Tuesday, April 1, 2008 at 1:01am
What will you say when they ask what you did in the war?
Column: Writing Down Your Soul
"What did you do in the war, Dad?" That was a common question in my house and in all my friends' homes in the '50s. Every kid knew about "the war." Long before we read a single word in a history book, we knew there had been a terrible war before we were born and terrible people called "Nazis." We knew that our families had been frightened and our fathers had left home to "fight the enemy." I heard stories about my mother moving to Denver and my dad being a "transportation officer" in India. I wasn't certain where India was or what a "transportation officer" did, but I had images of long trains filled with food and guns moving across hot dusty plains and my dad sitting behind a desk somewhere signing papers. This image made sense to me, because as far as I could tell, he sat behind a desk and signed papers at the company he ran in Chicago.
I wondered if he'd killed anyone. One day I asked him if he'd carried a gun in the war. I expected him to pat me on the head and say, "Of course not, dear." But he stopped what he was doing, looked me in the eye, and said, "Yes." "Did you shoot it?" I asked, terrified to hear the answer. "I held it to a soldier's head once, when he wouldn't get on the train. He got on." "Would you have shot him if he hadn't gotten on the train?" I asked, even more terrified of the answer. "Yes," he said. I didn't ask any more questions.
"What did you do in the war, Mom?" This became an important question a few years ago, when my son began learning about the Vietnam War. I told him about the draft, the protest movement, the student riots, the shootings at Kent State. I told him that clips of soldiers dying in the jungles were on the news every night. I told him that everyone was opposed to the war. Well, everyone except my parents. I told him that students took over the administration building at Marquette in the spring of '69 and we were all sent home early. I confessed that I was proud of my fellow students, but also relieved, because skipping that final saved me from failing Econ. I told him that his father had been much more deeply involved in the protest movement on the West Coast. Your father, I told him, was there when Mario Savio created the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley and exhorted the students to "put your bodies upon the gears" and make the machine stop. For a moment, the machine of pumping out college diplomas stopped.
When his father died in 2003, we pored through his old photographs and found a simple black and white shot of an abandoned plane in a field in Northern California with the peace sign and "STOP WAR" painted on the tail. When my son set up his dorm room in New York last fall, he hung that photograph over his bed.
What did you do in the war, Dad?" Someday, 15 or 20 years hence, my grandchild will ask this perennial question. And my son will know how to answer. I cared about what my government did, he will say. I studied, I read. I found other people who cared and studied and read, and together we marched. I dressed in chains and a hood to show the world how our government treated inmates in a place called Guantanamo. I researched the way the government moved people around in secret and tortured them. On the fifth anniversary of a war that lasted longer than your great-grandfather's world war, I blocked the entrance to a business the government used to spy on people. And I was arrested.
And then my precious grandchild will turn to me. "What did you do in the war, Grandmother?" What will I say? That the government didn't want me to do anything? That once the leaders had drummed up enough fear to get re-elected, they didn't want Americans to think about the war, or talk about the war, or even look at pictures of the war? Will I tell that sweet little soul that the government didn't allow photographs of the four (or five or ten) thousand flag-draped coffins to be shown on TV? Will I say that so many Iraqi civilians were killed that we can't even count them? Will I say that our president kept harping about "freedom on the march" but the only thing that seemed to be marching were the ranks of terrorists who blew innocent people up in stores and on street corners? Will I be too ashamed to admit that in the midst of all this chaos, our president smiled, told stupid jokes and exhorted us to spend money? What will I say? The truth is, I haven't marched, I haven't protested, I haven't written letters. Aside from fussing among my friends and praying fervently that the one and only candidate who voted against the war gets elected, what have I done?
"What did you do in the war, Grandmother?"
Help me. What do I say? What do you say? What do we say? What did we do in the war?
