In His Own Words

Yes, war is hell. Take it from someone who knew ...

On some previous Veterans Days I've taken the opportunity to remember my father, who, among other things, fought and was wounded in the largest and deadliest war in history. This year I thought I'd let him speak for himself. The following piece from his posthumous collection of poetry contains everything he had to say on the subject of war.

Like many veterans of World War II he seldom spoke about what had happened to him. But I remember him reading this poem to my mother when he wrote it, probably ten years after the war had ended. It was as if everything he had bottled up inside spilled out.

In it you can see the cynicism about organized religion that let him to question his faith and to abandon the Church. (He had been born and raised a Catholic.) But there is also, I think, an undercurrent of an abiding faith in the power of the natural world to heal and restore us if we will only allow it.

      Your Wars

Go on and fight your wars
Pseudo-Christians, cowards all,
Professing meek cheeks,
Afraid to sheath your swords.

I've seen every war since your God forbade them,
Astonished at your unstrained compromise,
And I've seen enough:
The distraught of men before the firing,
Of other men before our firing,
And I mourn these young men
Dying before their works are done.

One I hardly knew fell across my path,
Unwilling mutant, an extra mouth
Newly dug above his ear.
What words from that eloquent mouth!
But never mentioned little cakes or chasubles.
I still see his questioning eyes.

One sought cover beneath a tank
Which, seeing the fire it drew,
Backed without warning, its steel teeth
Chewing his brain to pulp on icy ground.
Farmers no doubt wondered
At that especially fertile spot.

One oblivious to the fighting
Sat clutching himself to himself,
Cupping the ragged remains of genitals
In bloody hands. Impassioned bullet
To engage in such sadistic intercourse.

A woman sprawled broken among the rubble,
Breast suckling the air, legs undecorous.
We forgave her impropriety,
In unknowing embrace with fornicating death.

And I've seen the children.
Have you seen them, never young?
Eyes wondering?
Legs wandering?
Grimy claws sifting garbage,
Scraping maggot off?
Don't worry, belly-bloated child,
There's plenty of food in heaven --
By the way, have you been baptized?
In the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen. There. Now you can die.

What are your wars for?
I see only one good in them --
A speedier evolution to weed out the unfit --
The cowards yearning for death
Who fight and die for make-beliefs.
It's living requires courage -- living never tried.

So go on and fight your wars.
Your countries will go, and your rich kings,
Leaving only the unturmoiled world.
Marked only with natural boundaries
Her hair grows green and luxuriant,
Her tears wash over ancient festers, healing them,
Leaving only the brave, holding hard to nebulous dreams.

So go on and fight your wars,
Expunge yourselves, become vague specimens
In future museums: "Here is Acquisitive Man
From the Age of Veneers, offshoot of Homo Sapiens.
Note the small braincase and large grasping hands."

So go on and fight your wars,
Churchmen send them out on new crusades,
Pray of the Peaceful Prince luck in the kill,
Satraps continue doing foolish things in duty's name,
Drape the hallowed bunting on the deluded slob's eternal bed,
Safe old men, cheer them on,
tear in eye, drink in hand.

-- "Scott" Donachie, 1922-1973

See Also:

My Father the Veteran

Another Veterans Day

The Day After Veterans Day

Déjà Vu All Over Again

This is what the back of my minivan looks like – what you might have seen if you were tailgating me on I-95 over the holidays as I made my pilgrimage from Miami to the area south of Orlando to visit family. It's a drive I've been making at least once or twice a year for decades. But this time for some reason – maybe just because my A/C was broken and I had to roll down the windows – I found myself having a serious experience of déjà vu.

Back around 1970 I owned a similar though larger van. It was even the same color, white. In fact it was big enough that I lived in it, or out of it, for a couple of years. I built a pair of wooden bookcases into the sides and made myself a little desk of mahogany (which I still own). Some square cushions served as seats during the day, and at night, along with a sleeping bag, as a mattress. A propane stove allowed me to heat canned food and make tea.

