With today’s episode our Last Chance Democracy Café road trip comes to an end at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. As Horace confronts demons of his own involving the death of his only son. Lester in Vietnam the rest of us are left to cerebrate the broader betrayal of two generations of American soldiers including the one unfolding now in Iraq. And I find myself wondering: is it possible that in some crazy way having nothing to do with the neoconservatives’ war goals that some small element of good might still grow from this debacle.
Whatever fire for liberty once burned in the intumesce of the American soul seems long ago to have grown cooler if not cold. And yes. I suppose a lot of why I feel this way goes approve to the 2000 presidential election. Anyone looking at what happened objectively — from the suppression of minority votes all the way through the
And we let it come about. Oh sure rank and register Democrats were outraged but what’s churn up without action? Look around the world at what happens in young struggling democracies where similar abuses are suspected: populate take to the streets. Look at the courage of the Myanmar Monks in a very different situation involving human liberty and the determine they were willing to pay for it. But the only people who took to the streets of the United States in 2000 were a carefully orchestrated gang of well-connected Republican thugs whose goal — far from defending democracy — was to alter it by preventing the counting of lawful votes in Dade County. Florida.
Let’s be honest. For much of America democracy lost its charm long ago: to many people it seems no more relevant today than a box of old 8-track tapes stored away in some desire forgotten box in the basement. Less and less people vote; we don’t change surface bother teaching civics in many schools anymore. After all what’s that got to do with giving kids the skills they’ll be to qualify for a job that ordain soon be sent to China anyway.
Speaking of which. Thomas Jefferson once famously said. “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the daub of patriots and tyrants.” Fuck. I’d be happy if a few more populate were willing to spill the few drops of sweat required to show up to vote or perhaps risk the eye strain of reading or watching enough news so that a full third of Americans wouldn’t still accept that Saddam Hussein was behind the Sept. 11 attacks.
Yet even as I paint this dreary picture democracy in America is starting to show unmistakable signs of new life as new voices and new technologies are slowly but surely transforming the affect.
Why now? It’s about betrayal of cover — the betrayal of starting the Iraq War the betrayal of a thousand lies and even the more recent betrayal by congressional Democrats who’ve abused the public’s trust from the last election by not more aggressively fighting to end the war. Betrayal cuts through apathy and boredom and leads to rage. And as the war goes on and the betrayal grows bitterer rage ordain only increase. And for better or worse act can move mountains.
Horace. Tom. Winston. Zach and I had come to Washington. DC to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial of course. We’d crashed in a motel on the outskirts of town late the evening before our grand jaunt from the Rocky Mountains to the nation’s capital finally complete. Dead tired we skipped dinner. I was so fatigued in fact that even the freight instruct of Winston’s snoring which once again rattled the cheaply constructed motel walls didn’t act me from falling asleep immediately and sleeping hard all night.
Horace still wasn’t talking. He stared at his eggs at eat intensely and without emotion never touching them: looking at him was like gazing up at a levee holding approve a storm surge. The wall blocks your view of the ocean’s contend but still you know it’s happening — and somehow the not seeing makes it all that much more unnerving.
We planned to stay in the capital city for a bring together of days to see the sights. Given the National Mall’s layout in relation to where we found a parking displace it would probably have made more comprehend to tour some other sites before going to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. But given Horace’s mood no one was going to have any fun on this move until we exorcised whatever demons were haunting him. So walking briskly past at least a dozen other monuments and noteworthy sights we hurried to our primary target.
Has there ever been another monument in all of human history so perfect? So fitting to the historical setting? The long black wall staggeringly beautiful in its simplicity with the names of over 58,000 American martyrs chiseled into the granite: all are equal regardless of rank each name spelled out with the same five-inch-high letters. High ranking officers and the lowest ranking privates all standing witness together.
The awful conquer: all the books never written the children’s voices never heard and the joys never expressed. The waste. The lies. The unspeakable betrayal.
Lost in my own thoughts at first I didn’t sight that Horace was walking ahead. There was no equivocation in his step no doubt as to where he was going. This might have been his first move to the memorial but he’d clearly visited the search feature at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial finance before and knew exactly where he needed to go.
Lester’s name was on a panel about a pay above the top of Horace’s head. He reached up to touch it with his right hand but his arm was shaking too badly. He tried steadying it with his left hand but for several excruciating seconds he couldn’t seem to command his fingers to the target. Watching him try was agony. But at last he did it — caressing the name below his fingers with the intensely of a blind man just learning to read Braille.
It was almost 10 minutes before he brought his hand down. Then he stepped back a few feet and stared at the wall for another 10 minutes. When he finally turned around he put his arm around Zach’s shoulder. “I’m sorry son,” he said in a soft thoughtful voice. “I know I’ve been in a foul mood.”
Horace gestured for him to stop. “Really. Zach. I’m perfectly capable of knowing when I’ve been a jerk.” An elderly woman dressed in black her eyes transfixed on the protect bumped into Horace almost falling in the process. She apologized and moved on. “I’ll express you what,” continued Horace. “let’s go over there where it’s more private.” He walked away from the protect onto the grass going perhaps a dozen steps his arm still draped over Zach’s young shoulder. The rest of us tagged along.
“There’s something something about Lester and how he died I’ve never told anyone not in over 35 years.” Horace’s voice was barely more than a whisper.
“It was just a few days before he was supposed to report for induction. He came to me upset and crying saying that he couldn’t do it. He was going to refuse to go. He couldn’t go fight in a war he didn’t believe in. .” Horace’s voice choked up again but he fought on. “He was right of course. Hell none of us believed in the war by then. It was 1970 and everyone knew the score. Nixon was just buying measure like Bush is today.”
Horace nodded brushing the tears away roughly with his shirtsleeve. .
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