I can’t believe the news today
Oh, I can’t close my eyes
And make it go away
— U2
I find myself singing this song all too frequently. I know I’ve used it in a previous diary. It’s just so damn haunting. And it bubbles out of your subconscious when people are dying.
I should have titled this diary, “I got a call today.” Because that’s what it’s really about. The news is the same as it ever was. Not even really news anymore. It is the background story for all our lives. Some days a little more. Some a little less. Today’s is:
Shiite militiamen doused six Sunni Arabs with kerosene and burned them alive as Iraqi soldiers stood by, and killed 19 other Sunnis in attacks on their mosques Friday, taking revenge for the slaughter of at least 215 Shiites in the Sadr City slum the day before.
Following close on the heels of:
The Baghdad attacks appeared to have been a reaction to the deaths in Sadr City on Thursday, when Sunnis unleashed bombs and mortars that killed 215 people and wounded 257 in the deadliest assault since the U.S.-led invasion.
No. This latest tally of horrendous death to Iraqis is not the news that is eating me up so much. I’m sad to say it. But it is the truth. I, like most of America, have come to the point that I can withstand these reports daily. I have not taken up arms against the government that caused it. I have not abstained on moral grounds from the system of taxation that pays the way for this death. I just watch it go by. Sometimes I sweat through my eyes (to steal a line from Bernie Mac). But that’s about it these days.
It was a phone call that moved me to write about the war today.
Some background about me, just to set the scene. So you might feel like I feel. I’m a bit of an eccentric criminal defense attorney. I rarely take cases. Only those that speak to me. I sometime defend the factually innocent these days. Or anti-war protestors. I’ve advised conscientious objectors. And always old friends who have run afoul of the law.
The economics of this somewhat odd practice of the law lead to a predictable outcome. My practice makes almost no money. And I am never at a loss for phone calls from old acquaintances in their most dire times of need. A sad result it that when an old familiar voice graces the other end of my line, the call is almost always related to a legal need. There is pleasant small talk. And don’t get me wrong. I’m not whining. I like to help my friends. But 99% of the time, these calls end with legal advice.
Today was a 1% kind of day. I got a call, and there was no request for legal advice at the end. And that was worth a smile, I have to say.
The call was from a young man. Nineteen years old. I had the pleasure of coaching him in high school. A good kid. Smallish, but mentally tough. With a heart that would never quit. He was no Pat Tillman in terms of athletic ability. But through hard work, he had become a very good wrestler.
Like Tillman, he joined the service. I remember trying to talk to him about it. Trying to gently persuade him that there was no reason for him to risk his life in a war without a cause. But he is now a Marine. A grunt. Seems like about half the team are now combat soldiers. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I was helping to train them all in the world’s oldest martial art. Wrestlers make good soldiers. A path I took myself. So I was a bit of a hypocrite for trying to steer the boy clear from the war.
He didn’t want a thing from me. Just to say hey around the holiday. He’s alone on the base. I remember those lonely holidays in the barracks. The holidays were the worst.
We talked about nothing. He will be in Iraq in January. He’s been trained to use the weapons of war. His unit has been there already, and the vets tell him it will be okay. He is a tough kid. And he tells me the only thing that bothers him is how much his momma’s going to worry. But I swear to god I can hear the fear seeping out of his voice.
He is such a fine young man. And I’m sweating through my eyes again. Because all I can imagine is that these two constants in my life–phone calls from old acquaintances and the routine reports of needless death in Iraq–have such a good chance of combining to form a horrible blockquote in some future story that says:
A wrestling coach in a small town in the Midwest helped train a boy to walk into his unsuspecting death today next to a roadside bomb in Iraq. And the funny thing is the coach sweats through his eyes all the time, but he hasn’t been able to stop this fucking war. The kid, on the other hand, doesn’t sweat at all anymore, because his metabolic functions have stopped altogether. For no good fucking reason.
He is a good boy. He is young. Decent. Full of hope. Not a bit of malice in him that I ever knew. And at best, he is condemned to know the smell of death. At best.
He has not known the joy of a wedding. Or a childbirth. Or walking into a home you own. He’s never had a college class. He’s not old enough to legally feel the warm buzz of a boilermaker after a shift of hard labor.
So I talk to him. And with god as my witness, I’ve never wanted to say something profound and wise and right so much. But there is just small talk. Nothing will come out of this worthless over-educated head of mine. I just have to hear the fear in his voice. Re-assure him. Hope that this is a conversation that will morph into a request for advice, so that I might tell him how to legally explain to the military that he will not bear arms in their illegal war.
And then it was done. Him off to the loneliness of the barracks on a holiday. Me back to my post-Thanksgiving sloth day. With a haunting song bubbling up from the depths of my mind, and some leaky eyes.
Oh, I can’t close my eyes
And make it go away.
Diclaimer: <notblogging>I’m not really blogging here. Just commenting on a slice of life, served very shortly after the pumpkin pie had settled in my gullet.</notblogging>