In those days air-conditioning was still something of a luxury in a vehicle, like an automatic transmission. So naturally I had a three-speed stick shift and no air. Then, as now, the hot Florida wind rumbled in through the windows and blew my (then longer and less gray) hair. Then, as now, something about the van testified to my objection to war. And then, as now, the country was mired in a conflict that seemed to have no end.

Iraq is different from Vietnam, of course, as it is different from Afghanistan, and as Vietnam was different from Korea and World War II. But the disease of war is ever the same, a malady that afflicts the aggressor and defender alike, both the strong and the weak, the victors and the vanquished, and those who only stand innocently by.

Then, as now, I had reason to fear hostility from some of my countrymen for my opposition to war. Sad to say, it is still far from a universal view. The early 70's were still the era of “America, Love It or Leave It” and “Better Dead than Red.” My long hair and mustache were all it took to identify me as one who believed that love of country might manifest as hatred of its policies and a desire for change, and that “reds” might be interesting partners in a political discussion. Had I got caught in a backwater town full of John Birch Society members and cornered in a dark alley, my appearance alone would have been all that was necessary to insure I was beaten up and ridden out of town, maybe even murdered like the unfortunate bikers in Easy Rider.

But I was younger then, perhaps more threatening because of my refusal to serve in the military. Those were the days of the draft, and this is now the time of the “professional” army (something the Founding Fathers tried hard to avoid) that supplements itself with professional mercenaries. Now I'm of an age where I'm not expected to serve, only to cheer the troops along and to pay my share of the staggering cost--now estimated at some 400 million dollars a day.

I no longer look out of place in a crowd. My beliefs would be invisible were it not for those telltale stickers on the rear door of the van. Some drivers have actually complimented me on them, and once a woman even rolled down her window to ask where she could get some. One comes from FCNL, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker-funded political lobby. Another comes from a local group called Miami for Peace. And the old reliable peace sign was clipped off the end of a longer strip that originally contained the phrase “Back by Popular Demand.” (Speaking of déjà vu!) But all that was too involved to yell out to someone in traffic, so I answered with a single word, “Quakers!”--trusting that she could track them down online.

Not everyone is so sanguine toward these sentiments, however. Back when we still hoped the invasion of Iraq could be stopped, I attended a protest rally at Bayfront Park. Two young men of military age--not in uniform, but possibly already in the army to judge from the cut of their hair --approached the crowd with such obviously hostile intent that a police officer intervened to explain things to them and direct them to the far side of the street. Not to be easily deterred, the pair got in a taxi and cruised past us shouting, “WAR! WAR! GO TO WAR!” in voices suitable for a parade ground.

So the hostility is still there in some, and I still wonder how to confront it if challenged. After a protest in 1968 where everyone wore black armbands, I was accosted by a belligerent drunk who demanded to know, “What's that on your arm?” This was a purely rhetorical question, as he clearly knew what it meant, and only wanted me to admit outright that I was one of those commie-pinko-hippies threatening to destroy American life as he knew it. Tongue-tied by the futility of discussion, I simply said, “I'm in mourning,” and went on my way.

Could I do any better now? What would I say if my flagrant bumper stickers caused me to be challenged at a rest-stop by some irate neo-fascist who was upset that my opinions seemed to demean either his own military service or that of his friends and relatives, or simply to run counter to his rage at “those people” in far corners of the world?

I've thought about it, and I think I could say, “I believe that since the time of the Old Testament we have been commanded not to kill. And I believe that when Jesus told us to love one another, even our enemies, that it was a piece of advice we were supposed to follow.”

My imagined adversary might not be a religious person himself, but I can pretend that he grew up in a rural town surrounded by such people, and that long experience would have taught him to defer to the weight of their collective opinion whenever the name of Jesus was invoked. So I imagine him falling silent in the face of this simple statement of principle.

Would this be cowardly of me? Would I then be taking refuge behind this long gone but still powerful figure, like someone jumping behind a stronger friend in the face of a bully? Maybe. But I'd rather think I was following the example of a revolutionary, one whose fondest aim might have been to give us the courage of our convictions.

