My second attempt

Well, I guess I will get back in the swing of things. Let's give this another swat.

This was piece I wrote back when they were talking about charging an American soldier with Capital Murder in a small massacre of Afghan citizens- Many fewer than My Lai, or the fire bombing of Dresden.

Today I met a man. An American hero, I noticed while having lunch. He was in his 80’s and proudly wore a hat bearing the B-17 Flying Fortress.

I asked him if he flew over Germany and he said 44 missions.  I thanked him for his service, and told him how much I appreciated the sacrifice he made during World War II. I said it must have been both terrifying and exciting and we began a conversation.

He and his crew had one real close call, his plane sputtered, out of fuel as in landed at the 100^th Bomber Group field at the white cliffs of Dover.

He recounted one mission when his primary target, the submarine pens near Kiel was shrouded in fog, his secondary target also under low hanging clouds, so he made the call to drop their load of bombs over Poland before returning to England. As they flew over the occupied countryside, they saw a prison camp and they unloaded on the gates and fences. He said they were so low they could see the prisoners fleeing their Nazi captors, smiling and waving up at the American planes.

My father was a veteran of that war and might have repaired the radio of this man’s plane. We never talked about the war before he died at 59, back in 1982.

Years ago, I regularly photographed an annual “Last Man” lunch for veterans of World War I. Each year they met at a Gaston County Fish Camp, to see their fellow Doughboys, vowing to meet until the Last Man was standing. They have now passed. Veterans, like the man I met today are dying as the years pass.

I felt tears in my eyes as this man talked to me and munched on his sandwich.

A few years ago I lost a dear friend, a retired U.S. Army Ranger, and Special Operations Sergeant who was also part of the Green Berets. Exact details of his operations are still classified, but he told me, “If you saw it on CNN, I had been on the ground for at least three months prior.” He refused to watch the film “Blackhawk Down”, he was in Somalia at the time, and he had trained and served with Rangers killed that day. He had suffered a few “traumatic brain Injuries” during his career.

He died from his injuries, long after he retired.

Today, the story of the American accused of murder in the deaths of 16 civilians in Afghanistan, and I am reminded of Lt. Calley and My Lai.  I am also reminded of Capt. Willard and Col. Kurtz in the epic Viet Nam war film “Apocalypse Now”. To charge a soldier with murder in this insane 10-year war should jolt Washington out of the cloud of “Political Correctness” and call these brave men and women home.

The Veteran’s Administration needs to gear-up for the Post Traumatic Stress and Traumatic Brain Injury cases that will follow.

Three men, each called by the government to do a job.  

A hero who survived the Luftwaffe 44 times over Germany, a Green Beret U.S. Army Ranger who did the dirty work under the cover of secrecy, and an injured veteran of four tours of duty that went out of control in a Stone Age world that we have been trying to bring into the 21^st century for over 10 years.

Accusing him of murder, like Willard’s mission to “Terminate Col. Kurtz, with extreme prejudice”, begs the question of just how upside-down our world has become.