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My mind keeps on going back to two moments that
each happened thirty years ago. They were nothing
dramatic or catastrophic, anything that would normally
stand out from the vast amount of memories that
flood my mind. I have always been told that I have
a good memory, that I remember things that anyone
else might have forgotten. Memories of meals eaten
and what someone else was wearing on a certain time
and place. For all that, I usually do not remember
conversations, but these two stand out.
The first took place approximately thirty-five
years ago, around 1970, and I was 12 years old.
We were at my aunt and uncles apartment a few blocks
from where we lived in Brooklyn. While we would
go to their apartment often, this must have been
for an event – special family dinner for a
visiting relative or a holiday - for so many people
were there. We were talking about the war, the Vietnam
War. I was just coming in to my own politically.
My family was primarily Democrat, though the opinions
over the war had divided my relatives sharply. I
had been coming down on the anti-war side at the
time after a brief flirtation with conservative
political views. I was having a difficult time reconciling
the image of the United States that I grew up having
with what the government in the name of the people
was doing in Vietnam, Cambodia and in the streets
of the United States itself.
I had always been taught that war was wrong, that
it should be fought as a last resort. I grew up
under the shadow of the Second World War, the last
of the “good” ones. When my friends
and I played war in our back yards, this was the
one we re-enacted. When we chose sides, the winners
were the Americans and the losers were either the
Japanese or the Germans. We knew nothing of the
Korean War, the Spanish-American War, the invasions
of Haiti or Nicaragua, or so many of the other wars
and military engagements that the United States
had been involved with. The First World War and
the Civil War happened too long ago to matter. But
as we continued to play out World War II, we became
more and more aware of what was going on in Vietnam.
It was in the newspapers and on television. There
were protests in front of the local high school,
and there were animated conversations at the dinner
table.
At this one particular dinner table conversation,
the focus had shifted from this one war in particular,
to the idea of war in general. My uncle, though
opposed to the horror and destruction of war, was
arguing that there were times when war was necessary
and this was one of those times. To make his point
he recounted the story of when my cousin, who was
over ten years older than me and was in graduate
school at the time, came to him and asked why did
wars happen. My uncle tried to explain it to him
but said that at the time my cousin was too young
to understand – but now that he was an adult
he finally understood. He then turned to my cousin,
who was sitting across from him, and asked “Right?”
My cousin looked up at him, slightly cocked his
head and responded, “No, I still don’t.”
I have to admit that I have since forgotten everything
that was said after that. All I remember is the
awed feeling that I had that my cousin, who was
older and well educated far beyond my junior high
school years, was feeling the same confusion and
disbelief that I was experiencing over this confusing
and overwhelming topic. If he couldn’t understand
why we kept on having wars, then I felt in pretty
good company. The more I thought about (and I thought
about it a lot), I still couldn’t understand.
And it wasn’t that I wasn’t trying.
I read and studied, had long discussions with friends
and teachers and yet it still didn’t make
sense. I understood the political and historical
reasons, explanations and justifications that are
offered. What I couldn’t understand is why
time and time again our species finds itself in
situations where war becomes the only option.
A few years later the second conversation occurred.
I was leafleting for an anti-war, social justice
group I was working with in college. It was around
1976 and with the Vietnam War over there was no
visible engagement of US troops in a conflict situation.
As one of the people passing by took a leaflet from
me, he scoffed after reading it exclaiming that
my kind and me were just a bunch of out of touch
idealists. The war was over, so why were we complaining.
That there have always been wars and there will
always be wars, so we were just wasting our time.
He handed the leaflet back to me and walked away.
While I first dismissed what he said, I started
thinking about it. On one level he was right. If
we really thought we were going to bring an end
to war, or any war in particular, by handing out
a few leaflets we would be severely disappointed.
This wasn’t where we were coming from. We
never had such lofty ambitions, but still believed
that it was worth the effort. In fact we weren’t
idealists, but realists – realists accepting
that as bombs get bigger and ways of killing each
other became more efficient, we had to somehow find
a way to stop this insanity before it becomes too
late.
I have been accused of being an idealist many times
since then, but as I hear that the 2,000th American
soldier has died in Iraq, and when you combine that
with the number of people of other nationalities
and the untold number of Iraqis that have also perished,
I become more and more convinced that there has
got to be another way.
I have been told that as you get older one usually
becomes more conservative, more accepting of the
state of the world and less convinced that change
is possible. I find the opposite is happening with
me. As I look around the world, think of all the
people I love (my wife, our friends, my niece and
nephew and other younger people just starting out
on this planet) I am becoming more radicalized,
less accepting of what we are doing in the world,
and further convinced that even if change is impossible,
we’ve got to make it happen anyway.
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