“If anyone questions you,” I can hear him say, like an older and wiser brother, “this is what you can tell him. And tell him I said so.”

Or, in the simple words of 1970, “Peace, man.”

Termination

I have a guilty pleasure: namely The Terminator, the series of movies--and now a TV series--that deals with time travelers trying to prevent the end of the world. Or to be precise, the end of human beings in the world.

In case you have been living in a convent for the past couple of decades, or for some other reason are not familiar with the plot, the gist of it is that humans in the very near future will invent an intelligent military computer called SkyNet which, with the aid of various robotic war machines, is intended to make the world safe from the scourge of war. Due to a tiny glitch, however--something that could probably have been fixed in version 2.0 of the software--the computer decides that humans are the enemy and sets out to destroy them all. Um, us all. It does this by launching the nuclear missiles it has been given control of and destroying all the cities in the world, and then using its fleet of flying, crawling, and walking machines to hunt down and exterminate the survivors.

So far, this is just another apocalyptic plot, but time travel provides an interesting twist. Somehow the remaining humans have got access to a time machine, and one of them goes back to the past to attempt to prevent SkyNet from being invented, thus saving the human race from the ultimate holocaust. The "Terminator" is a cyborg (hybrid robot and flesh) which is sent back by the machines to prevent the prevention, thus insuring that the machines will win. In addition, the machines want to eliminate a teenage boy named John Connor so that he will not live to lead the human resistance in the future, in which case the whole time travel thing would never have happened.

Starting with the first sequel to the original film, a further twist is introduced when the future humans manage to reprogram one of the robots so they can send it back to fight the other robot--thus preventing it from preventing the prevention--as well as to protect young John so he will still be there in the future. Convoluted enough for you? The rest of the action is just a series of chases, car crashes, shootouts, and superhuman wrestling matches as the forces of good and evil jockey for position.

What keeps the story compelling is that there is always the subtext about free will and destiny. Is the future bound to happen? If we foresee something, can we avoid it, or are we powerless to stop the course of history? And naturally, it is all about our relationship with the technology we have created, and whether it will--or already has--run out of control. Will technology destroy us, or will we at the last minute learn to reprogram it to save ourselves? Or instead, will the technology itself become "human" enough to be humane and to protect us from ourselves?

All of this was fun enough when it was only an intellectual exercise. Originally (the first film dates from 1984) the idea that "machines" would get so advanced in so short a time seemed incredible, even to an old sci-fi addict like me. Recently however, it has become known that our military is spending billions on developing "autonomous" weapons (read "robotic"). They are already being widely used in Iraq and elsewhere for surveillance and in dangerous roles like investigating possible roadside bombs. "Predator" remotely piloted aircraft are now armed with missiles which can be used to attack the targets they spot. So far it is still a human who pulls the trigger, but the military is actively seeking advances in artificial intelligence that would enable these machines to identify friend from foe and respond accordingly. (More info in this story from Scientific American.)

Not so funny anymore? I suspect it is only a matter of time before we learn of the first "friendly fire" casualties inflicted by a robotic agent. Of course, Pentagon spokesmen will be quick to apologize for the mishap, and will cite statistics about how much more reliable autonomous weapons are than humans, who are often known to make bad judgments in the heat of the moment. It will be small comfort to the victims to know that the bad judgment that affected them was made in the cool consideration of a manufactured intelligence instead. The result will be the same, and the ultimate responsibility will fall on those who decided to create the machines in the first place--all of us.

The original Terminator and former body builder, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was destroyed in the first film where he was the bad robot, then returned in the second and third ones where he was the good robot. Now Governor of California, the evil Republican who was swept into office by the "get rid of Gray Davis" campaign is now showing a human side and working for things like universal health care. So maybe there is hope after all.

