Yesterday in a discussion, I made the statement that I am not anti military: that I believed this country needs to maintain a well trained military to defend us in case of attack. I sited my background as a child surrounded on all sides by military men and women, in the days when we had a “different” kind of military than we do now. Back when patriotism meant something, when all of us proudly sacrificed for the “war effort” and everyone, including us kids, were involved somehow in action that supported the troops we were so deeply proud of.
I haven’t been able to get my own words of yesterday out of my head since, or the sense of dread in knowing this meant I needed to stop and take a very hard look at those memories.
As I have shared here before, I left my blind patriotism to rot in the Viet Nam swamp where my brother died. My blind trust and unquestioning belief in the inherent goodness and integrity of America Leadership died a horrible death back then, never to be resurrected.
But at least I had my memories of how it once was. I could remember how good America was once. I still feel the beat of the drums as soldiers marched in close formation at Camp Rucker in 1950, wanting with every atom of my being to be one of them: to wear that proud uniform myself someday: to be one who dedicated their life to serving my country.
And now, as I am writing, something deep inside me tells me I cannot totally trust those memories anymore, those beloved memories that let me believe that if America was all good once, it can be good again.
But I was a child then. I believed everything the grownups in my world believed, because it was the only information I had to work with.
Were they being told the truth by the leaders of this land then, anymore than we are being told the truth now? Or was the government exploiting the genuine, soul deep love of country that flowed so strongly through the veins of those who served, and those who loved them, and all Americans, to fill hidden political agendas kept secret? Just how long has the leadership of America been propagandizing own people as it is now?
Just when did the brainwashing of Americans really begin, that has led so many of us to believe, consciously or unconsciously, that we are somehow a “chosen people”, far superior to all others elsewhere? To the point where so many are literally unaffected by the fact that tens of thousands of “others” just like us, except for the color of their skin, are being blow apart by US foreign policies that leave pieces of babies hanging from olive trees, while we plan our next trip to the mall? As well as out own troops?
And the answer is this: is WAS present when I was born. And long before that. I saw the proof of it all around me, in Dothan Alabama at age 10, when I got my first look at a black person. I watched in horror as an the old woman dug in our garbage can, carefully brushed the coffee grounds off our discarded morning pancakes, and fed it to her small grandson who was clinging to her skirts.
I saw it every day after than when black people automatically stepped off the sidewalk into the gutter, to let me have the sidewalk to myself. I heard it in the condemnation I received from my white classmate who chanted “Yankee go home!” at me. I felt it in the whipping I got at home for making friends with a black playmate.
All of this was going all around me, even as I stood clinging to that chain link fence, watching the troops parade by, my heart about to burst with pride and unquestioning love of my country.
I hate these thoughts that won’t leave me alone this morning, I JUST HATE them.
I want to hang onto some shred my old belief that a truly good America existed once and that I can know this for sure, because I saw it with my own eyes and felt in my own heart.
I feel literally pulled-apart. Torn between what I truly believed my country was once, and what it really was, even then. Torn between such pride and love, for the military, and the horror unfolding in front my eyes of what has been made of it by those in command and what it is doing to others..
Torn between this, and my certain belief that the blood of most of those who serve now is just as rich with sincere love of country as was the spilled blood of my father and brother. Men and women who voluntarily serve believing they are defending America, and now, must not only carry the burden of a war that cannot ever be won, but the abject failures of their commanders that have allowed atrocities to be committed by those among them not fit to serve.
We believe what we need to believe , and for 65 years, my precious military memories have sustained me, and there they were again yesterday, spilling out of my mouth, right into the air in front of me, where I couldn’t miss them.
Yes, they are real memories. Those soldiers were real people with good and courageous hearts who, as I did, believed what they had been taught.
And like for me, somehow, the other realities that also existed were shoved aside far enough to not interfere with our fervent “love of country”, no matter what. No matter what else was so terribly, awfully wrong with her.
That war gave is a “shared mission”. A sense of unity as a nation coming together against a common enemy, It let us feel so good about who we are, so special, so able to NOT see or address effective any of the other harsh and bleeding realities such as the inhumane levels of racism that was also a part of who we were, as Americans.
If any structure is put together wrong, or made with bad materials, or build on a faulty foundation, there is only one thing to do. Pull it apart, fix what is wrong, and then rebuilt it.
My own precious old military memories were, I see now, build on a cloud of imbedded illusion about how truly “exceptional” my country was, not on any solid foundation at all. The only truly real thing about them was what was the hearts of those who believed they were truly serving the country they loved and were willing to give their lives for her. They represent, to me , the best of what America could be.
Now I must do some more work on me. It feels to me as if, as a child born in America, I was soon clothed in many layers of beautiful clothing that was chosen for me before I even was aware that I was naked.
They placed a red white and blue patriot robe over my beautiful snow white gown.
They gave me a crown that said I was more special than people from other lands.
They gave me many veil so fine I didn’t know I even had them on, that would let me see all the beautiful things about my land of birth, and kept from my view all that was so very ugly.
They gave me golden shoes in which to walk the intended paths laid out for me,. And in my hand they placed a cross on which hung a bleeding Jesus, to remind me always to serve the God of their understanding and that I blessed to be one on the pathway to the only true God.
Now I am 65, and life has managed to slowly but surely strip off all of these clothes I didn’t even know I was wearing. I hung onto each piece for all I was worth, and fought to stay covered, even when I didn’t now that’s what I was doing. I was terrified to be without my clothes.
Now here I am, naked as a damned jaybird, with the last scrap of covering I had, my precious old selective memories, wafting away on the winds of unwelcome awareness once again.
I am cold, and I feel a little ashamed of my nakedness. I see wrinkles and rolls and age spots.
This will take some getting used to.
But in time, I suspect I will get used to it, and then I will be able to focus on what’s going on inside, in my own still beating heart, that is just as full of courage as any good soldiers heart. The one who will NOT give up the dream of what my country could be. The one that sees other hearts just like mine, beating in bodies of all colors, in all the other countries, pumping the same courage-colored blood.
I see now, I couldn’t do much until I was rid of my robes, and my fine veils of American exceptionalism and white privilege that I honestly didn’t even know I was wearing for most of my lifetime.
Funny. I don’t feel as pulled apart now as I did when I began this writing.
And really, that last tiny scrap of memory material wasn’t covering all that much of me anyway.
I am not ashamed to be a naked American.
I am not afraid to see my country as she is.
How else can we help her if we cannot see her wounds?
Besides, I know where the real America lives, and it sure as hell isn’t in Washington DC.
She lives right here in my heart, and in your hearts.
She is in our hands, not theirs.
And we ARE each helping her heal, cell by cell, right from where we each are right now, as each of us, one by one, dare strip ourselves of any and all restricting clothing we never chose in the first place, and dare to walk naked and barefoot on the soil of this beautiful planet that we all share.
(note: This is unedited on purpose. If I stop to edit, I may not send it because right now I am feeling a teeny bit “exposed!) )
