Ah, good morning! Good morning once again, and welcome to Sunday Griot! I had a good time last Sunday, but I missed you. Believe me, being on vacation was more stressful than telling stories. So I’m glad to be back.
I went back and consulted with my old friend Aesop, and he had a story that was relevant to today’s goings-on. But let me warn you, today’s story is a bit more graphic than usual. Nothing bloody or gory, but it does have a bit of violence. Maybe about as much as “The Angel of Fredericksburg,” if you remember that story from last May. So you might want to look it over before you tell it to the kids.
Then the war came along and William volunteered. He figured that as a trumpeter, he had a good chance of becoming a bugler, which would lessen his chances of having to do any actual fighting. His three primary jobs, as he saw it, would be to get up before everyone else, go to bed after everyone else, and have everyone else in his company mad at him for making them get up and go to sleep.
For a while he was right. He learned all the bugle calls he needed to know, and while he did a little combat training, most of his time was spent hanging around with the other buglers and doing odd administrative tasks for the officers.
His luck didn’t last forever, though. During the very first actual combat mission his company went on William managed to end up someplace he wasn’t supposed to be and was captured by the enemy. Had he been paying attention during his basic training instead of goldbricking he might have avoided this fate, but that would have made for a different story.
William was bound and taken to the enemy commander. Now something I deliberately didn’t mention earlier was that this was not one of your modern wars with Geneva conventions and other protections for prisoners. This was literally “take no prisoners” warfare. Prisoners were considered to be only a source of amusement, and once the amusement was ended, they were just another mouth to feed, so long as they were alive.
“Well, well, what have we here?” the enemy commander sneered as William was thrown as his feet. He grabbed William by the front of his shirt and saw the bugle at his side. “A bugler, eh?”
“Yes sir,” William manged to croak. “Please, sir, spare my life. I have not taken up arms against you, and in fact I became a bugler just so I would not have to kill anyone.”
The enemy chief threw William to the ground contemptuously. He then grabbed the bugle and ripped it from William’s belt. “Do you see this?” he roared. “This is a weapon of war.” He threw the bugle to the ground beside William, then drew his sword. “You may not have killed any of us, but you have called on your countrymen to do so.”
And that was the end of William.
Words and deeds can be weapons just as surely as swords and arrows.
As often happens, I was going to tell a completely different story this week; and then I started reading about You Know Who’s comments about attacking San Francisco, and You Know Who Else’s comments about his God not protecting Dover, Pennsylvania.
There’s a reason the main character in this story is named William.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that the politicians who beat the drum for war and other disasters in this country aren’t the only ones culpable. There are plenty of buglers out there who share the responsibility. We all know their names; there’s no need to give them any more credit here than tagging requires.
There’s been a great deal of talk lately about impeaching George Bush and/or Dick Cheney, but when the reckoning comes, it needs to include those enablers who helped dupe the people of this nation into believing things that are manifestly untrue. Radio and TV pundits, writers, eminences grises working behind the scenes to orchestrate and fund the whole thing. All of them.
Please don’t think I’m calling for an end to free speech. I’m not. In fact I’m a great believer in the entire Bill of RIghts. But I also remember, as I believe Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, that your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose. I’m tired of having a bloody nose. How about you?
Well, that’s enough of that for now. Next week I’ll see if I can find something to be thankful for to tell about. FSM knows that even with all the problems and crises swirling around, there’s still plenty. Thank you for coming by! Until we meet again may all your stories be happy nes, and as always, cheers to all of you.