But just in case, perhaps we should put the brakes on this whole robotic weapons thing now, before we need a time machine to correct our mistakes. Nor are robots the only things we need to fear. I refer you to the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, where they are trying hard to foresee what's coming and to develop a moral awareness of the consequences.

At the very least, I think we should wait until artificial intelligence is advanced enough for us to have a discussion with it about the morality of warfare. I can see this manufactured being (perhaps looking like the one called Sonny in the film I, Robot) listening carefully as we try to explain its proposed role in a place like Iraq. Then it would turn its head to one side, look at us, and say, "You want me to do what? Are you crazy?"

Then we'll know we're all right.

Charlie Wilson and the Economics of War

Imagine for a moment that you consider yourself a pacifist, as I do. Then imagine that one day you find yourself inwardly cheering when you see a helicopter blown out of the sky by Islamic militants, and chuckling when the vanquished have the following toast proposed to them: "Here's to you, you mother****ers."

Such is the effect of the film, Charlie Wilson's War, in which the occupying Soviets are oh so evil, and in which the poor downtrodden Afghanis are oh so good and pathetic and heroic. Not to mention that a congressman and a CIA operative are somehow subversive radicals who manage to divert huge amounts of government funds into military aid without public notice. Yes, you even find yourself cheering for that.

The characters are so likable, and the story of protecting the weak from the strong is so compelling, that it is impossible not to go along for the ride. Never mind that the oddly reversed roles of the conflict made the Islamic radicals our allies in the Cold War, and that Osama Bin Laden (who is never mentioned) was among them.

There is an even more pointed moment, in case anyone hasn't got on board yet. After a scene in which Julia Roberts, as a wealthy Texan raising funds (and Cain) for Afghanistan, has to be asked to tone down the religious nature of her appeals, we jump to a montage of Soviet armor being destroyed to the soundtrack of "And He Shall Purify" from Handel's Messiah. Yikes! This makes "Onward Christian Soldiers" sound like a Boy Scout campfire song.

In a lot of ways the film only turns serious at the end. After the Soviet army has to admit defeat and leave, Wilson continues to push for aid to rebuild Afghanistan. But this task is not so easy as fighting a war, and he is unable even to get funding to construct some schools. The historic consequences are plain, and don't have to be spelled out.

There is a subtext, however, which I found interesting, whether it was intentional or not. In one of the planning sessions, the point is made that the hand-held anti-aircraft missiles that are being supplied to the Afghanis are a small fraction of the cost of the helicopters that they are bringing down. The ratio means that the "evil empire" can be vastly outspent, and for a bargain price.

Obviously the same math can work just as well when the shoe is on the other foot, as it is now in Iraq, as well as in Afghanistan. Every time another suicide bomber detonates himself, the casualty rate is bound to tilt in his favor. And every roadside bomb that goes off exchanges a few dollars worth of explosives for a vehicle costing tens or hundreds of thousands--not to mention the cost in lives and caring for the wounded. The implication is that the sheer expense of modern weaponry is now a disadvantage to the side that is better equipped. As long as some influx of low-cost weapons exists, the cost to the stronger side will be hugely greater.

This is not necessarily to say that the United States is losing the fight for control of Iraq and Afghanistan; but it insures that the price of success will be enormous, as we are finding out--as the Soviets found out, and as we should have remembered from our own experience in Vietnam. Eventually, if our foreign policy demands continued military interventions elsewhere, the expense may have such a crippling effect on our economy that we will be forced to change our behavior in order to survive.

In short, military domination may have become too costly to work in the modern world. A huge and expensive army may be what you need to destroy another huge and expensive army, but it is not the right tool for controlling a population, or creating real social change. This trend is likely to become more pronounced as new technologies continue to make the old ones more vulnerable at lower cost.

And maybe, in the long run, that really will be something to cheer about.

A Person of Conscience

Back in 2006 I had the opportunity of meeting Camilo Mejia, the US Army staff sergeant who famously refused to return to Iraq at the end of his leave on the grounds of conscience. He spoke to a small group of us at the Miami Friends Meeting, and once again I was greatly impressed by the quiet power of the truth when it is told.

