Me
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Monday, July 30, 2007
Goodbye To A Man I Never Knew...
“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?” Ghandi
I didn’t know Jacob Schmuecker. Never met him. Somehow though he seems so familiar. His face stares out from his basic training photo exactly like the faces of so many before him. Jacob was 27 years old and he was born and raised in the tiny town of Atkinson Nebraska, a town that aptly fit’s the description of “the middle of nowhere.” He was a loving husband and the father of three beautiful children. He was a Son, a brother, and an adoring family man. Now, like so many before him, Jacob has become a hero, a martyr, and a horrible reminder of the cost of war. On July 21 Jacob was killed by a roadside bomb in Balad, Iraq while on patrol with his unit from the Nebraska National Guard. This is how I will remember a man I never knew. What kind of life did Jacob lead? Did he grow up happy? Was he loved? Of course he was. I imagine he spent his summer nights doing what most young boys in rural America do. Chasing firefly’s with his father. Learning to hunt and to fish and being taught the finer points of what it takes to be a good man. He would have spent a lot of time sitting on the front porch imitating the actions of his father while his hero pretended not to notice. He played childish games with his friends and he paid the price with a lifetimes worth of skinned knees and broken bicycles. The early lessons he learned began to turn him into the man he would become. As he grew older and began the inevitable, painful period between child hood and adulthood Jacob, like every child in America, began to slip away from his parents. Being a cornhusker, I imagine he played football in school. He took his lumps and played as well as he could. He dreamed of girls and of being a rock star. He bought a truck and got a job after school in order to pay for his weekends out with his friends and his girl. He did as well as he could in school and began to think of what life might be like after school. Would he go to college? How would he pay for it? Maybe he would just get a good job and try to build a career. Maybe he would get married and raise a family. His entire life was ahead of him and the sky was the limit. I have no idea what led Jacob to join the National guard. According to his enlistment records he must of signed up shortly after 9/11. Like so many other young Americans in the aftermath of that horrible day it’s entirely possible that he felt the cold chill of a wounded nation and decided that it was time for him to do his part to ensure that this never happened again. I can imagine that Jacob believed, like so many others, that he was going to Afghanistan to fight Al quaida and avenge the wounds we suffered on 9/11. Instead, Jacob’s nobility carried him to the hellish wasteland of Al Anbar province in Iraq and on July 21 Jacob’s children lost their father. His parents lost a son. His brother lost his best friend and his wife became a widow. The price of war can never be paid for. I don’t know what led me to write this column. Maybe it was the picture. Jacobs face looked so familiar I had to do a double take. At first I thought I knew him. Then I realized that I did know him. His was the face of every American casualty of war I have ever seen. That odd look of determined toughness and frightened innocence. From the fields of Gettysburg to the shores of Normandy and to the jungles of Vietnam through time to Anbar province and Jacob. They all look so alike. It makes me sad. I wonder if the men who send these children into battle ever look at the faces. I doubt it and that also makes me sad. Goodbye Jacob.
I didn’t know Jacob Schmuecker. Never met him. Somehow though he seems so familiar. His face stares out from his basic training photo exactly like the faces of so many before him. Jacob was 27 years old and he was born and raised in the tiny town of Atkinson Nebraska, a town that aptly fit’s the description of “the middle of nowhere.” He was a loving husband and the father of three beautiful children. He was a Son, a brother, and an adoring family man. Now, like so many before him, Jacob has become a hero, a martyr, and a horrible reminder of the cost of war. On July 21 Jacob was killed by a roadside bomb in Balad, Iraq while on patrol with his unit from the Nebraska National Guard. This is how I will remember a man I never knew. What kind of life did Jacob lead? Did he grow up happy? Was he loved? Of course he was. I imagine he spent his summer nights doing what most young boys in rural America do. Chasing firefly’s with his father. Learning to hunt and to fish and being taught the finer points of what it takes to be a good man. He would have spent a lot of time sitting on the front porch imitating the actions of his father while his hero pretended not to notice. He played childish games with his friends and he paid the price with a lifetimes worth of skinned knees and broken bicycles. The early lessons he learned began to turn him into the man he would become. As he grew older and began the inevitable, painful period between child hood and adulthood Jacob, like every child in America, began to slip away from his parents. Being a cornhusker, I imagine he played football in school. He took his lumps and played as well as he could. He dreamed of girls and of being a rock star. He bought a truck and got a job after school in order to pay for his weekends out with his friends and his girl. He did as well as he could in