a mystery. But how do we put into perspective the likes of a 17-year old racist who takes a deadly weapon to a First-Amendment protected rally to protest the mistreatment of Black lives that mean nothing to the armed teenager? How do we compare the murder of two of those protesters by a teenager who was not ordered to be there to fight anyone's battle to some probably forlorn soldier who was sent to destroy an enemy he could not define? What of the white judge who is so obviously bending over backwards to protect the right of that teenager to volunteer to do his own justice against fellow Americans? What becomes of the fight in this country, right now, for our democracy when that vigilante teenager is not only freed, but praised and made a martyr for a right-wing America that entertains book-burning as an agenda item on a local school board meeting? We have gone way beyond a definable war to the likes of what led to WWII - in the hands of a despicable, murderous dictator that the right-wing of this country would like to lift to power. The evil that men (and women) do is upon us.
Stories like this make me tip my hat to you even more professor. The ugly side of history, needs to be remembered and retold and reconsidered, and INVESTIGATED (versus, "not looking back") so that indeed, the arc of justice will bend toward light rather than darkness.
There is a saying among military servicemembers that nobody wants to be the last soldier that died in a war. Coming through war was largely a matter of luck. Probabilistically, except when episodically, most people get through the experience with time spent in boredom and routine. Sometimes those routines are dangerous; some of the jobs are definitely more dangerous than others. Many people volunteer for dangerous duty assignments, where there is a certain cachet and glamour to whatever they are doing; many people feel themselves more alive and in tune with the person they want to be seen as by inviting dangerous duty assignments. Not infrequently, those dangerous assignments require skill levels that are far beyond the requirements of ordinary soldiering. It's not surprising that many of those 'hot' assignments are sought after by young people who are out to prove themselves, by parachuting out of airplanes or equivalent forms a risk taking. Soldiering nowadays is certainly less dangerous than it was a generation ago. There are fewer instances of mass casualties, life-saving measures are certainly a lot more in practice than they were during the World War II era.
But all military service leaves a mark on the human psyche. I was reading yesterday that actor James Stewart, who commanded a squadron of heavy bombers during the war, returned to Hollywood to resume his career; but in the years immediately following the end of the war he suffered from intense PTSD symptoms, and his anguish became visible in his acting performances, in particular, in the movie 'It's A Wonderful Life', where his character faced economic ruin. Audiences today usually view the film on television during the Christmas holiday season, and focus on the happy ending. But by and large, the movie is a downer, and it was not well received when it debuted in 1947.
It is almost axiomatic that in the first decade after the end of World War II, war vets would only talk about their most soul-searing experiences with other veterans. In the 75 years since the end of World War II, with multiple, inconclusive wars being fought, or threatened, we as a people became a lot more sensitized to the destructive effects of war on our national personality. We lost our balance, we lost our optimism about the future, and a good number is lost our humanity.
In some respects, those who lost their lives in war may have been the lucky ones. Many of those who survived the horrors of war lost their ability to adjust and adapt, drifting into extremist politics and bad decision-making. Surviving the war of mass casualties does not necessarily make us better citizens afterwards. The experience hardens people, as I noticed when I was living in Germany in 1963 and 1964. The most difficult part is that nobody really wants to talk about it, and when they do, they don't want to have to do it with some rah-rah flag-waving booster around. People are reluctant to form close friendships with comrades in arms who are liable to end up in the hospital, or in a body bag at the end of the day. That psychic scar tissue makes it difficult to connect with other people once the fighting is over. It's as if everybody dies a little bit, some more than others.
"It's as if everybody dies a little bit, some more than others." Profound. In the GWOT, we had a far lower percentage of individuals fighting for a longer time than we have in other conflicts. Better medical responses and better equipment have led to what were formally fatal injuries becoming survivable. What is far, far worse is the psychological toll that combat in today's world takes. Multiple tours, TBI, Moral Injury, and losing your squad mates compound in their impact. Factor in that this is an all volunteer military force, and there are few families playing the price of combat compared to the draft military of Viet Nam; this means there are far fewer families there to protest the costs of war which we should not have to be paying.
Ally- I don't know what GWOT means.
Global War on Terrorism?
Global War On Terror (beats calling it AII, IAI, or IIA. )
Arthur, good point about Jimmy Stewart. "It's A Wonderful Life" has always been one of my two favorite movies. I was always so moved by his acting--but in particular, the anguish he shows when on the bridge, I found to be so incredibly moving and seemed so genuine! I used to think that if I did that acting, I would be physically sick afterwards. Like you, I have since learned that it WAS genuine emotion he brought forth.
