What Have We Given?
Now that we have left Camp Casey and are perched on the porch of my mother’s serene home on a hill overlooking Kerrville, I will explain my choice for the name of these musings — “Soul Rubbings.”
One way of finding one’s lineage, one’s “place” as it were, involves rubbing thin sheets of paper over the gravestones of ancestors in cemetaries and family plots and, using pencil or charcoal, making an impression of their markings. Reaching back and touching the ancestors brings them more alive somehow. By rubbing the ancient grave markers, I name them and find a visceral knowing of their existence — when they came, and when they went. Through that physical act, I have identified my people, finding clues to who I am at the deepest level. The simple effort involved in making contact through rubbings with those who have come before allows me to access those lives that informed mine through their very being on the earth plane, whether or not they actually held me in their laps, rocked me for afternoon nap, or cupped my face in their hands.
I have also taken the onion skin and pencil and rubbed the impression of names at the Viet Nam Memorial, once again touching the marking of friends lost in my college years, by rubbing onion skin against the hard, black granite. I marked those friends who left me so early and in such a senseless way, and also some whom I did not know in the flesh, but whose lives nevertheless informed mine just as profoundly. As I rubbed, my tears flowed not only for my individual loss, but for the loss of my generation’s trust of those in positions of power, who so deeply betrayed the innocent faith of our naivete and youth. I had marched against that war, been called a traitor, and survived to eventually marry a man who, while I was a peace marcher, was a pilot in Viet Nam. Our coming together was some subtle celebration of the love that lies behind both sides of the issue — each doing, at the time, what we were called to do.
And both of us sat at opposite ends of that deep betrayal. He was sent to a war to risk his life for what emerged as a dishonorable debacle based on lies, beginning with the conjured and non-existent attack on the U.S. ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. That attack never happened, but provoked the perfect “Wag the Dog” mass destruction excuse for not only the Viet Nam war but an entire generation of young people. By those acts, the free country honoring free speech my parents introduced in my childhood dissolved into denegrating epitaphs being called everything from hippy to whore, none of which I could place in context with an opinion on the military conflict. What I have been left with is that, once lost, that trust never fully returns, but scratches the back of my mind with an edge of cynicism. Subtle rubbings.
Following the subsequent revelations about the outrageous deceptions that underpinned the entire Viet Nam conflict, my husband joined me in that skepticism. Viet Nam resulted in the attempted mass destruction of a culture, the decimation of a country, the extermination of countless lives on both sides and elimination of a entire generation of precious children who asked only for a future. Now, we as U.S. citizens cannot shed our responsibility for allowing similar deception and yet another false military action by our government. The deception is the same skin in different clothes. By sleeping through the Iraq invasion and occupation, we are made culpable through our silence.
My husband’s very first demonstration of his life was a peace march in downtown Tucson protesting the Iraq invasion, in his late 60′s. Since then, he has become the first in our family to stand up against the rhetoric produced by the current administration. I think that he is making up for all that time that he trusted, and trusted. Not only did humans and environment die in all of that. An honorable spirit, raised up to believe in the leadership of his government, sadly learned the spoils of believing without questioning.
Thus, as we gathered together at Camp Casey, I knew that, once again, I honor not only my husband’s service and trust, but my son’s service as well. And I speak out for all of those who have gone too soon, who have left early and senselessly, leaving mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and, God Forbid, children who will never know their touch, their smile, their love, their needed guidance. Never again is a very long time.
So, as we all depart from Crawford, Texas and Camp Casey, these soulmarkings must morph to approach the deeper and broader issues that confront us as Americans. It is time for every American to wake up and see what the rest of the world sees.
