The Fringes are Burning

On the day President Obama spoke at the memorial service for the 13 soldiers who lost their lives in the tragic November 5th shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, a young Marine reservist mistakenly identified a visiting Greek Orthodox priest who barely spoke English as a Muslim terrorist, chased him down two blocks and beat him with a piece of iron rebar.

On the same day a Senate sub-committee met to take testimony on the continued and rising occurrence of homelessness among veterans where no Republicans came, veteran John Allen Muhammad was executed by lethal injection, for the random killings committed 2002 in the DC beltway with the help of Lee Boyd Malvo .

The original name for the holiday we currently call Veteran’s Day was Armistice Day — a multinational holiday commemorating the end of the international conflict called World War I.  Yet on this day in 2009, there is no peace to celebrate, either on the ground or in the hearts and minds of the soldiers we send to kill in the name of protecting our republic. Our soldiers, particularly our Gulf War soldiers are finding it increasingly difficult to come to peace within themselves.

In 2008, there were 143 suicides among Gulf War veterans. This is a 25% increase from the previous year, with 121 suicides. Conversely, over the last fifteen years, some of the worst acts of domestic violence were by Gulf War veterans. Timothy McVeigh, a veteran of Gulf War I, assisted by fellow veteran Terry Nichols, exploded a truck filled with chemicals and fertilizer at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people, including children in the site’s resident day-care center. John Allen Muhammad, the DC sniper was another Gulf War I veteran.

There is no doubt Army investigators, the FBI and all the powers of our government’s judicial arm are carefully weighing the evidence to come from the testimony of Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter at Fort Hood as well as I hope, his psychiatric tests. There is also no doubt the anticipated finger-pointing, the “blame-and-name”, will fill our heads with the usual chatter: Why did the Army see him fit for duty in the first place? Who ignored the signs of his instability and his history and thought it insignificant enough to ignore? What mosque did he attend? Did his imam justify jihad against Americans?

I am distrustful of quick conclusions drawn up in the heat of the media glare and an all-too-convenient excuse of one’s religion and cultural background as the set-up. We are very attracted to and seem to need a convenient excuse. And given the current political climate and the impending decision on what to do in Afghanistan and Pakistan, convenience is the last thing we need.

Our soldiers stand at the far-flung borders of the nation and its interests, volunteering to hold watch. Unending conflict, military tours of duty that continue and re-continue, a war with little rationale that was never justifiable to begin with–these factors have lit a long slow destructive fire. Bodies and minds sacrificed on the bonfire for this war bring the flames drifting inward. And now the fringes are burning hot, as Eric said on November 5th: “The War has come home.”

I have said before in comments on this subject elsewhere on the Planet Waves blog, popular culture and our conventional wisdom even some of my own peers seem to be trapped in simple conclusions about the Fort Hood shootings:

“A lone shooter.”

“One crazy guy.”

“There are lots of them out there doing the same thing from time to time. It happens.”

We have gone down this path before, and really haven’t stopped. Not since the mid 19th century with wars that come along every generation or so, creating misery in their wake, destroying lives long after the shooting stops. Can we break out of the cycle that keeps us mired in the conventional wisdom that continues war?

Tonight, I hold this day of Armistice with a candle at the window. A light lit with a prayer to break ourselves of the habit of war. We need something better to re-fill our hearts and minds. We need to occupy our bodies with re-building what was lost. We need something brighter in our imagination of the future than a coin of remembrance for lives that might have been.

Yours and truly,

Fe Bongolan
San Francisco

16 thoughts on “The Fringes are Burning”

  1. Ms. Queeny for a Day – May only Charming things come to you this week and ever after, that you may share the charm with those who are suffering needlessly and teach them another way.

  3. :::sigh::: Knowing this, my husband and I decided that we would keep the fires lit under our congresspersons and Obama to end these wars AND get green technologies going to create jobs for those that come home and get laid off. If we could retool the “war machine” for manufacturing goods after WWII, we can do it again for green technologies.