BTW, very powerful comment you posted, and the last paragraph, esp the last two sentences.............
I appreciate your response. Thank you.
Even as we honor those who sacrificed through their service whether they came home or not we need to quit making of war a glorious endeavour. That we as a society continue to send our young men and women off to fight the wars of old men says that through the centuries we have learned nothing. I honor those who have been willing to make that sacrifice but it does not mean that I stop working for peace.
Pamela, I think most of us grunts — ground pounders — would agree with you completely! We never found any glory. But, we did find out the meaning of brotherhood and patriotism. The glory comes from politicians, Hollywood, and the very rare command level officers who were in it for the medals they never earned, and promotions. Rank comes quickly during wartime. Let me add that all of the intra-services bar fighting comes from Hollywood as well. I never found anything but the greatest respect for each other, no matter what uniform each wore. But we really had a good time giving and getting good-natured ribbing. If there was any glory to be had, it was what we extended to, and felt for, each other.
One final point: I find that the vast majority of today’s service members truly believe that they are working for peace, Right beside you and for you. And I KNOW that we veterans are. Keep up your good work!
Glad to have you as a peace partner and thanks for some insight about real vs reality tv junk when it comes to the services. May you carry peace in your heart all your life.
Pamela, it is my life's work. Thank you, Partner. 🙏🧙♂️
Here is what I wrote on Facebook yesterday about the anniversary of the end of World War I:
Today marks the 103rd anniversary of the end of World War I, arguably the most pointless war in human history (which is saying something). Over 16,000,000 people died and tens of millions more were wounded. The historical repercussions of that conflict are still being felt today. All of the European empires with the exception of the British and the French ceased to exist (Ottoman, Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian), and in the cases of all but Germany, the countries ceased to exist as well (though Russia was reconstituted in the 1990s). Festering resentment was left on the part of the Germans, who felt with some justification that they had never been truly defeated on the battlefield, and this led directly the rise of Nazism, the most evil state ideology the world has yet seen. In Russia, the Romanov Dynasty fell and was replaced by the Bolsheviks, and seven-plus decades of occasionally hot but more often "cold" conflict involving or instigated by the Soviets then occurred. Marxism spread around the globe. The British and French Empires were so drained by the war that although they lasted another few decades, their exhaustion was complete and their dissolution equally inevitable. Indeed, France was so scarred by the war that it presented only token resistance when the Germans came calling again in 1940. Poland hadn't existed in hundreds of years, yet it was reborn in 1918, with part of its territory consisting of what had formerly been East and West Prussia. Italy, though among the "victorious" nations, was so angry at what it felt had been a complete dismissing of its interests after the war, it went fascist in 1922. A horrific civil war in Spain caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people; a conflict that was militarily supported by the new fascist powers, Germany and Italy. In the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire was wiped away with the French and British picking up the pieces, but the Zionist and Arab Nationalist movements had been accelerated and would not be denied. Thirty years later, the French and British were gone from the Middle East as well, but the national boundary lines they wrote after World War I continue to be written (and rewritten). In Southern Europe, several small countries (Slovenia, Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia) were merged into one fractious country, Yugoslavia. That artificial entity last a little over seven decades before its various member nationalities fell to fighting and gave the world the term "ethnic cleansing". The Czechs and Slovaks were carved out of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire and formed an uneasy nation for another seven decades, though their eventual "divorce" was peaceful. As well, an exhausted world was then ill-prepared for a massive influenza epidemic that would kill millions more in the year that followed the end of the war. Further, twenty years after the war ended, the entire world would become embroiled in another armed conflict in which tens of millions more people would die, one in which the word “genocide” entered our vocabulary and a sleepy Polish town, Oswiecim, was renamed Auschwitz and became synonymous with mass murder and death.
All of this occurred because a Serbian nationalist by the name of Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, an obscure Austrian prince of whom 99.999% of the world had never heard.
“In Flanders Field”
by John McCrae, May 1915
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
The poet's dead ask those that remain to "Take up our quarrel with the foe" but really, they had no quarrel with any foe. Only the politicians did, and they didn't die. Years later, Peter, Paul and Mary asked "Oh, When will you ever learn?" in singing "Where have all the flowers gone?"
Okay .. Pete Seeger composed it in 1955.
Ian, so grateful for your comment, and that deeply moving poem.