school and began to think of what life might be like after school. Would he go to college? How would he pay for it? Maybe he would just get a good job and try to build a career. Maybe he would get married and raise a family. His entire life was ahead of him and the sky was the limit. I have no idea what led Jacob to join the National guard. According to his enlistment records he must of signed up shortly after 9/11. Like so many other young Americans in the aftermath of that horrible day it’s entirely possible that he felt the cold chill of a wounded nation and decided that it was time for him to do his part to ensure that this never happened again. I can imagine that Jacob believed, like so many others, that he was going to Afghanistan to fight Al quaida and avenge the wounds we suffered on 9/11. Instead, Jacob’s nobility carried him to the hellish wasteland of Al Anbar province in Iraq and on July 21 Jacob’s children lost their father. His parents lost a son. His brother lost his best friend and his wife became a widow. The price of war can never be paid for. I don’t know what led me to write this column. Maybe it was the picture. Jacobs face looked so familiar I had to do a double take. At first I thought I knew him. Then I realized that I did know him. His was the face of every American casualty of war I have ever seen. That odd look of determined toughness and frightened innocence. From the fields of Gettysburg to the shores of Normandy and to the jungles of Vietnam through time to Anbar province and Jacob. They all look so alike. It makes me sad. I wonder if the men who send these children into battle ever look at the faces. I doubt it and that also makes me sad. Goodbye Jacob.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
The Horror
“The horror. The horror.” Those, of course, were the dying words of Col. Walter E. Kurtz (masterfully portrayed by Marlon Brando) at the end of Francis Ford Coppola’s magnum opus Apocalypse Now, a film that graphically portrayed the madness and futility of a war that has gone horribly wrong in a world where it has become increasingly difficult to tell good from evil. How fitting that, as the saying goes, life often imitates art because we have arrived at the fictional Heart of Darkness and it looks pretty surreal from where I stand. Coppola’s film was never meant to be just another war movie. The Vietnam conflict was still painfully fresh in the minds of a nation that was desperately trying to come to grips with itself in the war’s tumultuous aftermath. In 1979, when the movie was released, America didn’t need to be reminded that something had gone horribly wrong in Vietnam and we, as a nation had lost a little bit of ourselves in the rice paddies of Southeast Asia. Coppola, in a frank and shocking cinematic masterstroke, reminded us anyway. Now, all these years later, I can’t help but see a little bit of Col. Kurtz in the men who are trying to win a war based solely on hatred and a devastating disregard for those who have chosen to serve them. As George Bush and his inner circle have become more and more isolated their actions have become disjointed and, increasingly, unreasonable. Like Kurtz and his private army waging their private war Bush has begun to see the world in an strangely hostile and somewhat insane manner. It’s as if he’s seeing something that only he can see and somehow he believes that history will forgive him. His decisions, especially over the last several weeks, make absolutely no sense either politically or strategically. He has become a liability to his own party and his approval ratings have reached all time lows. Still he insists that he has the support of the American people. He insists that he has the support of his generals and he insists that he is above the law. Executive privilege has it’s boundaries. Now, as a contempt of Congress charge hangs over his head for his failure to allow subpoenaed witnesses to appear before congressional hearings, we have to acknowledge that all of his recent decisions and the decisions of his cabinet stem from his failure to see the catastrophic consequences of his war in Iraq. As we approach the four thousandth casualty in this mess Bush, like Kurtz, has become delusional. The goals he set for a September deadline for the Iraqi’s to achieve in order to justify his surge in troop strength are rapidly approaching and the Iraqis have yet to achieve a single one of them. Bush, in typical fashion has decided to simply change the rules and set new goals. As he quivers towards yet another failure even members of his own cabinet seem to be growing strangely quiet. At the beginning of Apocalypse Now we are taken to the end, literally. The song “The End” by The Doors is playing when Martin Sheen wakes up in a Saigon hotel wishing only to be out in the bush on another mission. The same thing happened to us six years ago as we watched those planes slam into and destroy what was left of our innocence. We wanted to taste blood and we got our chance through the actions of a delusional madman. We put our own version of Kurtz in charge of carrying out our mighty, god-given vengeance. We created George W. Bush. We gave him the power to wield the figurative swords we all wanted to carry ourselves. Now we must somehow face the consequences of our creation. The blood we wanted has suddenly become all to real for us to stomach. But, because we gave him the power, Bush/Kurtz will carry on until somebody puts a stop to this horror. The Horror. The End.
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