Spirit of America Day Ten

(This one may be Whittlean or Den Bestean in length, if not in quality, so bear with me.)

Way back when—or back in the day—I was an active duty Air Force bomb loader, officially called an Aircraft Armament Systems Specialist. Oh, I didn’t load any conventional fire-bombs that would burn, maim, but not contaminate. My specialty? Loading nuclear and chemical munitions onto fighter-bomber aircraft. I had entered the Air Force as an “open-field” enlisted candidate and, though I had scored high in the ASVAB test in all areas except for mechanics—hey, I’m a chick—the AF gave me a mechanical job.

I hated it, but I stuck it out for three years, until I was able to cross-train into another field.

Around the middle of my third year as a bomb loader (1983), I started thinking about my purpose in life. I was around twenty-one. (I’m forty-three now.) Nukes and chemical weapons? They were the containers of death and more death; writhing, disgusting demises; the gift that kept on giving. I had become one of the conduits through which such horrible deaths would occur. Could I live with myself being such? No. Not then.

So I applied for Conscientious Objector status. I didn’t want to separate from the AF necessarily, but I didn’t want to be a party to the type of death that the AF served up. Understand, back then I had no concept of the flow of history, the surety of purpose of fanatics/fascists or the nature of evil. The fact that the US was the only nation-state that had used nuclear weapons but, subsequently, was the most hesitant to use them in the nearly fifty years up to that point, didn’t occur to me. Not then. All I knew was that we held the largest amount of the most deadly weapons on the planet.

I didn’t understand that evil must be opposed and that that was what we were doing.

So I let my application run the channels. Maybe I could become a medic or something. (Ironically, that’s what I became in my Reserve incarnation, after two other career fields.)

A month or so after I submitted my application for CO status, Beirut occurred. Marines, Navy, and Army folk were blown to bits. Oh, not in a trench or a foxhole, holding various deadly weapons in their hands to take the enemy out as well, but in their beds sleeping. Or up shaving or taking a shower. Or making love to some female Marine (or a male marine; hey, you never know). In any case, those GIs who died on October 23, 1983, weren’t killed by the usual enemies--those with "western" concepts of honor. They were murdered by enemies who had a code separate and alien to ours.

The day after that, my application was rescinded. It took me all of about two minutes to make the decision and it had absolutely nothing to do with revenge. With the snap of a finger, I understood that, with some, there’s no negotiating, no compromise, no bargaining. Not unless you’re doing any/all of these with your proverbial boot on their neck.

So when guys like Jeffrey Hinzman and Pablo Paredes—both volunteer military members—publicly rethink their views on war and killing, I can understand their feelings, to a point. What I can’t understand is how they came to the decision to become conscientious objectors after 9/11, after the liberation of Iraq, after the uncovering of the Hussein tortures, massacres and mass graves.

So maybe the CO thing is just a cover for some and they’re simply afraid of dying. (Hey, join the club.) But will either of these gentlemen be able to enjoy the time that they’ve allegedly bought themselves between now and their dates of actual death? It seems neither will die in Iraq; dying in prison, however, might be another story; dying a slow death each day, yet another.

I hope they bought themselves good lives.

In the meantime, others have taken their places and heroic or cowardly or ordinary deeds are done daily; done in the name of bringing liberty to others; the type of liberty that Hinzman, Paredes and I all volunteered to defend and that we—and so many millions of others—too often take for granted. Others are doing the work that Hinzman and Paredes abandoned, including endeavoring to give better lives to millions of Iraqis.

My nieces and nephews from the post below this one have all manner of goodies and opportunities. By donating to the Spirit of America, you can give Iraqis at least a chance to have the same type of opportunities for their families.

Some things are worth fighting for.

(Thanks to Citizen Smash)

Comments

[Kelly]

Oops - sorry about the double ping/trackbacks there. Something locked up when I first made my post and I accidentally sent it twice. DOH!

Great post!

[Tony Iovino]

Very moving. Great site!

[cowboy blob]

I got an error from your trackback that I can't resolve, so you just get a comment:
From the Deep Dark...
Okay, I posted the movie last night, but I'm redating it and keeping the title for today's Spirit of America essay from Baldilocks. Yes, she's deep and she's dark, but only in the nicest sense of the terms. She's also an Air Force Retiree, like me...

[Rhianna]

I don't have track-back, so I've linked you at http://atexanabroad.blogspot.com/2004/12/spirit-of-america-moves-us.html Great Post, btw. :)

[BloodSpite]

http://www.techography.com/article.php?story=20041210145244814

Trackbacked ya!!!

[Val Prieto]

Oh, Juliette.

Thank you.

[shaneh]

Dang, but that was good! Awesome!

[JO'N]

I'm not sure your post is entirely clear.

After the marines were killed in Beirut, you decided that killing soldiers in a war zone was incompatible with "western concepts of honor" -- whereas preparing to kill millions of civilians with nuclear weapons was an honorable thing to do?

I guess that the Lebanese militias really did have "a code separate and alien to ours". They only wanted to kill Americans by the hundreds.

Oh, and by the way, the US is still the only country to have used nuclear weapons. There's no reasonable basis to conclude that we're "the most hesitant to use them". In fact, any unbiased observer would conclude that we're the *most* likely to use nuclear weapons again.

[baldilocks]

whereas preparing to kill millions of civilians with nuclear weapons was an honorable thing to do?

Preparing to do it and actually doing it are two different things. Then as now, the US has the capabilty to lay waste to its enemies. Why haven't we done it? Our sense of honor and more practically speaking, because it would solve nothing.

Also, you may recall that, in 1983, we were engaged with another foe who was just as well-armed as we were, but also operated from a separate set of values. That incident in Lebanon also reminded me of this and made me realize that laying down arms means nothing to people of such values and only makes it easier for them to kill you. Which, demonstrably, they're only too willing to do.

BTW, I didn't remain a bomb loader for my entire active duty career; only for the required three years. I got a new job after that: intelligence.

[Silk]

Excellent post. I respect the way your understanding grew from what was happening around you. You even had a reason I can understand for looking into CO status. Either way growing is what it is all about and you did that. Thanks for sharing.

Oh, and J'on should consider trying intelligence himself.

[baldilocks]

Easy, Silk. JO'N asked a legit question.

And, thanks. :-)

[David Blue]

Baldilocks, it must have been tough to write that piece. Thanks.

[News Hog]

Why were we in Beirut? Did they attack us? I do remember the USS New Jersey shooting 2000 pound bombs into civilian area's of Beirut for weeks on end. Do you think that might have pissed people off and caused the death of over 240 US soldiers. Do you understand blowback? You can lay the blame for their deaths on the Prez at the time, Ronnie Ray-Gun. Congress and most Americans told R.R. not to deploy troops in Beirut. R.R. wanted to help Israel with their aggression against Lebanon.

"Oh, not in a trench or a foxhole, holding various deadly weapons in their hands to take the enemy out as well, but in their beds sleeping. Or up shaving or taking a shower. Or making love"

You could say the same about the civilians of Beirut that lived in block after block of 20 story buildings the USS New Jersey was destroying. What kind of code was that? OBL got the idea for the WTC after seeing what the USS New Jersey did from the safety of 20 miles off shore.

[tyler]

Good post!