— — —
Janet Conner teaches people how to connect directly to Spirit to receive the guidance they need to create the life they want. Her new book, "Writing Down Your Soul: How to Activate and Listen to the Extraordinary Voice Within," comes out this December from Conari Press. Learn more at www.writingdownyoursoul.com. Janet is also the creator of Spiritual Geography, the deep soul writing system that heals the broken heart. "Spiritual Geography" workbooks are available through Amazon or Spiritual Geography. Contact Janet at {email janetconner@tampabay.rr.com}janetconner@tampabay.rr.com{/email}. © Copyright 2008 by Janet Conner.
I wondered if he'd killed anyone. One day I asked him if he'd carried a gun in the war. I expected him to pat me on the head and say, "Of course not, dear." But he stopped what he was doing, looked me in the eye, and said, "Yes." "Did you shoot it?" I asked, terrified to hear the answer. "I held it to a soldier's head once, when he wouldn't get on the train. He got on." "Would you have shot him if he hadn't gotten on the train?" I asked, even more terrified of the answer. "Yes," he said. I didn't ask any more questions.
"What did you do in the war, Mom?" This became an important question a few years ago, when my son began learning about the Vietnam War. I told him about the draft, the protest movement, the student riots, the shootings at Kent State. I told him that clips of soldiers dying in the jungles were on the news every night. I told him that everyone was opposed to the war. Well, everyone except my parents. I told him that students took over the administration building at Marquette in the spring of '69 and we were all sent home early. I confessed that I was proud of my fellow students, but also relieved, because skipping that final saved me from failing Econ. I told him that his father had been much more deeply involved in the protest movement on the West Coast. Your father, I told him, was there when Mario Savio created the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley and exhorted the students to "put your bodies upon the gears" and make the machine stop. For a moment, the machine of pumping out college diplomas stopped.
When his father died in 2003, we pored through his old photographs and found a simple black and white shot of an abandoned plane in a field in Northern California with the peace sign and "STOP WAR" painted on the tail. When my son set up his dorm room in New York last fall, he hung that photograph over his bed.
What did you do in the war, Dad?" Someday, 15 or 20 years hence, my grandchild will ask this perennial question. And my son will know how to answer. I cared about what my government did, he will say. I studied, I read. I found other people who cared and studied and read, and together we marched. I dressed in chains and a hood to show the world how our government treated inmates in a place called Guantanamo. I researched the way the government moved people around in secret and tortured them. On the fifth anniversary of a war that lasted longer than your great-grandfather's world war, I blocked the entrance to a business the government used to spy on people. And I was arrested.
And then my precious grandchild will turn to me. "What did you do in the war, Grandmother?" What will I say? That the government didn't want me to do anything? That once the leaders had drummed up enough fear to get re-elected, they didn't want Americans to think about the war, or talk about the war, or even look at pictures of the war? Will I tell that sweet little soul that the government didn't allow photographs of the four (or five or ten) thousand flag-draped coffins to be shown on TV? Will I say that so many Iraqi civilians were killed that we can't even count them? Will I say that our president kept harping about "freedom on the march" but the only thing that seemed to be marching were the ranks of terrorists who blew innocent people up in stores and on street corners? Will I be too ashamed to admit that in the midst of all this chaos, our president smiled, told stupid jokes and exhorted us to spend money? What will I say? The truth is, I haven't marched, I haven't protested, I haven't written letters. Aside from fussing among my friends and praying fervently that the one and only candidate who voted against the war gets elected, what have I done?
"What did you do in the war, Grandmother?"
Help me. What do I say? What do you say? What do we say? What did we do in the war?
— — —
Janet Conner teaches people how to connect directly to Spirit to receive the guidance they need to create the life they want. Her new book, "Writing Down Your Soul: How to Activate and Listen to the Extraordinary Voice Within," comes out this December from Conari Press. Learn more at www.writingdownyoursoul.com. Janet is also the creator of Spiritual Geography, the deep soul writing system that heals the broken heart. "Spiritual Geography" workbooks are available through Amazon or Spiritual Geography. Contact Janet at {email janetconner@tampabay.rr.com}janetconner@tampabay.rr.com{/email}. © Copyright 2008 by Janet Conner.