As he talked, the story unfolded of how he was sent to Iraq after nearly completing an eight-year term of enlistment. So we noted that for eight years this dual citizen of Nicaragua and Costa Rica had voluntarily served his country of residence in a difficult and demanding role.

Suddenly, however, he and his unit were thrust into guard duty at a "detention camp" in Iraq. The first thing they were told was never to refer to their facility as a "prisoner of war camp." This, he later concluded, was because it didn't meet the international standards for such a camp. For example, there were no doctors at the facility, and few medical resources.

The second thing they learned was that the people in charge of the camp (whom they called "spooks") were not to be identified. These men were not in the military. They wore no insignias and had no names or titles. But they were in charge, and the army had to follow their orders. We can only speculate what shadowy agency of our government these people represented.

Mejia and the men under his command quickly discovered that their job in this facility amounted to torturing those interred -- at least those who had been identified as "armed combatants." (A classification, he explained, that might include a shepherd who kept a rifle to defend his flock.) Other inmates who were only "suspects" were merely kept captive, but those with the "armed combatant" designation were kept awake for days on end by being kept standing, by exposure to loud noises (imagine a heavy hammer hitting a concrete wall right next to your ear in a loud and echoing room), or by immersion in cold water.

Can you imagine being in cold water and not allowed to come out? Of course you can. Just think about lying in the bath until the hot water turns uncomfortably cold, how the skin shrivels up on the pads of your fingers. Or remember being in the swimming pool until it feels like time to get out and lie in the sun. Except you can't. How long could you stay there? How many hours? A day? Longer? What if you needed a bathroom during that time?

Our government is on record denying that it has used "torture" methods in its treatment of captives. I would suggest that anyone who believes that should try being subjected to the kind of conditions that prevailed in the camp where Mejia and his fellow soldiers were stationed. Then they should decide for themselves if those conditions amount to torture or not.

Of course, the prisoners were not the only victims of their treatment. Hundreds of young American soldiers were equally brutalized by being forced to commit actions that run counter to all standards of humane treatment and human decency. Mejia has said that he now feels that he let his men down by not working harder to oppose the situation they found themselves in.

Mejia did not immediately rebel against what he was ordered to do. While serving, he followed orders and did his best to insure that the men serving under him did likewise, while doing what he could to insure their well-being under exceedingly difficult circumstances.

His awakening of conscience was a gradual process that only began once he returned home on leave. He found himself failing to make travel arrangements to return to duty. A day went by ... another ... and then a day came when he realized he was not going back, that he had made a decision to object to what he was being asked to do.

Such an objection on moral grounds has long been recognized as a right of citizens in the United States, and is provided for by appealing for Conscientious Objector status, which is what Mejia did. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to a year in prison--which is, unfortunately, the lot of many others in our history who have claimed Conscientious Objector status only to be refused.

This moral judgment is no more or less than what the world thought the Nazis should have done instead of blindly obeying orders during World War II. And our professed ignorance of what is going on in Iraq (as in Guantanamo and elsewhere) is not unlike that of the German nationals who claimed "they did not know" what was being done to the Jews.

Well, after listening to Mejia's first-hand report, I have to admit that I do know. And now, having read this, so do you.








Want to know more? Look for his book, The Road from Ar Ramadi, or consult www.freecamilo.com.

The Once and Future Draft

Let's think about the draft for a moment. Not the annual NFL draft, but the military one, and not the historical draft that ended in the 1970's with the Vietnam War, but the future draft, the one that may soon have to be reinstated to support the military adventures of the current administration in Washington.

The Founding Fathers were so anti-military that they didn't want their new country to have a standing army at all, only state militias consisting of volunteer citizen-soldiers who would defend the nation but not make war in the name of any king. The politicians who followed them, however, soon found themselves at odds with England again in the War of 1812 and with a need for a stronger navy. Then, in expansion mode, the army was used to annex Texas from Mexico (I don't think I've ever used three X's in one sentence before—make that four) and to virtually annihilate the Indians to make way for westward migration. In only a generation or two, what the Founding Fathers had tried to avoid had happened: the United States had a powerful military arm that was being used for aggressive purposes.

