2005-05-15
Editorial
Bernard J. Fine
Dead Horses and Beautiful Minds
Perhaps the most difficult thing about being an editor is finding new things to write about, no matter how prestigious or obscure or how large or small your publication ,.
My own perception is that one tends to get too involved in the present and, based on one’s own sense of values, tends to continuously harp on the rightness or wrongness of the predominant issues of the day; the various wars, the economy, social security, right to life and/or abuse of individual rights. Thus, the editorial “countryside,” has become littered with the carcasses of literary “horses” flogged to death by desperate editors in search of writing material.
In my own busy and oft confused mind, I exist in a virtual sea of intermittent ideational connectedness in which similarities and differences among people and events flit about, sometimes alone, but at other times coming together in strange ways Thus, when I speak of the editorial countryside being littered with the carcasses of dead “editorial” horses, what comes to mind is Dwight Eisenhower’s comment (Crusade in Europe) regarding a battle in a certain area of Europe being so deadly that, after the battle, he could not walk across a sizeable piece of land without stepping on a piece of a human body. Dead editorial horses thus become commingled with dead humans as cannon fodder.
One wearies of the repetitiveness of one’s thoughts about war and killing. Searching back in my treasure trove of memorabilia, I can see why I continue to whip the dead horse unmercifully in the hope that a message will get across to someone who hasn’t gotten it . . . even one person a day will suffice.
Here’s an undated letter to the editor of the Boston Globe from a Claudia G. Cimini of Uxbridge, Massachusetts that I probably saved because of its directness and simplicity.
When I was in high school, I was told that Abraham Lincoln created the Memorial Day holiday as a day for the nation to mourn all its lost sons while he was grieving for his own son.
During Memorial Day weekend I think of George, who heard the story with me in high school. George would have been 31 on Wednesday if he had not taken his life at 23.
I am reminded of the boy from my hometown who during the 1950s wrote in his high school yearbook that he couldn’t wait to join the Army and go to Korea. His name is now on the plaque in front of the firehouse.
I think of Will and Wayne and John and all the others who were whisked away to Vietnam and didn’t survive.
Two years ago, when former defense secretary McNamara admitted that he realized the errors of that war 30 years ago but said nothing, I cried. I thought of all those who consoled themselves with the belief that the people in power knew what they were doing and knew it was a worthwhile cause.
Today I will light a candle for all of our lost children.
Here I find a yellowed copy of a paragraph written by General S.L.A. Marshall, a noted military historian. Writing about the Omaha Beach landing in World War II, Marshall said:
We had more beaten troops there, troops that were morally collapsed, than we had troops that were successful. It was only a small fraction of Americans that pulled us out of a great disaster at Omaha. We had companies that folded completely... (details follow about men who were obviously physically strong drowning because they did not have the strength to pull themselves out of the water which was only two or three feet deep.) I’m convinced that we lost more men from drowning there than we did from enemy fire....
Again, Marshall writes about a column of marines operating in the freezing cold of Korea during the Korean War.:
....Davis (Commanding Officer) decided to move on. Halfway up the next ridge, the column stopped. Davis moved up front to see what had happened. Nothing had happened, except that they could not move anymore, at least they thought they couldn’t. So Davis took the lead... and... they got to the top of this ridge and then, by the witness of Davis and his fellow officers, they saw happen what they never expected to see happen among Marines. As each company came over that ridge, the men fell flat on their faces in the snow and not a man would move....
And again:
....What interested me in the Korean situation is this kind of testimony: Where you have all the conditions of the fight stated; where it is evident that the company did well, but the platoon commanders will then say, ‘My greatest problem under those conditions was to keep my men awake....
As you get into the testimony of what happened in these platoons and squads... you find the leaders, sergeants and officers, saying that their greatest difficult --- mind you, this is in broad daylight under mortar and intense bullet fire--- their greatest difficulty during the hours of crisis in the afternoon is that they cannot keep their men awake. Men who are in the act of firing will fall asleep, even though being asleep increases their danger.
Such is the effect of stress on human beings. Most of us have no idea what transpires in combat. We have no idea of the extent to which fear can inhibit performance. We know even less about the grizzly wounds inflicted on our own children and others. We don’t want to see them. The government doesn’t want us to see them. The media won’t let us see them. We can flog our dead horses until doomsday, but unless we do something about it, the situation won’t change.
Why? Because those in power are the wrong people to have in power. Especially of late. Most of our leaders aren’t what we think they are. Most of us find that out too late.
Bearing on the morality of our leaders, as I rummage further through my memories, I find a recent brief note of material published in April of this year on The Information Clearing House website:
Richard Nixon, for whom some may still pine, is caught in conversation with Henry Kissinger on the Watergate tapes. Says Nixon:
"The only place you and I disagree . . . is with regard to the bombing. You're so goddamned concerned about the civilians, and I (in contrast) don't give a damn. I don't care.". . . "I'd rather use the nuclear bomb. . . Does that bother you? I just want you to think big."
Think BIG!!! When the topic of thinking BIG enters my mind, my thoughts turn to Madeleine Albright, Clinton’s Secretary of State, who when asked by a TV commentator whether or not she thought that the U.N. sanctions on Iraq in the ‘90’s that resulted in the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children was worth it, replied, “Yes, I’d have to say that it was.” Now that’s BIG. I mean BIG. I find it difficult to conceive of 500,000 children doing anything, let alone dying because of U.N. sanctions, but, hey, I’m just a dead horse flogger. Who can argue with Madeleine Albright, a Secretary of State? If she’s in that position, she must be right.
And finally, if you are one who infers that people in certain high positions must have admirable values by virtue of occupying those positions, here’s another little squib that may give you pause. It’s from an interview with Grandma Bush, our president’s dear mom, who occupies the position of Grandmother of the Land, so to speak. On ABC's "Good Morning America" of March 18, 2000, in the course of an interview, the nation’s Grandma says, regarding her own and her husband’s TV habits, “He watches, you know, the news, but I don’t. Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"
So there we have today’s meandering through my beautiful mind. We’ve gone from flogging a dead horse all the way to being flogged by the first family’s “family values.”
Oh, one more thing I just found. Archibald MacLeish, former Poet Laureate of the United States, wrote the following poem. I’ve kept it in my files. As we flog one another, voices are calling out to us to listen. Do you hear them? I do, all of the time; that’s why I flog.
The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses: who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night and when the clock counts.
They say: We were young. We have died. Remember us.
They say: We have done what we could but until it is finished it is not done.
They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave.
They say: Our deaths are not ours; they are yours; they will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say; it is you who must say this.
They say: We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.
We were young, they say. We have died. Remember us.
Barbara Bush obviously doesn’t want to hear about it. How does your beautiful mind respond?
