I wanted to follow-up my inaugural web posting with more explanation as to how a classroom observation came to become a new disease that would be treated by pharmaceuticals influencing the serotonin system – but after reading James Ricci’s 10/22/07 L.A. Times article, “Father finishing book by son killed in Iraq” – I couldn’t delve on A.D.H.D. this week (I’ll get back to it one-of-these-days).
What shook any bit of bullshit left in me right out of my system were these words written in Darrell Griffin Jr.’s war journal for his father, Darrell Griffin Sr., which were meant for the book the Griffins were co-writing:
This world with its complexity is only an imperfect
analogy of the eternal abyss from which it comes…
is there truly a telos (an ultimate reason) to history
or are we merely spinning out of control in an
ambivalent universe?…I am trying to make sense
of a world that I had never known until the first
time I had to kill a man…
And so I reeled backwards with my morning coffee over the pristine thoughts of a man who gave his life for his country (Darrell Griffin Jr. was a second termer in Iraq) — realizing that the world was a much poorer place for Darrell Griffin Jr.’s passing (Darrell Griffen Jr. was also a medic).
And then I became quite angry realizing that this young American jewel didn’t give his life for me OR this country – but that he died in service of the Bush/Cheney machine: two Americans who would NEVER have sacrificed their lives for this country (and took calculated steps from making sure they never would have to) – yet today tell us how much they love this country and send the Darrell Griffin Jr.’s to their deaths. They are chicken hawks.
And then I read the book review of Valerie Plame’s, My Life as a Spy: My Betrayal by the White House – and my sentiments towards these cowards in the American White House were further reinforced! Would the world be a better place if Bush and Cheney had gone to Viet Nam and one-or-both-of-them had perished? I’d like to think so – but I’ll leave it to Posterity to decide.
A long-time acquaintance recently asked me to attend his son’s “off to military service” party. I declined as politely as I could – suggesting that I would be glad to attend his son’s RETURN party – as I know enough about war and its casualties to know that is when I can be of most service to his son (easily 1/3 of America’s homeless are Viet Nam veterans).
And so I say to you Darrell Griffin Sr. – please carry on – may your book be a best seller and separate the American heroes from the American cowards who hide behind your funeral shrouds with their delusions and call it patriotism for the rest of us. I know the book won’t bring your son back – but perhaps it will start to get us our country back!