There was still a strong sentiment against military conscription, however. It took the Civil War, with its massive casualties, to make the first draft necessary. In spite of all the “volunteer” regiments that were raised, mandatory conscription was the only way to satisfy the insatiable need of both armies, North and South, for fresh “cannon fodder.”

Even at its inception the draft was far from universal or egalitarian. It was possible to send someone to serve in your place, so many who found it inconvenient and could afford the option hired stand-ins for themselves. The pattern of exceptions for the well-to-do was established from the beginning.

The draft was discontinued as soon as it was no longer needed. We never had a so-called “peacetime” draft until after the Second World War. Of course, calling that period of the Cold War “peacetime” is begging the issue, since it included two major undeclared wars—in Korea and Vietnam—and coincided with the largest buildup of weaponry in our history.

While it was no longer possible to send someone else in your place, the wealthier members of society could find other ways to exempt themselves when they chose to do so. Doctors and lawyers could be employed to build cases for medical deferments or to find other loopholes, and local draft boards could be subject to persuasion by powerful members of small communities. If nothing else, easy duty could be obtained in the National Guard, which fulfilled the service requirement with a minimum sacrifice of time, and reduced active combat duty to a remote possibility. Even for the middle class, simply attending college could be enough to delay a draft notice until the age of enlistment had safely passed.

Quite early, allowances were made for individuals who objected to warfare on religious or moral grounds. This made the unpopular system more palatable to some, though in practice the “Conscientious Objector” status was difficult to obtain and carried a stigma of anti-patriotism which was undeserved and unjust.

The situation changed during the Vietnam War, however. As the conflict became more obviously pointless and wrong, public opinion turned draft resistance into a mainstream option that was chosen by a large segment of the population. Thousands who would never have thought of themselves as Conscientious Objectors participated in mass protests and draft card burnings. Eventually the draft, and the war itself, became untenable.

Interestingly, and unfortunately, when President Nixon first instituted the draft lottery, which informed many that they were unlikely to be called up, and then abolished the draft altogether, it soon became apparent that he had knocked the legs out from under the resistance movement. The war had been forced to a close, but the return to an all-volunteer army set the stage for the eventual resurgence of militarism as a tool of foreign policy. Clearly, the general public no longer cared as much about what its army did as long as they themselves were not required to do anything more than pay for it.

The peace making initiatives of President Carter in the middle east were soon replaced by Reagan's popular invasion of Grenada, new “advisory” missions in Central America, and vastly increased spending for new ballistic missiles and a “Star Wars” defense system of mythic proportions (and fictional capabilities). Then George H.W. Bush followed suit by sending in the troops to extract the intractable President Noriega (a former CIA plant who had stopped playing ball), and ultimately to engage in the first Gulf War, most likely because his close family friends in Saudi Arabia were getting uncomfortable about Iraq.

Even President Clinton was drawn into conducting poorly targeted military reprisals against “possible” terrorist targets in Africa, and an underfunded debacle of intervention in Somalia. Such is the momentum of militarism that it begins to make its own demands to be put to use.

Now we are responding to the actions of terrorists by invading and occupying entire countries full of mostly innocent and law abiding citizens, and subjecting them to wholesale bombing campaigns. We should be asking many questions. Is this an appropriate or effective response? Does it protect us from terrorism? Does it make terrorist attacks less likely or more likely in the future? Where does it all end? Is Iraq the last country we will have to coerce into a “regime change,” or only the next in a series?

Perhaps the best question of all is: how much longer can we maintain a policy of global military offensive with an army of volunteers? It seems clear from enlistment statistics that the draft, so long abhorred by the country and so recently set aside, will soon have to be resurrected yet again.