    We also decided that we would also keep our attention on how to make the world a better place one person at a time every day in our own back yard because we can. Doing even a little bit in that direction seems to allay the fears people have because working on positive things keeps the attention off the media induced fear and paranoia that is so prevalent everywhere.

    carecare7:

    This is exactly where we need to head. We need Uranian invention to get us out of this mess while Mars is retro in Leo.

  4. My husband and I were discussing the reasons why Obama hasn’t just “brought the troops home” as many thought he would. We decided not to get into the twisted and deep issues the media/congress/the adminmistration use about how it could put the remaining troops in danger until they are all out or how it would leave the region in a continued unstable position (as if being there isn’t doing just that every second of every day) and just asked ourselves to follow the money. What we came up wth was simple. With unemployment numbers (the real ones, not the media reported ones) probably hovering in the upper 20+ percents, and the “war machine” manufacturing defense contracts going strong, it makes perfect sense in this country (where the real god is profit) that troops won’t be coming home anytime soon. I am old enough to remember when the Vietnam troops came home and had real difficulties “assimilating back in” as it was called back then or finding jobs that didn’t exist. If troops came home and the wars ended, the troops would need paying jobs, the people in manufacturing for the “war machine” would be laid off and need jobs and where are those jobs going to come from when most are now off-shored and the so-called “green technologies” haven’t gotten enough off the ground to create jobs?

    We remain in this war, financed on the backs of everyone involved both in money and blood, for the sole purpose of profit for those that now control our government. Imagine all those people coming home and the subsequent layoffs from the defense contracts broken….unemployment would skyrocket and that would open up the door for the Republicans to scream that the Dems and Obama have made things WORSE for Americans. The Dems and big business cannot allow THAT.

    Follow the money and it has a tale to tell.

    :::sigh::: Knowing this, my husband and I decided that we would keep the fires lit under our congresspersons and Obama to end these wars AND get green technologies going to create jobs for those that come home and get laid off. If we could retool the “war machine” for manufacturing goods after WWII, we can do it again for green technologies.

    We also decided that we would also keep our attention on how to make the world a better place one person at a time every day in our own back yard because we can. Doing even a little bit in that direction seems to allay the fears people have because working on positive things keeps the attention off the media induced fear and paranoia that is so prevalent everywhere.

    Thanks Fe for the fantastic article.

  6. ok `Wavers, i need a joke for my mental health. i’ll get it started and you help me with the setup and punchline punchline, here goes:

    Lou Dobbs, Allen Iverson and Steven Tyler walk into a bar…

  8. As above so below, as within so without … everytime I come to this site I’m called to remember a bigger picture, a deeper meaning. Thank you Fe, Be, Len, jlo, all these years I’ve been anti-war, furious at the military for using these vulnerable wounded warriors in their games, furious at the right wing for insuring that everyone is fully armed with assault rifles … and I join the endless circle of madness.

    I’ll keep coming here and taking in the wise words as I heal the wounded warrior within.

    mm.

  9. Thank you Fe,

    You know, I think jlo’s “synthesis” theory is the same or along the lines of what my theory or (more like) observation is: typical/average US citizens still can’t wrap their minds around the acceptance of terror strikes on the mainland. Except for 911, when the reaction was dis-belief and fear, then revenge, then, finally, a vague “unlikely to happen again, or at least not today” attitude.

    I think that is part of why we don’t or didn’t scrutinize suspicious behavior of an American born citizen with due diligence. Not like they do in Isreal. it has not yet been totally synthesized into our consciousness. Evil (war) begets evil. The destruction of other people and their land and homes is brought back to us by our own war-wounded. If we, instead, give from open hearts (love) we will (eventually) get back the same.