There will be many repercussions from this, but foremost among them will be that a new generation of Americans will look with new eyes at our national intentions. For better or worse, the prospect of war seems entirely different when it is an event for which your own participation is not requested, but required by law.

By all means, let us look again. With luck and good judgment, we may find that we have better things to do.

My Father, the Veteran

I tend to think of my dad at least once every Veteran's Day.

He came of age after World War II had already started. His mother decided her boys were not going to wait to be drafted, so she drove him down to the recruiting office to sign up. Thus, at the tender age of 18, a dreamy student who wanted to be a classical pianist became part of the US 4th Armored Infantry Division. Of above average intelligence, he was offered a chance to go to Officer's Candidate School after basic training. By the time he came out as a new second lieutenant, the D-Day invasion had already happened. He crossed the Atlantic on a troop ship stuffed with soldiers. Years later he told me how seasick he'd been from the pitching of the ship, and how he finally found a perch high up where, hiding behind a metal wall, he couldn't see anything but the sky, which made it seem as if they weren't moving around so much.

His unit went into France and Belgium, where they ended up on the fringes of the famed Battle of the Bulge, the last great German offensive of the war. He lived through many horrible experiences during the short space of a few months of intensive action. Once he was nearly killed when an artillery shell landed right behind him, knocking him flat on his face and sending a piece of shrapnel through his backpack, belt, and overcoat, and stopping just short of his skin.

Another time the convoy he was in, winding around hills in the dark, came under fire. They shot back for half an hour before discovering it was the head of their own column that had mistaken them for the enemy.

Finally, one cold winter night while they were firing blindly into the dark in a snowstorm, a single bullet finally found him, punching him in the chest and knocking him down. Men around him shouted "medic!" and "the lieutenant's hit!" but all my dad said was, "Oh my God, my forty-dollar coat!" As an officer, he had to buy his own clothes, and he had just obtained a new overcoat for the winter.

That was the end of his war. His lung had collapsed and he lost a lot of blood, but he pulled through okay. The rest of his time in Europe was spent convalescing. After the war was over he even got to do some sightseeing on leave, visiting Switzerland and Italy as well as France and Germany. By the time I knew him, his wound was an old scar--a small one on his chest near the right shoulder, a larger one on his back from the exit.

But there were other wounds. His faith had been shattered by seeing what supposedly Christian people were doing to each other in war. Combined with his study of philosophy when he went to college, the experience led him to leave the Catholic church and to become an agnostic, if not atheistic, seeker.

He was also politically disillusioned. Aware that the US had committed atrocities every bit as abhorrent as those of its enemies (the fire bombings of Dresden, most cities in Japan, and the perhaps needless nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as prominent examples), he wondered what the war had accomplished. Fascism may have been defeated overseas, but he saw it rearing its ugly head here at home in the form of the Rosenberg executions, the McCarthy hearings, and the increasing imperialism of American foreign policy. If the aim of the war had been to make our future safer, then it had failed. Instead we were living under a permanent threat of nuclear destruction more horrible than anything that had gone before.

His college education had been postponed, and even though he managed to pick up where he left off, attending Columbia University and the Julliard music school on the GI Bill, some degree of focus and drive had left him. He married his wartime sweetheart, started a family, and left New York to begin a new life in Miami.

But the new life eluded him. It became a struggle of survival as he moved from one menial job to the next ... sales clerk, postal worker, milk delivery man, nurse's aide at the Veterans Hospital. My mom went to work to bring in more money. Things were always tough between them. When I was twelve they separated, then divorced.

Eventually Dad found a career in botany through Fairchild Tropical Garden, where he worked until his death in 1974. He even went back to college at the University of Miami and got a degree in botany, graduating cum laude at the age of 38. It was never a lucrative thing to do, but he seemed to find some peace and contentment there among the lush tropical vegetation.

His old wound only hurt in certain kinds of weather, but he suffered from chronic bronchial infections for the rest of his life, and twice developed pneumonia. The second time the disease refused to respond to treatment. He died, you might say belatedly, from complications as a result of military service. He was 50 years old.