    Not that a lot of us don’t already do that. But until the majority of our countrymen and women rise above our fear and hatred, increase our consciousness, especially about the damage we have created in the name of protecting our homeland, will this occur. (Thank you joannaoregon for pointing that out again)

    So, Fe, thanks again for your moving words and thoughts; thanks to patty, marymack and len for your comments here, and thanks to PlanetWaves to come to, to read and speak about such things. Perhaps as the nodes move through the Cancer/Capricorn axis we will begin to understand the greater meaning of family.
    be

  10. Len:

    Before this article hit “flow” in my mind, I was channeling through all the pro and anti war rhetoric that’s been ingrained in our national dialogue for decades, possibly centuries. Nothing has changed.

    I went to dance class, trying to sort things out, remembring, of all things, a recent dance performance by Bill T. Jones Dance Company on the life of Abraham Lincoln, called “Fondly We Hope, Fervently We Pray”.

    In it, there is a running theme of short American biographies, starting from Lincoln to Mary Todd to John Wilkes Booth from the 1820s, to bios from the 1930s, 40s, 60s. In these bios they all had similar questions, similar doubts, similar distrusts of the government and each other, similar tastes for and against the Civil War and the wars thereafter, who they married if they did, and when they died. In each one, they address the audience–those of us in the future–directly and personally.

    In the piece, the most stunning biography came from a voice from 100 years in the future. A voice from a person born in the present. Calling to those of us from what would be their past history. The biography said:

    “I was born in 2009. I am a hundred years old. And we study the lives of Abraham Lincoln and of other great men and great women. We study wars of the past like the Civil War, and have lived through many wars since. And in all our studies of what happened to our great men and great women, and all of these wars, the biggest question that continues to remain, is about you.”

  11. Fe –
    As the Sun moves to square Chiron, please accept my heartfelt thanks for your eloquent call to awareness and your sane proposal for healing. The American tradition of a war for every generation must clearly end. Given the apparent economic motivations, however, it will be more than just returning veterans that requires rehabilitation. For too long have we accepted mass murder as the price for our standard of living. Mass murder in war, mass murder on our highways, mass murder of those who purchase our products (tobacco, defective tires, etc) in other countries. The Chinese have learned well from our example and they have given us a taste of our own medicine with poison toys, tainted milk products and toxic drywall. If there is to be healing, there must be peace. If there is to be peace, our economy must be structured to not only accommodate it, but depend on it.

    As we move into The Aries Point Square and the New Moon, it will be helpful to know that there is a way through to the other side. From this perch, it would be advisable to follow the Moon and Mercury as they lead us through this dance with the outer planets while staying engaged and grounded. Today the Moon has moved past its opposition with Uranus and will square Pluto shortly after entering Libra – feel through it gently. Mercury has moved through its square with Neptune and has set its sights on Sagittarius where a new light of faith awaits.

    Offered In Service

  12. Beautifully articulated, Fe … I could not have put it better myself and goddess knows I’ve tried. We are all so much better than this and your piece, this vibe here, just may help us get there.

    mm.

  15. What’s that definition of insanity? Ah yes… doing the same old thing over and over again and expecting different results. War is Peace. Right.

  16. While I haven’t STFU yet.. here goes. In the U.S., at 18, dudes have to sign something that has to do with military crap. I signed, knowing that my lack of vision would keep me out of the draft pool (something my dad got into in Viet Nam). Now, they’d probably take me, blind and all. But, I don’t care. I’ve lit a candle, and some patchouli incense, just to mark this time. I feel “for” and “like” all the cats who are recruited into the militaristic confines of childishness. When I stand back from all this sheisse going down, it’s like a game. A sick twisted game. The well-heeled big wheels, the house proud town mice, the self-interest “get mine” MFer’s. It keeps us all ‘buggy’ and on edge. I can’t care about ‘them’ anymore. I’d go insane (as if I haven’t already crossed the threshold). (pause)

    I think (although I do know that too many folk are Completely screwed in the head) that it’s a matter of synthesis. (I can only be ‘so’ open ’til I prove myself wrong and end up on the short end.) I think, when people learn of openness, through their own strengths and securities, that we’ll get beyond all this war shit, the needle, and the damage done.

    How to get folks to try Love.. Hmmm (Where am I)

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